Protest against fish farming in British Columbia.
Salmon farming
From the highlands of Scotland to the Pacific waters of Chile,
salmon faming is big business. In Chile alone, the export revenue
generated from salmon farming now exceeds US$1 billion each year, a
figure that is expected to double in the next few years. Supporters
of industrial fish farming have long asserted that this so-called
'blue revolution' is both cheap and a sustainable alternative to
the consumption of highly depleted wild-caught fish species
Salmon farming
However, the readily available, artificially red salmon flesh on
salein the luxury shops across the western world doesn't reveal the
rampantdestruction that this industry causes in regions where the
fish areproduced. Expanding at a rapid rate, fish farming now
accounts for over30 percent of all fish protein consumed annually
in the world. But itis single-handedly responsible for the
destruction of countlessecosystems and the fishing communities that
rely upon them, in some ofthe most vulnerable marine environments
on the planet.
Salmon farming involves the raising and feeding of vast numbers
of fishin small contained net pens. A typical farm may contain up
to a dozenpens with anything from ten to 15000 fish in each
pen.
Intensive feeding
The feeding requirement of carnivorous farmed fish species such
assalmon or tuna undermine the often-repeated myth that industrial
fishfarming offers a solution to over-fishing. To grow a pound of
salmon itis necessary to catch up to five pounds of oily fish
species, likeherring, sand-eel, sardine and mackerel, to process
into fish feed.These fish are literally vacuumed up out of the
ocean, upsetting thebalance of marine ecosystems.
In British Columbia, Canada and Chile the killer whales,
dolphins, seals andsealions that once frequented their territorial
estuaries, are nowshot, trapped, deprived of food or simply
repelled with devicesinvented by the salmon farmers to protect
their stock.
Disease
As with all forms of intensive livestock rearing, the
highconcentration of salmon in each net also encourages the spread
ofdisease. It is common to regularly dose farmed fish with
antibiotics intheir food to protect against disease. Ultimately
this leads tothe presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria being
found in thesediments under the pens. These bacteria could pose a
risk to humanconsumers as well as to the wider ecosystem in which
the nets areplaced. The nets are typically located in the
fast-flowing waters ofestuary heads, so that the toxic faeces,
uneaten food pellets,parasitic lice, dead fish, escaped non-native
fish as well as chemicaland antibiotic residues, are distributed
over the whole estuarineecosystem.
A typical salmon farm of 200 000 fish produces roughly the same
amountof faecal matter as a town of 62 000 people. The release of
thisnoxious cocktail into the surrounding waters of salmon farms
threatensthe very survival of smaller, native salmon species, the
predators thatrely on them and the future of sustainable fishing
practices andcommunities that rely upon clean and healthy
oceans.