Phasers Locked on Salmon Farms

Canadian actor William Shatner, best known for his portrayal of Capt. James Kirk on the original Star Trek series, has taken dead aim at salmon farms in British Columbia.

In a letter to Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, Shatner urges that all salmon farms be removed from migration routes of wild salmon and steelhead in order to safeguard the native fish from infestations of sea lice transmitted from the farms.

He says the step is needed to protect "one of Earth's most precious assets, the wild salmon and steelhead of B.C."

His letter was inspired by a visit with biologist Alexandra Morton of the Raincoast Research Society, who has been studying the sea lice issue. She met Shatner during a visit to the region. The issue of farmed salmon later was highlighted on the show "Boston Legal," in which Shatner stars.

Salmon farming interests were not pleased. They discounted the impact that intensive aquaculture operations have on the health of wild juvenile fish that swim past their farms.

Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program rates farmed salmon as something to "Avoid" -- based in part on precisely the concerns that Shatner raises in his letter.

(This has nothing to do with the fact that Shatner was part of the Star Trek cast when they filmed scenes at the Aquarium for the best of the Star Trek films, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.)

Photon torpedoes launched. No official response yet from the Canadian government.

Comments

[Ken Peterson]

You’ve raised some good points about hatchery-reared salmon.

While there are issues with salmon hatchery practices, our researchers thoroughly discuss and incorporate your concerns into our report on wild Pacific salmon, http://tinyurl.com/m923x9.

We rank farmed salmon as “Avoid” for a number of reasons in addition to the ones you mentioned:

1 – Salmon farms use moderate to high levels of fishmeal and fish oil from industrial-scale fishing of wild forage fish. The wild fish are processed into meal and oil, processed again into feed pellets (with a variety of other ingredients) and then transported large distances to the farms. The salmon farming industry is the world’s largest user of fish oil.

2 – With so many fish concentrated in one place, salmon farms are a point source of pollution resulting from the partial digestion of all that feed. The farming system is unable to collect any of this waste.

3- Like all forms of intensive livestock rearing, the concentration of salmon in farms increases the likelihood of disease and parasites. (The Chilean salmon farming industry is close to collapse because of these problems.)

Our concerns are the well-documented risk of negative impacts on wild salmon and sea trout populations from parasitic sea lice, and the rapidly increasing resistance of parasites to the commonly used (and increasingly ineffective) chemical pesticides.

4 – Unlike hatchery-reared salmon, farmed salmon are now significantly domesticated and genetically distinct from the many individual genetic populations of wild salmon.

There are well-documented complex negative impacts on these already sensitive wild salmon populations from escaping farmed salmon. Genetic dilution is only one. There are also problems also from direct competition for food, habitat and mating partners, and egg disturbance from unsuccessful spawning.

Ken Peterson, Monterey Bay Aquarium

[Jennifer Lang]

Isn't farmed salmon red listed because of the fish meal they eat and because of the risk of genetic dilution?

Oh wait - those risks also apply to salmon ranching in Alaska...the product you green list.

MBA - a wee bit hypocritical huh?