[Marxism] Re: Salmon farming

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"That is just a load of squit.

Salmon spawning was in trouble years before fish-farming was developed..

There are just too many pedalling rumours of poisoning, environmental
disasters and what have you.

Don't be fooled."

Well, let me straighten this out. First, natural salmon runs have
been decimated, but not be fish farming, but by damns and
environmental degradation in general (pollution, watershed, etc.).
But farmed salmon are only *adding* to the problem. This industry
should be banned, IMO.

Pacific salmon are actually very well managed. They are, in fact,
micro managed, and at least off of Washington, BC and Alaska, in no
danger of serious overfishing or dwindling...except that farmed
salmon are messing everything up. In California, farmed salmon is
actually going down as a overall percentage of the market, with more
and more consumers demanding wild only. This actually helps the wild
stocks of salmon, which can have more access to management
techniques, regulations, etc, because of it.

Farmed salmon actually require MORE fish to feed them per pound than
wild salmon, which vary their consumption of bait fish...farmed
salmon require fishing for baitfish, and like grain fed to cattle,
require far more fish-per-pound than what one gets from the salmon
itself. "Efficiency" is not a term I'd use for farming salmon. It's
purely a consumer/market driven industry. As the salmon escape, they
do dilute wild salmon stock. It's one of the largest environmental
concerns facing the fishing industry.

Farmed halibut, just getting started, generally is not so unfriendly
to the environment because such finned beasts are raised in enclosed
systems, never seeing the open ocean at all, and raised inland, away
from the sea.

David

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