Giving up salmon
June 11, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , trackback
About 8 months ago, I had an intense confrontation with a Mr. Rafael Puga who represented a Chilean farmed salmon import/export organization. I believed (and still do) that farmed salmon should be avoided both for health reasons and for environmental reasons. Mr Puga called me a criminal for spreading “lies” that were strongly supported by most environmental organizations and a variety of media outlets. After a few rounds, I stopped the non-constructive conversation, if one could call it that.
Back then I advocated for eating wild salmon.
Normally this time of the year, we feast on wild salmon as much as we can. Well, situations have drastically changed. Pacific Coast chinook salmon population suddenly and virtually collapsed due to habitat destruction, mismanagement, over fishing, and climate change induced inhospitable environment. This year the commercial chinook season in California and most of Oregon was canceled for the first time in 160 years. Californian fishermen collectively agreed with the decision.
(NYT: Tim Calvert, a fisherman, in San Francisco. The scarcity of Chinook salmon may keep the Pacific fishery closed for the season.)
That leaves Alaska as the only source of wild salmon. With the wild salmon supply steadily declining and consumer demand holding steady if not increasing, the price of wild salmon fillet has hit $40 per pound in some stores.
Now I know most of us are APLS, but most of us are probably not $40 per pound salmon affluent. Taking a deep breath and buying farmed salmon? Knowing the terrible consequences of most salmon farming practices, I cannot budge.
A couple of days ago, New York Times reporter Taras Grescoe decided that he would give up salmon all together, wild or farmed.
“Ninety percent of the fresh salmon consumed in the United States is from farms…”
“In Chile, overcrowding in these oceanic feedlots led to this year’s epidemic of infectious salmon anemia, a disease that has killed millions of fish and left the flesh of survivors riddled with lesions.”
“The situation in Canada, which supplies the United States with 40 percent of its farmed salmon, is not much better. In British Columbia, offshore net-cages are breeding grounds for thumbtack-sized parasites called sea lice.”
“To rid salmon of the lice, fish farmers spike their feed with a strong pesticide called emamectin benzoate, which when administered to rats and dogs causes tremors, spinal deterioration and muscle atrophy.”
YUCK!
With the opulent taste of simply grilled wild salmon still lingering at the tip of my tongue from a couple of years ago, I sighed and sadly agreed with his approach. It’s sort of against the tenet of the pleasurable green movement. Alas, sometimes you’ve gotta do whatcha have to do.
Eight months ago, I still embraced wild salmon. This time around, I am giving up all salmon, since I don’t run with the crowd that can drop $80 for a salmon fillet.
But I like fish, for their nutritional values and for their yumminess. Being a total nerd, in my wallet I carry a handy dandy wallet-sized fish guide from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In the red column are the no-no fish, in the yellow column are the iffy ones, and in the green column are the smart choices. Downloading the guides is a piece of cake.
In addition, Monterey Bay Aquarium offers regular education on sustainable seafood. This Friday, it is offering a webcast on making sustainable seafood choices that are good for us and healthy for our oceans.
I’ve registered and am ready to watch and learn. There are other fish in the ocean, hopefully.
CindyW at Organicpicks
If you enjoyed this entry, please subscribe to the Organic Picks Blog
Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Find More Green Products & Reviews..
Comments»
I’m trying to figure out what sort of “Seafood Watch” they have for that big yellow part in the middle:)
haven’t eaten any “farmed” or otherwise salmon in months. just last week i succumbed unfortunately…
thanks for the reminder. even a very “rare treat” is definitely off the menu- wild-too expensive, farmed-too offensive.
We haven’t purchased salmon (or any other seafood) in over a year now primarily for the reasons you’ve mentioned above.
When reading Plenty, I almost cried at the section where they talked about the acid spill into the salmon rivers. I don’t remember reading about it in the papers when it happened…but it was a huge catastrophe.
I have the Fish guide phone number on my cell phone. I don’t know if it works or how it works…because I’ve never used it.
Don’t mean to preach vegetarianism. Being a vegetarian, I don’t have to worry about what meat is sustainably raised or what meat is healthy. Almost all the nutrition in animal meat can be found in different combinations of plant food. Just an option.
Joyce: that is so true. All the fish guides are for coastal regions. I suppose you may have to do the homework of finding out where you seafood comes from? It’s another layer of complexity, isn’t it? Our food system is getting so complicated, it takes a PhD to decode it.
becky: Good for you for rejecting farmed salmon! I wish more people would know the facts. A girl friend told me the other day that the seafood guy at her local grocery store said that all farmed salmon in the U.S. is from Canada. Canadian government has tighter regulation than the U.S., so eating farmed salmon is totally safe. To me, that’s totally irresponsible misinformation.
Beany: It does make me extremely sad everytime I read about us humans poisening our own food for temporarily monetary gain. On my darker days, I wonder if it is somehow in our collective nature.
Anon: That’s what my sister keeps telling me:) We are eating much less meat these days. It’s more garnish than mainstake. Still we don’t draw a line on the sand - LHS plants eat and RHS meat don’t eat. We are taking the moderation approach. But it may come to no-meat some day.
We used to eat quite a lot of shrimp. Then I read an article recently that partly attributed the severity of the Myanmar Cyclone to the shrimp farms:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080508-AP-the-perfect.html
“The delta had lost most of its mangrove forests along the coast to shrimp farms and rice paddies over the past decade. That removed what scientists say is one of nature’s best defenses against violent storms. ”
Most of the shrimp has been exported to the west. Increasingly we have to be careful with every food we put in out months. Salmon is another example.
Mary Ann: wow. I did not know that. Thanks for the link. It does get exhausting when we have to figure out the source for each food. I think buying organic food at my local farmers’ market alleviates some of my mental work. At least I don’t have to worry about the produce. Meats are a different matter. The selection gets more complicated. There isn’t a good system for me yet, just learn as I go.
I think the only fish that would be “local” here is farm-raised catfish. And I don’t even know if that’s very close; maybe Tenessee? Any way; bluegills from the retention pond is about it for really local:)
Good for you, Cindy. Sometimes, being enivronmentally aware is all about enjoyment, reward and living more. Sometimes, though, we have to make choices that feel hard. This is one of those. Though, like all things, I’m sure you’ll adjust and, if you ever have wild salmon again, will really really appreciate how much you enjoy it.
While we were on vacation we bought wild salmon for the grill. $34 a pound. Yikes. I will still eat the wild as an expensive treat because my kids love it and it is so healthy. Every week…not happening.
That guide is great Cindy. Thanks.
Thanks for the plug! We (and the oceans) appreciate it.
If the Friday webcast fits into your schedule, we can tackle some of your questions then.
The “big yellow part” gets seafood from all over, so the Central Region pocket guide covers the items you’re likely to find on menus and in markets. Our colleagues at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago have used Monterey Bay Aquarium research to create a Great Lakes pocket guide.
And all the guides are available instantly for mobile devices like PDAs when you log into seafoodwatch.org.
Ken Peterson, Ccommunications Director
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Joyce: Ken from Monterey Bay Acquarium responded about the fish guide for central regions. Hope you find that useful.
Whatever happened to eating NO fish?
The EU (that’s the European Union) recently considered a complete ban on*all* fishing, not just so-called depleted species, because of the problems of by-catch.
Anyone who is advocating consumers eat wild fish of any sort is sadly ill-educated, and speeding the destruction of the world’s oceans.
You do not have to be vegetarian, but to be green on any sort of level, ceasing to consume fish and seafood for at least the next ten years (as recommended to the EU panel) is certainly an appropriate action, while stock replenish and rebuild.
In the meanwhile, if you don’t want to go vegetarian, choose chicken and other poultry as a first preference, which have much less impact on the planet, or pork or lamb instead.
Avoiding beef as well is probably wise, as explained in the recent UN report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow”.
If this blog is going to classify itself as even vaguely “green”, please advise sensibly and do your research.
Cheers.
Leanne: good point. It probably has come to the point that most wild caught fish are not good choices. For lack of better information, I use the “fish guide” as my reference on the rare occasion that we actually buy fish.
I’ve checked with various ocean protection organizations which more or less agree with the “fish guide”. It is also constantly being updated to reflect the latest fish stock and fishing practice.
I personally have not had fish for a year or so. But if other people choose to eat fish, I believe that they are better off relying on guidance from reputable environmental organizations.
Regarding classifying ourselves as “green”, this blog only reflects the personal experience of two people. We always welcome any additional information and experience to help us continuously reduce our impact on the environment.
Cindy: Hi.
The problem is that many of the ocean organisations are funded by fisheries who make their livelihoods from catching fish. So the suggestiong that we stop fishing for a while and that we not eat fish *at all* is not one that they are keen on, pretty understandably.
Unfortunately, if we don’t take such drastic measures, there will not be any livelihoods for them at all in a few years. So suggesting eco-friendly options and creating fish guides is just delaying the inevitable. In some cases, it makes the situation worse, as consumers switch en masse to other fish species, forcing them in turn to the brink of collapse.
The EU has already banned trawling for several species, including bluefish tuna, and is seeking bans on others. This is not a popular move, as you might expect.
I see both sides of the argument, as a close family friend recently had his crayfish business closed down by Australian fishing bans, and it was tough on not just his family but his whole community. But if we don’t stop now, there will be nothing left. My view is that we must let stocks replenish, and to do so we have to stop all fishing for a period, as the ocean’s ecology is interconnected. To think that we can just shift over to other species and continue swilling away is foolish in the extreme.
I’m encouraging all my friends to (in Australia) switch to kangaroo, which is sustainably harvested, and much less damaging to the environment. Chicken is about the least damaging of all common meats worldwide, AFAIK. Other less common meats may be a better choice (e.g. deer, bison) depending on where you live.
The days are gone when we could just eat what we wanted. It was the ‘one more won’t matter’ philosophy that led to the extinction of the moa and the dodo, and countless others.
I’d like to know my grandkids can go fishing one day, but if we keep raping the seas like this, even my kids don’t stand a chance - and they’re not even school age yet.
We humans pride ourselves on our brains and our ethics. It’s about time we started using both.
Sometimes I forget how lucky I really am to be an Alaskan. Not only is the wild salmon actually a local food for me, but I can and do regularly catch it myself…without ever having to spend anywhere near that much on it…
We may not have a lot of local produce, but the salmon comes easily if you’re from around here.
Kim: You can actually catch salmon yourself? That’s way cool! Of course Alaska is so much more than salmon. I’d love to spend a summer, hell, a whole year there.
Chilean Organizations Against Salmon Farms
In the southern city Puerto Natales, in Última Esperanza province, a “Social Coordinator Patagonia Without Salmon Farms” was created last weekend. They demand a moratorium to the installation of new cages of this controversial extractive industry.
According to Ecoceanos News, the initiative is integrated by local businessmen, fishermen, tourism workers, students and citizen organizations from Puerto Natales. The installation of salmon industries, most of them transnational corporations, in that region of the country is having impacts on the local economy, which is based on tourism and craft fisheries.
The groups warned the authorities about the damage the “geographical expansion” of these companies is causing, which have already applied for over a thousand authorizations in the region.
The organization circulated a public statement in which it reads that this area is a “source of world interest” due to the “beauty, purity and fragility of its ecosystems”. This is why it is necessary to “be particularly careful” with the expolitation of its resources.
“This makes us be more careful when we choose development areas, where craft fishery and tourism are economically and environmentally sustainable”, they state.
Salmon industry is characterized by “low working, environmental, and health standars”. In addition, two cases of health crisis have appeared, due to the sprout of sea lice and also by the appeareance of the Infectious Salmon Anemia virus.
The Chilean organizations criticize salmon farms because they break national regulations and hide information. Many of these companies are Norwegian.
Chilean People aren´t aware of the “amount, types and shapes” of the antibiotics that this industry uses and the creation of bacterial resistance to this medicine. “This resistance is generated in the ecosystems and in the people that eat salmon in Chile or that work with the antibiotics that the food for this exotic species contain.”, they conclude.
In addition, the Coordinator resorts to official figures, mainly from the Labour Ministry, that point out that 80 % of the salmon industries break national laws. Moreover, according to Ecoceanos, 55 workers of these companies have died during the last three years.