This was taken from the Wild Dolphin Foundation's myspace bulletin post. I thought it was interesting and something good to pass along and think about :)
Most of us know by now that farmed salmon is environmentally unfriendly... but do you know why??
A Bit About Salmon Farming:
The idea behind aquaculture is an awesome one - help take pressure off wild stocks by farming seafood for our eating purposes. Unfortunately salmon farms actually do more harm to the ocean than good.
Salmon farms are netted enclosures anchored in the oceans along coasts. Salmon are packed tightly into these pens, and disease can spread quickly. To help fight infections, they are pumped full of antibiotics. In Chilean salmon farms (a large supplier to the U.S.), the fish are treated with 3 different chemicals that are BANNED by the U.S. government.
Sea lice is another huge problem. Wild adult salmon are often affected by louse, however the adults rarely come in contact with juvenile salmon. Once they start up a river to spawn, the louse are killed. When the juvenile salmon is ready to enter the ocean in the spring, the many tides have washed the lice away. Now, these young salmon have to pass by farms teeming with sea lice, which can be harmful or fatal to a young salmon. SLICE is a popular antibiotic used by salmon farms to control the problem. This causes lesions, tumors, and eye parasites on the farmed salmon, not to mention, the more SLICE that is uses, the more immune the sea lice becomes. We are in fact, making louse stronger and more deadly to wild salmon.
Salmon are carnivores, and feeding them veggies makes them taste awful. They are actually fed wild fish. In Chili, a whopping 4 billion wild salmon are caught to make fish feed for salmon farms.
There is also the possibility of escape from pens. If farmed salmon get out into the ocean, they are competing with wild salmon for food and habitat. If they are able to breed with wild salmon, it decreases the purity of the species.
So you see, salmon farming is actually putting more pressure on wild stocks, and we could actually bring them to extinction by over fishing for feed, introduction to disease, and pollution of habitat.
How YOU can help!
When you buy salmon, ask if it is farmed or wild, only eat wild! If you work at a restaurant, take interest where your salmon comes from. If its farmed (and probably comes from Chili) urge your favorite restaurant or grocer to switch to wild caught!
Darden Restaurants::
The Darden Corporation (Red Lobster, Bahama Breeze, Olive Garden, Seasons 52, Longhorn Steakhouse) is taking steps to become a more environmentally friendly corporation! This is a huge deal because they own over 1,700 restaurants - any "green" changes will be made on a very large scale. This is the time to urge them to go WILD! Salmon is currently offered at all 5 chains, and comes directly from Chilean salmon farms. If you work at one of these restaurants, express your concern for making the change to wild. If you visit them, inform managers you would prefer to see wild options on their menu!
I hope this made more people aware of the salmon farming problem, and that you will take this information with you, and help us spread the word!
GO WILD!!
The WDF Podf
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