Friday, December 14, 2007

Sea lice from salmon farms killing wild salmon

Very bad news from British Columbia, super-dense salmon farms breed sea lice that may exterminate wild salmon runs in the same areas. We may face a choice between salmon farms and wild salmon. Which would you choose?

This isn't a new problem, we've been killing wild salmon for decades with our government-run salmon farms called hatcheries. Meant to protect salmon, we now know that hatcheries harm wild salmon runs while producing fish for people to catch. Hatcheries are controversial at best among wild fish advocates.

What is a salmon hatchery? Salmon hatcheries are fish farms that release fish to live part of their life wild. They're built to compensate for habitat loss, or simply to try to increase salmon production so people can catch more salmon. Fish agencies have routinely blocked and killed wild salmon runs on rivers where hatcheries are built, to protect hatcheries from contamination.

Can wild salmon be helped? Not so long as the seafood industry and the federal government count hatchery salmon as "wild."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We are so screwed.

When the oceans go acidic...we won't be worrying about salmon. They will all be dead.