http://seattleweekly.com/features/02...-hotdish.shtml

BIG FISH, BIGGER POND
Phew, that was a close call. On Dec. 7, existing pressure from the
biotech industry, the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commission
adopted a permanent ban on genetically engineered salmon in fish farms
in all state waters, protecting endangered wild Pacific salmon
populations from the harm posed by those supersized, oft-diseased
robofish.

Or did they? The U.S. government may be putting its foot down,
stomping on environmentalists' big, victorious hearts. It seems that
Washington state (along with Alaska and other eco-conscious
territories) can ban genetically engineered fishies till the cowfish
come home, but the Dec. 5 issue of Nature reports that the federal
government is gearing up to permit farming of the scientific
wonderfish in deep-sea fish farms outside state-controlled waters.
That would create a (Nature's term) "gold rush" among aquaculture
companies vying for offshore site access. Environmentalists opposing
the plans say a fish farm is a fish farm, and deep-sea or not, the
rates of escape and disease are high and the threat on already
endangered wild populations still stands.

http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/...nboycott.shtml

Web posted Tuesday, December 17, 2002


'Farmed and Dangerous' urges boycott of farmed salmon
By LINDA ASHTON
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

YAKIMA, Wash. - It's not uncommon for out-of-town visitors to stop at
Greg Higgins' cozy bistro in Portland, Ore., hoping to order the
nightly salmon special.

But if it's out of season, chances are they're out of luck.

"We serve only hook-and-line caught fish - and most of the fisherman I
know personally," Higgins said.

And if the salmon aren't wild, he won't be serving them for dinner.

Higgins is one of several dozen West Coast restaurateurs and retailers
supporting a British Columbia-based boycott of farmed salmon in
protest of existing aquaculture techniques.

"I believe there's a need and a place for aquaculture, but the open
net-pen system is not a way to conduct it," he said.

From the Northwest to New England, salmon farming's critics contend
the operations are a waterborne version of the terrestrial feed lot,
contributing to ocean pollution, competing unfairly with wild fish,
and spreading disease.


Now a group called the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform is
aiming a "Farmed and Dangerous" campaign directly at consumers, who
can get salmon year-round, often for as little as $3.99 a pound.

"There is a concentrated campaign going on to slander the product,"
counters Kevin Bright, operations manager for Cypress Island, which
owns all of Washington's eight sal****er salmon sites. "What they're
using basically is scare tactics."

Aquaculture was a $37 million business in Washington state in 2001,
composed primarily of Atlantic salmon and oysters. Cypress Island
raises 15 million to 18 million pounds of Atlantic salmon here each
year. Salmon farming is illegal in Alaska.

In British Columbia, it's a $300 million-a-year (Canadian) business
with at least 85 salmon farms, and more than 85 percent of the fish
are exported to the United States.

Rebecca Goldburg, a senior scientist for Environmental Defense in New
York, said untreated salmon waste from net pens is fouling the oceans.

"In the case of feedlot production ... the mantra is to keep the poop
out of the water," she said. "In salmon farming, we allow huge numbers
of feedlot animals to discharge their waste into coastal waters
without any kind of treatment.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web links
For more on the Internet, check out
http://www.farmedanddangerous.org
http://www.edf.org
http://www.salmonfarmers.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Obviously, fish naturally go in water. It's when you get huge numbers
of critters in one place, whether it's hogs ... or salmon, the
concentration of waste becomes unacceptable."

In Washington, state regulatory standards prevent buildup of fish
waste around net pens, which are inspected and monitored routinely,
said state Sen. Dan Swecker, a Rochester Republican and former
director of the 32-member Washington Association of Fish Farmers.

"In the final analysis, the fish pens themselves are the very best
barometers of what's happening in the environment. If there is any
kind of environmental degradation, the farmer and the fish would
suffer," Swecker said.

On the East Coast, the owners of Maine's two largest salmon farms -
Atlantic Salmon of Maine and Stolt Sea Farm - were found this summer
to have violated the federal Clean Water Act by failing to obtain
permits to discharge feed and other potential contaminants into
coastal waters.

A federal judge is expected to decide this winter what, if any, fines
the companies should pay and rules they will be required to follow in
the future.

Environmental groups on both sides of the continent want some dramatic
changes made in the industry, said Jennifer Lash, coordinator for
CAAR's "Farmed and Dangerous" campaign and director of the Living
Oceans Society in Sointula, B.C.

The coalition wants zero discharge of fish farm waste, zero risk of
escapes, and the elimination of the use of antibiotics in farmed
salmon, among other goals, she said.

Industry representatives contend that the antibiotic issue is a red
herring.

"The use of antibiotics is more tightly regulated in fish farming than
any other kind of farming," said Vivian Krause, a spokeswoman for the
Netherlands-based Nutreco, the largest salmon feed and salmon farm
company in the world.

In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of farmed salmon escaped from net
pens, but new cage designs and improved anchors have helped reduce
those losses in recent years, Swecker said.

"We don't want our fish to escape. Each one of those fish represents
time, materials and money that we've put into it," said Bright,
operations manager for eight sal****er salmon sites.

Environmentalists contend that escaped fish unfairly compete with
native Pacific salmon and spread disease. Swecker said farmed Atlantic
salmon don't breed with native stocks on the West Coast, nor are they
as aggressive as their wild counterparts.

"We like them stupid and fat. That's our motto," Swecker said. "They
spend less time swimming around and more time lying around."

The Washington state Fish and Wildlife Commission earlier this month
adopted a new rule that requires Puget Sound fish farmers to submit a
plan on minimizing and preventing escapes.

In the end, though, it might be flavor that determines consumers'
choice more than anything.

"Wild salmon tastes better, in our opinion," said Lane Hoss, a
spokeswoman for Anthony's Restaurants, which has 18 restaurants from
Olympia to Bellingham.

While Hoss had not heard anything about the boycott, she said: "We've
just always been committed to wild salmon."

To each his own, Swecker said; some people prefer the taste of farmed
salmon.

"They are blander in taste because of what they're fed. Typically
Americans prefer white fish that are deep-fat fried. It's a matter of
preference."

In article ,
says...

From the Northwest to New England, salmon farming's critics contend
the operations are a waterborne version of the terrestrial feed lot,
contributing to ocean pollution, competing unfairly with wild fish,
and spreading disease.

It's quite a bit more widespread than that. Coho and Chinook salmon are
the most widely farmed fish in the world. They are well established in
Europe, Asia, and New Zealand. In fact, anywhere there is a cold water
seafront, there is a Pacific salmon hatchery.

Just to make you all jealous, I started on the stubbsy hand-smoked
salmon yesterday. Truly memorable.

That's OK, be envious if you like ....

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

Larry Caldwell wrote in message t...
In article ,
says...

From the Northwest to New England, salmon farming's critics contend
the operations are a waterborne version of the terrestrial feed lot,
contributing to ocean pollution, competing unfairly with wild fish,
and spreading disease.

It's quite a bit more widespread than that. Coho and Chinook salmon are
the most widely farmed fish in the world. They are well established in
Europe, Asia, and New Zealand. In fact, anywhere there is a cold water
seafront, there is a Pacific salmon hatchery.

Really ? Learn something new every day.
I thought the Norwegian and Scottish farmers used Atlantic Salmon.

Tim Worstall

On 25 Dec 2002 02:58:34 -0800, (Tim Worstall) wrote:

Larry Caldwell wrote in message t...
In article ,
says...

From the Northwest to New England, salmon farming's critics contend
the operations are a waterborne version of the terrestrial feed lot,
contributing to ocean pollution, competing unfairly with wild fish,
and spreading disease.

It's quite a bit more widespread than that. Coho and Chinook salmon are
the most widely farmed fish in the world. They are well established in
Europe, Asia, and New Zealand. In fact, anywhere there is a cold water
seafront, there is a Pacific salmon hatchery.

Really ? Learn something new every day.
I thought the Norwegian and Scottish farmers used Atlantic Salmon.

I thought the silver carp was the most widely farmed fish in the
world.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/3551821.html

'Farmed and Dangerous' campaign urges boycott of farmed salmon
Linda Ashton
Associated Press

Published Dec. 26, 2002 SALM26

YAKIMA, WASH. -- Out-of-towners often stop at Greg Higgins' cozy
bistro in Portland, Ore., to order the nightly salmon special. If it's
out of season, though, chances are they're out of luck.

"We serve only hook-and-line caught fish -- and most of the fishermen
I know personally," Higgins said.

And if the salmon aren't wild, he won't be serving them for dinner.

Higgins is one of several dozen West Coast restaurateurs and retailers
supporting a British Columbia-based boycott of farmed salmon in
protest of aquaculture techniques.

"I believe there's a need and a place for aquaculture, but the open
net-pen system is not a way to conduct it," he said.

From the Northwest to New England, salmon farming's critics contend
that the operations are a waterborne version of the terrestrial
feedlot, contributing to ocean pollution, competing unfairly with wild
fish and spreading disease.

Now a group called the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform is
aiming a "Farmed and Dangerous" campaign directly at consumers, who
can now get salmon year-round, often for as little as $3.99 a pound.

"There is a concentrated campaign going on to slander the product,"
said Kevin Bright, operations manager for Cypress Island, which owns
all of Washington's eight sal****er salmon sites. "What they're using
basically is scare tactics."

Aquaculture, primarily Atlantic salmon and oysters, was a $37 million
business in Washington state in 2001. Cypress Island raises 15 million
to 18 million pounds of Atlantic salmon each year.

In British Columbia, with at least 85 salmon farms, the business is
$300 million, Canadian, a year, and more than 85 percent of the fish
are exported to the United States.

Rebecca Goldburg, a senior scientist for Environmental Defense in New
York, said untreated salmon waste from net pens is fouling the oceans.

But in Washington, state Sen. Dan Swecker, a former salmon farmer and
former director of the 32-member Washington Association of Fish
Farmers, said regulatory standards prohibit buildup of fish waste
around net pens, which are inspected and monitored routinely.


"In the final analysis, the fish pens themselves are the very best
barometers of what's happening in the environment. If there is any
kind of environmental degradation, the farmer and the fish would
suffer," Swecker said.

On the East Coast, the owners of Maine's two largest salmon farms --
Atlantic Salmon of Maine and Stolt Sea Farm -- were found this summer
to have violated the federal Clean Water Act by not obtaining permits
to discharge feed and other potential contaminants into coastal
waters.

A judge is expected to decide this winter what, if any, fines the
companies should pay and what rules they must follow in the future.

Environmental groups on both sides of the continent want dramatic
changes in the industry, said Jennifer Lash, coordinator for the
"Farmed and Dangerous" campaign and director of the Living Oceans
Society in Sointula, British Columbia.

The coalition wants zero discharge of fish farm waste, zero risk of
escapes and elimination of the use of antibiotics in farmed salmon,
among other things, she said.

Industry representatives contend antibiotics already are more tightly
regulated in fish farming than any other kind of farming and that
steps already have been taken to prevent escapes.

In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of farmed salmon escaped from net
pens, but Swecker said new cage designs and improved anchors have
helped reduce those losses in recent years.

"We don't want our fish to escape. Each one of those fish represents
time, materials and money that we've put into it," Cypress Island's
Bright said.

Environmentalists contend that escaped fish unfairly compete with
native Pacific salmon and spread disease. Swecker said farmed Atlantic
salmon don't breed with native stocks on the West Coast, nor are they
as aggressive as their wild counterparts.

"We like them stupid and fat. That's our motto," Swecker said. "They
spend less time swimming around and more time lying around."

The Washington state Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted a rule this
month that requires Puget Sound fish farmers to submit a plan on
minimizing and preventing escapes.

In the end though, flavor might determine consumers' choice more than
anything.

"Wild salmon tastes better, in our opinion," said Lane Hoss, a
spokeswoman for Anthony's Restaurants, which has 18 restaurants in
Washington state.

While Hoss had not heard anything about the boycott, she said: "We've
just always been committed to wild salmon."

To each his own, Swecker said; some people prefer the taste of farmed
salmon.

"They are blander in taste because of what they're fed. Typically
Americans prefer white fish that are deep-fat fried. It's a matter of
preference

In article ,
writes:

Really ? Learn something new every day.
I thought the Norwegian and Scottish farmers used Atlantic Salmon.

The pen and net salmon are Atlantic salmon. Pacific salmon are
anadromous and come back when they are ready to be processed. There are
many millions of pacific salmon swimming the north and south Atlantic.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

Larry Caldwell wrote in message t...
In article ,
writes:

Really ? Learn something new every day.
I thought the Norwegian and Scottish farmers used Atlantic Salmon.

The pen and net salmon are Atlantic salmon. Pacific salmon are
anadromous

I had to look this word up......seems to mean "Ascending rivers from
the sea, at certain seasons, for breeding, as the salmon, shad, etc."

As far as I know that is true of both Atlantic and Pacific salmon.

Tim Worstall




and come back when they are ready to be processed. There are
many millions of pacific salmon swimming the north and south Atlantic.

In article ,
Tim Worstall wrote:
Larry Caldwell wrote in message t...
In article ,
writes:

Really ? Learn something new every day.
I thought the Norwegian and Scottish farmers used Atlantic Salmon.

The pen and net salmon are Atlantic salmon. Pacific salmon are
anadromous

I had to look this word up......seems to mean "Ascending rivers from
the sea, at certain seasons, for breeding, as the salmon, shad, etc."

As far as I know that is true of both Atlantic and Pacific salmon.

Tim Worstall

It is, in general. There are some (natural) landlocked populations.
As far as I know, there are no purely seagoing ones. Salmon and
trout lay eggs in nests in gravel beds in rivers. Some trouts have
anadromous populations. Atlantic salmon and brown trout are the
same genus (Salmo). Pen-raised salmon are obviously not anadromous,
but not by choice. I don't know if pen-raised Atlantic salmon
which escaped in the Pacific would establish wild populations.
They probably could not breed with the Pacific salmon, which belong
to different genuses, but they could conceivably become an exotic
pest species.

Are Atlantic salmon extinct in Portugal?

Paul Farrar

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In article ,
writes:

The pen and net salmon are Atlantic salmon. Pacific salmon are
anadromous

I had to look this word up......seems to mean "Ascending rivers from
the sea, at certain seasons, for breeding, as the salmon, shad, etc."

As far as I know that is true of both Atlantic and Pacific salmon.

Sort of. Atlantic salmon are not reliable about it. Their habits are
more like a Pacific Coast steelhead trout. They only swim upriver to
spawn, and they only spawn when they feel like it. They also don't
reliably return to the spot where they were hatched. Sometimes they
don't bother to return at all, or won't return for years, or return
dozens of times.

Pacific salmon are a true anadromous fish with a life cycle that begins
and ends at their hatching grounds. There is no need to pen them. If
they survive they will swim right back into the hatching pond they came
from. That is what has made them such a popular farm fish in temperate
and cold waters everywhere in the world. They are harvested by the
millions in the southern hemisphere, from Argentina to New Zealand, and
in Asia as far south as Korea and Japan.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

In article ,
writes:
Aquaculture was a $37 million business in Washington state in 2001,
composed primarily of Atlantic salmon and oysters. Cypress Island
raises 15 million to 18 million pounds of Atlantic salmon here each
year. Salmon farming is illegal in Alaska.

Donald was confused. The fish are Atlantic salmon. Donald is not known
for getting his facts straight. He wouldn't know the difference between
an Atlantic and Pacific salmon if you hit him in the face with one.

Read the article again.

"Aquaculture was a $37 million business in Washington state in 2001,
composed primarily of Atlantic salmon and oysters. Cypress Island
raises 15 million to 18 million pounds of Atlantic salmon here each
year."

Pacific salmon are not raised in pens, they are released as smolt and
harvested when they return.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

In article , writes:

If they come back to the river, they are NOT farmed fish. THey are wild
salmon and caught by fishermen.

That's exactly what we have all been saying. There is no need to list
any Pacific salmon as endangered because there are huge runs of hatchery
fish. There is no difference between hatchery fish and wild fish.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

(Paul Farrar) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Tim Worstall wrote:
Larry Caldwell wrote in message t...
In article ,
writes:

Really ? Learn something new every day.
I thought the Norwegian and Scottish farmers used Atlantic Salmon.

The pen and net salmon are Atlantic salmon. Pacific salmon are
anadromous

I had to look this word up......seems to mean "Ascending rivers from
the sea, at certain seasons, for breeding, as the salmon, shad, etc."

As far as I know that is true of both Atlantic and Pacific salmon.

Tim Worstall

It is, in general. There are some (natural) landlocked populations.
As far as I know, there are no purely seagoing ones. Salmon and
trout lay eggs in nests in gravel beds in rivers. Some trouts have
anadromous populations. Atlantic salmon and brown trout are the
same genus (Salmo). Pen-raised salmon are obviously not anadromous,
but not by choice. I don't know if pen-raised Atlantic salmon
which escaped in the Pacific would establish wild populations.
They probably could not breed with the Pacific salmon, which belong
to different genuses, but they could conceivably become an exotic
pest species.

Are Atlantic salmon extinct in Portugal?

Interesting question. We certainly see wild salmon in supermarkets and
fish counters, but that proves little. I´ve also seen them in more
local fish markets, but again that doesn´t mean that they are from a
local river....wholesalers can bring them in. I wouldn´t really expect
to see them in the Tagus anyway. But perhaps in the Northern rivers ?
Galicia certainly has salmon runs and the two areas are about as
different as Washington State and BC.

Tim Worstall

Paul Farrar

Larry Caldwell wrote in message t...
In article ,
writes:
Aquaculture was a $37 million business in Washington state in 2001,
composed primarily of Atlantic salmon and oysters. Cypress Island
raises 15 million to 18 million pounds of Atlantic salmon here each
year. Salmon farming is illegal in Alaska.

Donald was confused. The fish are Atlantic salmon. Donald is not known
for getting his facts straight. He wouldn't know the difference between
an Atlantic and Pacific salmon if you hit him in the face with one.

Read the article again.

"Aquaculture was a $37 million business in Washington state in 2001,
composed primarily of Atlantic salmon and oysters. Cypress Island
raises 15 million to 18 million pounds of Atlantic salmon here each
year."

Pacific salmon are not raised in pens, they are released as smolt and
harvested when they return.

I don't see any difference between the two = One must not drink tooo
much before posting!

"Larry Caldwell" wrote in message
...
In article , writes:

If they come back to the river, they are NOT farmed fish. THey are wild
salmon and caught by fishermen.

That's exactly what we have all been saying. There is no need to list
any Pacific salmon as endangered because there are huge runs of hatchery
fish. There is no difference between hatchery fish and wild fish.

Ah, but that is not what I said. There ARE large differences in both the
genetics, health, and life of farmed vs free running salmon. The ecology of
the two is also quite different. Free stream salmon contribute to the health
of the forest, for example. Penned fish tend to concentrate parasitic
infections and promote diseases. The idea that they are equivalent is quite
ludicrous.