Is there a problem with salmon farming?
Marine biologist and diver David Ainsley is concerned about the effect fish farms have on marine life.
www.bbc.co.uk
Salmon farming...finally the truth?
- Thread starter enfieldspares
- Start date
www.bbc.co.uk
Stands to reason. If anything is grown in unnatural concentrations, the result is always, in effect, a desert. Two other examples are the way that evergreen forests have been planted, so there's no light and only a bed of needles underneath that supports no other plant or animal life. The second is pheasants, where they are released in totally unnatural levels. The pens quickly become like The Somme and wildlife around (predators excepted) is all forced away. Yet I believe in all these circumstances, reasonable levels of trees, pheasants and indeed salmon can all be beneficial.
Surely you don’t think that all the food put down for pheasants is eaten by pheasants?
No.
It's eaten by rats
And finches, Thrushes, English Partridges and any number of other birds which need all the help they can get.
Freeforester
Well-Known Member
More toxic effluent comes out the bottom of any single salmon farm than from all the towns and human settlements on the West coast; there are hundreds of salmon farms, billions of lice. It takes but a dozen sea lice to kill a smolt returning to the sea. All aquaculture should be on dry land where the water can be filtered and the effluent managed, but that would add 50p per lb to the costs, so our marine environment gets the poisons, drugs and other s#1t they dose the 'fish' with -
talk about privatising the profits and 'socialising' the 'externalities'!
The 'smoked-salmon socialist' SNP govt. had to be threatened EU legal action against them to halt them issuing coastal netting licences even as the numbers of wild fish were crashing. So much for the principle 'the polluter pays', eh? And all for the most poisonous food we produce, sold at the cost of a haddock in many cases. SNH? - Silent Nodding Heads, not Salmon Needing Help. Practically every major city on the coast developed back in time on the Salmon initially; still, out of sight, ought of mind, and SNP are sanguine about 'toffs' fishing, and pay lip service only to tourism, much less barely concealed contempt toward fieldsports.
Bon appetit!
talk about privatising the profits and 'socialising' the 'externalities'!
The 'smoked-salmon socialist' SNP govt. had to be threatened EU legal action against them to halt them issuing coastal netting licences even as the numbers of wild fish were crashing. So much for the principle 'the polluter pays', eh? And all for the most poisonous food we produce, sold at the cost of a haddock in many cases. SNH? - Silent Nodding Heads, not Salmon Needing Help. Practically every major city on the coast developed back in time on the Salmon initially; still, out of sight, ought of mind, and SNP are sanguine about 'toffs' fishing, and pay lip service only to tourism, much less barely concealed contempt toward fieldsports.
Bon appetit!
Overlay
Well-Known Member
Really logical point on the dry land fish farms, being able to envelope the waste and treat diseases in a contained area - it makes sense but on reflection when the fish farm industry kicked off it was only time that would show the environmental pitfalls having the farms in free running water and not being able to control pests and disease, very destructive to the environment the old £ sign has created a major problem again. Cheapest option
dartmoordog
Well-Known Member
Yes indeed, this issue was first discussed probably 25 years ago. Maybe even before then...........Still happening!
At least we're presently spared the fat faced "mockney" Jamie Oliver advertising Sainsbury's farmed salmon on the TV as once was.
Me, I haven't eaten salmon, by choice, for near on fifty years. My late father used to bring back Welsh salmon from the Teifi when he fished there in the 1960s and early 1970s....if he was successful....so never developed a taste for that farmed item and wouldn't anyway eat it now if I had because of the environmental issues it has today.
If you want to put yourself off prawns search how some cheap factory prawns are farmed in the Far East. In concrete tanks of sh1t.
Me, I haven't eaten salmon, by choice, for near on fifty years. My late father used to bring back Welsh salmon from the Teifi when he fished there in the 1960s and early 1970s....if he was successful....so never developed a taste for that farmed item and wouldn't anyway eat it now if I had because of the environmental issues it has today.
If you want to put yourself off prawns search how some cheap factory prawns are farmed in the Far East. In concrete tanks of sh1t.
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Freeforester
Well-Known Member
Give the wild fish 5 years without the farms and they would return; we will never see this until they move them onshore, best place would be on the roof of the shops selling the sh*t anyway. As for Fergus Ewing saying we will proceed on an 'evidence-based' basis, he might wish to take a look at the report former Scottish minister (and fellow accomplice) Ross Finnie pulled on the basis it was too damaging to be published, years ago.
Salmond, Sturgeon, Finnie - all smell a bit 'off' to me...
Hayduke
Well-Known Member
What Freeforester says.
I haven't eaten that sh!t for over ten years now.
The real Atlantic salmon* is an apex predator akin to the eagle over the mountain, the bengal tiger in the Indian forest. We should be ashamed of what we have done.
Save our wild Atlantic salmon and their seas and rivers.
*not the geletanous pink flab masquerading as such in the super market.
I haven't eaten that sh!t for over ten years now.
The real Atlantic salmon* is an apex predator akin to the eagle over the mountain, the bengal tiger in the Indian forest. We should be ashamed of what we have done.
Save our wild Atlantic salmon and their seas and rivers.
*not the geletanous pink flab masquerading as such in the super market.
What's not been mentioned is what these salmon are fed.
A lot of it is processed sand eels, fished from our waters by the Danish.
www.thetimes.co.uk
blueplanetsociety.org
"The Danes control 94% of the quota for UK sand eels and last year persuaded the EU to let them increase their annual take from 82,000 to 458,000 tons a year.
Most of the catch, ... was crushed into fishmeal for Denmark’s intensive salmon, mink and livestock farms."
Now this knocks onto our entire fishy ecosystem, as well as the birds that rely on them. Taking out nearly half a million tons of them from our waters is bound to have consequences.
They even used to burn them in their power stations.
The biggest salmon farmers are owned by Norwegian companies. In Norway the farms are regulated to higher standards, hence their interest in operating around Scotland, where they can get away with practices that would not be allowed at home.
It's really come to something when farmed salmon is cheaper than e.g. cod or herring caught in properly managed fisheries (Iceland, Norway etc.), or my chippy offers "Panga" (farmed catfish) as a cheaper substitute, from halfway around the world.
Then there are the chemicals used, as well as the stuff put in the feed so that they come out looking that unnatural bright orange-red colour. If you get the rare pleasure of eating a proper wild salmon, it looks nothing like these.
www.bbc.co.uk
It's not as if we eat much of the stuff ourself, it's mostly exported.
scottishsalmon.co.uk
A lot of it is processed sand eels, fished from our waters by the Danish.
Puffins starve as Danes grab UK sand eels
Puffins and other seabirds are unable to feed their young after Danish vessels stripped British waters of sand eels worth up to £80m.The Danes control 94% of the quota for UK sand eels and last year persuaded the EU to let them increase their annual take from 82,000 to 458,000 tons a year. Most of
www.thetimes.co.uk
Where have all the sandeels gone? | Blue Planet Society
Where have all the sandeels gone? - read this and more about marine conservation at Blue Planet Society.
blueplanetsociety.org
"The Danes control 94% of the quota for UK sand eels and last year persuaded the EU to let them increase their annual take from 82,000 to 458,000 tons a year.
Most of the catch, ... was crushed into fishmeal for Denmark’s intensive salmon, mink and livestock farms."
Now this knocks onto our entire fishy ecosystem, as well as the birds that rely on them. Taking out nearly half a million tons of them from our waters is bound to have consequences.
They even used to burn them in their power stations.
The biggest salmon farmers are owned by Norwegian companies. In Norway the farms are regulated to higher standards, hence their interest in operating around Scotland, where they can get away with practices that would not be allowed at home.
It's really come to something when farmed salmon is cheaper than e.g. cod or herring caught in properly managed fisheries (Iceland, Norway etc.), or my chippy offers "Panga" (farmed catfish) as a cheaper substitute, from halfway around the world.
Then there are the chemicals used, as well as the stuff put in the feed so that they come out looking that unnatural bright orange-red colour. If you get the rare pleasure of eating a proper wild salmon, it looks nothing like these.
Salmon farming giant Mowi probed over chemical use
The world's biggest salmon farming company is under investigation for possible misreporting of chemical use.
www.bbc.co.uk
It's not as if we eat much of the stuff ourself, it's mostly exported.
Record year for Scottish salmon exports
Scottish salmon exports hit a record high in 2019, according to new figures released by the UK Government HMRC.
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