Looking as the tempting platter of sushi, I asked "is it wild?" I was referring to the small chunks of pink salmon I could see encased in white rice and dried seaweed.
After receiving confirmation that the seafood in question was not farmed, I went to reach for a piece when the sound of nervous laughter stopped me and I looked up. The host admitted he didn't know or care one way or another and had extended the "yes" out of... politeness? I shrugged and selected a roll that was undeniably vegetarian instead.
My personal bias against farmed salmon began when I was a fledgling reporter on Vancouver Island, asked to write about the new seal management measures at a local fish farm. Rather than continue a policy of shooting seals, the company had installed a secondary net system that acted as a barrier, preventing the seals from coming into contact with the underwater nets full of farmed fish.
As I walked the length of the farm's central dock with a series of massive underwater pens on either side of me, I noticed the first few were full of young fish, actively swimming around and occasionally jumping clear out of the water. The further I walked, the larger the fish in the nets became until I reached the back nets and all I could see were black pools so full of farmed salmon that their large, oily bodies were forced to writhe and slither around one another like eels with no room to spare.
Horrified by the cruelty of their confinement, I quickly backed away, but not before I caught sight of the filth-encrusted nets. In my haste to return to the mainland, I forgot to snap any photos or get an interview. Needless to say, my editor wasn't impressed but neither was I.
I soon learned that the fundamental flaws with open-net fish farming didn't stop at the filthy, crowded nets. The waste produced is discharged directly into the ocean, the untreated sewage spreads sea lice and diseases into the already-threatened wild salmon stocks, and the accumulation of sewage on the sea floor under and around open-net fish farm pens kills the marine life, creating biological dead zones.
The Pure Salmon Campaign, a global project working to improve the way salmon is produced, states on its website (www.puresalmon.org) that even industry insiders concede a typical 200,000-fish salmon farm releases fecal matter roughly equivalent to a city of 65,000 people. The sewage also contains chemicals used to treat the infectious diseases and parasite infestations which occur on the farms that make their way into the ocean's food chain.
With more than 100 open-net industrial fish farms 92 per cent of which are controlled by Norwegian companies located in sheltered bays along British Columbia's coast, Canadian-American marine biologist Alexandra Morton has decided to take matters into her own hands.
Morton launched a "Vote Salmon" campaign after the 2011 federal election was announced to find out which candidates would remove salmon farms, or "salmon feedlots" as she's coined them, from B.C. waters and build a land-based aquaculture industry that could provide jobs to displaced salmon farm employees while protecting the Pacific wild salmon from severe depletion.
According to Morton who is going door-to-door to ask federal candidates about their position on the issue and posting their answers at www.votesalmon.ca voters in British Columbia have a right to know which politicians are willing to stop Norwegian-owned salmon farms from expanding open-net salmon farming in B.C.'s coastal waters in order to protect the wild salmon and the marine ecosystem at this critical time.
If there ever was a time to think twice before bringing a cheap farmed salmon steak home to your family and friends, this would be it.
Morton is bringing her campaign to the Brackendale Art Gallery on Thursday, April 21 at 2 p.m. then will speak again later in the day at the Adventure Centre after the conclusion of the feature presentation which begins at 7 p.m. Both events are hosted by the Squamish Streamkeepers and admission is by donation.
For information on the "Vote Salmon" campaign, go to www.wildsalmonpeople.ca or visit Morton's blog at www.alexandramorton.typepad.com. For more about the environmental impact of salmon farms, see www.livingoceans.org/programs/fishfarms.
