Fish Farming

[Fly Rod]

Try eating a farmed raised salmon and then spend the extra couple of bucks a pound and eat wild king salmon!!! BIGGGGGG differance!!!

A wild salmon weighs 1lb. at a year old!!! Farm raised weighs 6lbs. at a year old!!! "WHY"!! "CHEMICALS

[Raven]

i watched a show yesterday on Area 51
that i found extremely scary....
concerning the burning of plutonium waste by dousing it
with jet fuel and setting it ablaze in areas the size of a football field
with president clinton signing into law that they are totally exempt of
epa rules or standards so now
any pollution is possible in my mind.

[Bass Babe]

Nevermind the expense, or the eutrophication of the immediate area. Hatcheries in the open ocean could have escapees, effectively peeing in the gene pool. I would explain, but I think this NMFS memo says it better: http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/publicatio...30/leider.html. We should work on conserving our wild fish stocks instead of relying on technology to fix the results of our misuse of resources.

[outfished]

Originally Posted by Fly Rod

Try eating a farmed raised salmon and then spend the extra couple of bucks a pound and eat wild king salmon!!! BIGGGGGG differance!!!

A wild salmon weighs 1lb. at a year old!!! Farm raised weighs 6lbs. at a year old!!! "WHY"!! "CHEMICALS

Fly Rod, I agree 100%. I used to eat farmed trout and salmon until I had a wild salmon from upstate maine. It blew my mind and I swore I would nerver eat farmed again. I Don't even bother fishing for them any longer. There is some data that farmed fish contain higher doses of mercury, but the farmers will dispute that. Trader Joe's carries wild salmon Made a believer out of my GF!

[zacs]

Originally Posted by outfished

Fly Rod, I agree 100%. I used to eat farmed trout and salmon until I had a wild salmon from upstate maine. It blew my mind and I swore I would nerver eat farmed again. I Don't even bother fishing for them any longer. There is some data that farmed fish contain higher doses of mercury, but the farmers will dispute that. Trader Joe's carries wild salmon Made a believer out of my GF!

I have tried to stay away from this as long as I could, but...

1) I agree, wild salmon is better than farmed salmon. However, outside of The nortwest, good fresh wild salmon is hard to come by, where good fresh farmed is readily available. I thought the wild atlantic salmon was endangered in the North East???

2) Fly Rod, farmed salmon do not grow faster because of chemicals. It is a combination of selective breeding and feed program, combined with inactivity. Immgaine if you just sat on the couch all day with someone constantly throwing fritos at you.

3) There is no data that farmed salmon contian higher levels of mercury. There was a paper that said farmed salmon contained higher levels of PCBs last year, but was later retracted.

4) I agree that there is a problem with fishmeal (ie reduction of wild biomass), but I truly believe that they will be able to use soy protien before the end of the decade.

5) Escapees are a problem that need to be solved

6) Bass babe, they have been farming fish in China for 5000 years, so I don't think that this is a technogical issue. I think that like you said, it should be highly regulated, like comericial fishing.

7) Open ocean fish farming would reduce a lot of the contamination/eutrification issues that are brought up. Unfortunately with current tech, escapees increase.

8) I have been to aquaculture facilities in Maine, Alabama, Missippi, Vancouver, Mexico, Norway, Iceland, Chile, Vietnam, China, Thailand, and Spain. Some are world class and some would make you want to puke.

9) There are several other points that have been made that are off base, but I have to go.

FYI, as a bias disclosure, I am a purveyor of both farm raised and wild caught species of fish and shellfood.

-Zac

[MakoMike]

The escapee problem could be easily solved if they only farmed fish native to the area, for example, red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. And escapees would just join the wild population. The escapees have only become a problem where they are not native, like farming atlantic salmon the the west coast.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to solve the fish meal problem.

[Fly Rod]

Zacs

You must be involved with farm fishing!!!!

Have you ever eaten farm raised fresh water cat fish???? Compared to a saltwater catfish!!!!

When in season, here in gloucester, cape ann, we get Alaskan king salmon flash frozen and shipped next day delivery!!! Out of season it is frozen and then thawed!!!! And the orange color of king salamon is natural, not injected like farmed raised which is a grayish color and then a orange dye is injected!!! When I used the word "chemical", the dye, growth hormones and a dozen types of anti biortics are given these fish and yet they still get disease!!!!

MakoMike!!
I understand your drift about farming native to the area fish, but the problem of these fish passing on disease to wild fish in the area would be a big problem to the wild fish, like a pestilential epidemic disease "plague" !!!!

[outfished]

Think twice about fish farms
http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/salfarprob.html

[MakoMike]

Strikes me that that article is more than a bit boased against fish farms. I don't think they are trouble free, but according to that peice they should be standing shoulder to shoulder with the devil.

[zacs]

OK, there are issues with every industry.
I am only involved in fish farming in that I sell fish, farmed and wild. I happen to know a lot about the industry. As I said earlier, I travel around the USA & world sourcing and selling wild & farmed fish. I have no bias towards fish farming in particular, personally I would rather sell (and eat) wild fish all day long. However, FlyRod, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by Fly Rod

Have you ever eaten farm raised fresh water cat fish???? Compared to a saltwater catfish!!!!

Yes, but what is the point They are completely two different species of fish. Ocean catfish, AKA Wolf Fish, AKA Lup Du Mer, AKA Anarhichas lupus, is one of the best eating fish in the atlantic. Freshwater catfish, AKA channel cat, AKA Ictalurus punctatus, is pretty nasty, IMO. Farmed is more mild than wild. But unless you were raised on it, they are both prety nasty. I sell a ton of farm raised channel cat. There is really no comerical channel cat industry, outside of some localized stuff around the mississippi river valley.

Originally Posted by Fly Rod

And the orange color of king salamon is natural, not injected like farmed raised which is a grayish color and then a orange dye is injected!!!

WRONG!!! In the feed of salmon is a chemical called astaxanthin. This is the exact same chemical in shrimp's shells that makes them pink or lobster shellls that makes them orange. It is not injected into the fish. They eat it just like they would be eating shrimp in the wild. Does it matter that it was manufactured instead of natural? Not to me. It is certainly not "dye."

Originally Posted by Fly Rod

When I used the word "chemical", the dye, growth hormones and a dozen types of anti biortics are given these fish and yet they still get disease!!!!

So we addressed the "dye", they are not given growth hormones [as far as I know, if I am wrong, please show me some proof], and they are given antibiotics - Aren't you?

Originally Posted by Fly Rod

I understand your drift about farming native to the area fish, but the problem of these fish passing on disease to wild fish in the area would be a big problem to the wild fish, like a pestilential epidemic disease "plague" !!!!

The main problem with escapees in not introduction of a non-native specie, it is pollution of local genetics. If you farm raise a redfish, you will be buying your smolt from a breeder? (not sure of the industry term) that has bred those fish to be fast growing, high yielding fish, through selective breeding. This fish then escapes and breeeds with wild fish, and "pollutes" the local gentics. This is bad. They have created? genetically engineered fish, but it is not approved to use them (yet), and I am upposed to farming genetically engineered "frakenfish."

They do get disseases every now and then, and sometimes it is serious and the fish need to be killed, but I don't think that this has been a big problem spreading to wild populations. I am not sure, though. I will ask some guys that would know.

Flyrod, do you feel the same about the other types of farm raised seafood we eat? Shrimp, scallops, clams, oysters, tilapia, red drum, black drum, etc...??? Shrimp is the most farmed of all. It is almost impossible to get wild shrimp these days. It is also hard to get GOOD farmed shrimp these days. Most of whats at the markets & restaurants is overtreated, chinese, farm raised white shrimp
But give me a good untreated farm raised equadorian black tiger any day

Originally Posted by outfished

Think twice about fish farms
http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/salfarprob.html

I thiink I have said enough, but I will end on this. The health benefeits of eating fish so highly outweigh any of the detriments of fish farming (other than the fishmeal, but like I said, I think that is very short term), that we should encourage all attempts to bring this highly nutrtious source of protien to our nations consumers, and get them off beef, chix, and pork.

-Zac