Facts don’t support fears
Virus raises concerns about farmed salmon
Seattle Times, November 1, 2011
It is always interesting to see how much negative allegations acquire and sustain traction long after they have been proven false. The latest Times articles and editorial that raises the alarm bells once again on salmon farming are doing a disservice to conserving the wild stocks. [“Why fish virus spooks scientists,” page one, Oct. 23, and “Give wild salmon a healthy chance,” Opinion, Oct. 31.]
From 2003 to 2010, the B.C. government tested 4,726 dead farmed salmon. No virus was ever found. If a virus is substantiated, several other sources besides farmed salmon are more likely (including other wild species and ballast water).
Other myths perpetuated in The Times’ articles include: Salmon farms pollute (no — see various reports including the 1990 Washington Department of Fisheries “Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement — Fish Culture in Floating Net-Pens”); escaping farmed salmon affect wild populations (they don’t interbreed with Pacifics and our government has tried to actually stock millions of Atlantics in the past to establish self-sustaining populations — they have all failed); farmed salmon consume more fish than they yield — yes they do, with about a 3-to-1 ratio, but wild are 10-to-1 (they eat fish too!).
As for antibiotics — yes, like all livestock, occasionally they must be given because of what spills over from the wild (all diseases originate from the wild, by the way), but they are all FDA-approved safe for humans and the environment, and there has to be a withdrawal period on top of that to make sure nothing is in a harvested fish.
How do I know all this? I am a Washington-based veterinarian/marine biologist who has worked with both state and federal hatcheries and private fish farms throughout my entire 20-year plus career.
Fish culture is good and necessary, so eat a balanced share of “wild” and farmed in good conscience.
— Hugh Mitchell, DVM, Kirkland
