Something’s Fishy
Farm raised fish, like salmon and trout, help us to avoid depleting our natural fisheries. For example, if I eat a farm raised salmon, that’s one less wild salmon that will be dragged out of the ocean before it’s had a chance to swim up a stream somewhere and spawn, creating lots of baby wild salmon. Like many other species that we humans have hunted to near extinction, salmon are beginning to show the signs of a species in mortal danger. In fact, off the California and Oregon coasts, the salmon fisheries are so depleted that commercial salmon fishing was banned entirely this year.
So check this out: I ate at a restaurant recently that had a note at the top of the menu stating that this fine establishment served ONLY wild salmon, to encourage the government to fund programs that would revitalize natural fisheries. What!? But, it gets worse. The San Francisco Chronicle recently ran an opinion piece encouraging readers to begin chowing down on Alaskan salmon, now that the west coast salmon fisheries are completely shut down. This article, in the interest of saving the wild salmon, says, and I quote: “We must continue to choose and demand wild, rather than farmed, salmon – on our plates, in our markets, and in our restaurants.
Sometimes, don’t you just want to scream?
This logic is beautiful. Let’s extend it to some other situations and see if it sounds like it might work. For example, let’s start hunting some more sperm whales, so that the government will get concerned and “take action”. Or how about this: Let’s allow the demand for cod to continue unchecked and result in unlimited cod fishing off of the Atlantic coast. Wait a minute! That’s exactly what happened! I wonder how this worked out for the Atlantic Cod fishing industry? Did demand for wild cod somehow motivate us into action? Or did we just keep fishing until they were all gone? By the way, they ARE all gone. Of course, we should insist on REAL ivory, not that cheap plastic imitation crap, and do our part to save the elephants.
Using the same reasoning, we needn’t worry about the dolphins sacrificed in tuna nets. If enough dolphins are killed, the government will notice and step in and save them. Hopefully they’ll save the tunas while they’re at it, since tuna will be next on the list of hopelessly depleted fisheries. While much of the depletion of the tuna fisheries is demand for sushi grade tuna, that’s not the only problem. Doesn’t it seem wrong to put a wild tuna in a can, fill the can with oil, and then cook this noble, wild fish beyond all recognition just so we can spread it on a sandwich or make a casserole? Surely we could use farmed fish for this “delicacy”?
Here’s what I think. Stop buying wild fish and fishermen will stop catching them. You can’t make a living catching fish if there are no buyers. Let’s put our money into research that enables a better understanding of the environments and nutrients required to make farm raised fish taste as good as wild fish.
– Chris