Salmon Farm Monitor

staniford files

The enclosed article - "NZ salmon fed chicken remains" - adds a whole new dimension to the phrase "Chicken of the Sea". 

 

Note that Nutreco (www.nutreco.com), owners of Marine Harvest, as well as being the world´s largest salmon farming companies are also chicken farmers and poultry producers.  Nutreco are not named in the enclosed article but Nutreco´s fish feed subsidiary Skretting supply fish feed to salmon farmers in Tasmania and New Zealand (http://www.skretting.com.au/).  Skretting Australia have also participated in an Australian Government research programme using “meat, meat and bone, blood, feather, poultry meals” and “rendered animal products” in farmed salmon diets: http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/98-322.htm

 

For more on BSE in fish see last year´s Nature article "Prions get fishy" which states: "Fish, like sheep, elk and humans, could suffer a version of 'mad cow disease', or BSE, preliminary evidence suggests. The results might help to reveal how the disease jumps from species to species"

http://www.nature.com/nsu/030127/030127-12.html

 

See also: "Search for BSE type disease turns to fish farms" (The Guardian, 15th March 2002): http://www.guardian.co.uk/bse/article/0,2763,667679,00.html   

 

Includes: "A ban on any mammalian meat and bone meal from farm animals being fed to fish has been in place in Britain since 1996, cutting a theoretical route of BSE infection on fish farms

 

The Star-Times, 1st February

 

 

NZ salmon fed chicken remains

 

Amie Richardson

 

Two of the country's largest salmon companies are feeding their fish ground poultry feathers - a practice damned by a marine expert who says it's a potential "recipe for disaster" for public health.

But the companies, New Zealand King Salmon and Sanford, both say feathermeal is safe.

It is a by-product of chicken processed for human consumption, heat-treated and hydrolysed to make the feathermeal, then heat-treated again to remove any traces of bacteria. Both companies have been assured by Australian suppliers of the product that it is "perfectly safe".

NZ King Salmon, which exports two-thirds of the 5000 tonnes of salmon it produces a year, uses the feathermeal in up to 5.5% of its feeds imported from Australia and Chile. The end product has about 80% protein and 10% fat.

NZ King Salmon produces brands such as Regal Marlborough Salmon, Seasmoke Traditional Seafood and Southern Ocean.

Chief executive Paul Steere said the practice was common and feathermeal is a "high quality and safe protein". The majority of the feed is made up of fish meal and fish oil. No cow products are used.

Sanford agriculture manager Ted Culley said the feathermeal was a good source of protein.

But UK marine expert and environmentalist Don Staniford, who visited King Salmon's farm in Pelorus Sound while in New Zealand, was not aware of any other country using feathermeal in salmon farming.

"Clearly wild salmon don't feed on chickens. It would be fundamentally altering the make-up of the salmon.

"Also feeding animals to other animals is not a good idea, given the problems in the UK with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalitis).

"It's a recipe for disaster. We don't know the potential public health impacts. Salmon don't eat chickens and they don't eat artificial colourings."

King Salmon also acknowledges using the anti-parasite treatment formalin - a known cancer-causing agent - in small quantities in the salmon hatcheries. Formalin is a European Union-banned substance, but is legal in New Zealand.

The company stopped using another anti-parasite treatment malachite green - a respiratory toxin and suspected carcinogen banned in the US and European Union - in 2002. Staniford, who is part of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said formalin is a "double whammy" negative substance, posing a health and environmental risk.

Staniford - who exposed the illegal use of chemicals on Scottish salmon farms - was also concerned about the industry's use of artificial colourings such as canthaxanthin and astaxanthin - fed to salmon to make their flesh pink.

European union farmers have been forced to lower levels of canthaxanthin because of potential health risks to the eye. King Salmon uses only astaxanthin, a similar compound now being tested for any potential health risks.

Green MP Sue Kedgley was shocked by the practice because with tests being done on potential risks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in chicken, she was concerned the bacteria could then be spread through the salmon.

She thought it "bizarre" that salmon would be fed chicken feathers: "I don't believe we ought to be feeding animals to fish."

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority said as long as the feed complied with the rules of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act then there were no concerns.

Mt Cook Salmon general manager Rick Ramsay said the company did not use feathermeal in its salmon feed and would not because of the potential damage to its image.

"We don't use chemicals, and we only use fish meal. Even if we needed an extra protein source, I wouldn't be keen to use it."

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,2801478a6005,00.html


 
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Press update includes:

 

“Listeria found in smoked salmon” (The Sunday Times, 25th January)

 

“Salmon farms face US lawsuits on toxins - Scots producers named over cancer risk chemicals” (The Herald, 24th January)

 

“Salmon study authors hit back at critics” (Fish Farming Today, 23rd January)

 

“Salmon are prisoners” (The Daily Telegraph, 23rd January)

 

Includes from yesterday´s Herald:

 

“Factions within the Scottish salmon farming industry yes­terday indicated, for the first time, that it had to examine its feed procedures to answer the critics.  Pan Fish Scotland, based in Argyll and one of the largest suppliers of farmed salmon in Scotland, said it was considering switching from using fish oil to vegetable oil. Alex Adri­an, its technical manager, said: “We don’t think there is any­thing in the salmon that is a cause for concern, but at the same time we cannot sit down and keep chanting that out as a mantra.  “It may be that the reason why we see Scotland having higher levels of PCBs in its salmon is because we are the only major salmon production area that predominantly uses fish oil.”

 

 

For a media and document archive see The Salmon Farm Monitor: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

February issue of The Salmon Farm Monitor goes online from 1st February – subscribe for free via: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

 

The Sunday Times, 25th January

 

Listeria found in smoked salmon

 

Camillo Fracassini

 

Evidence that some Scottish farmed salmon is contaminated with listeria bacteria has been uncovered by a Sunday Times investigation. Almost a fifth of smoked salmon samples bought from supermarkets and food suppliers last week contained traces of the bug, dealing another damaging blow to the industry.  The level of contamination was high enough to mean that the fish would be banned from America, Australia and New Zealand as well as a number of European countries, all of which have a “zero tolerance” of food contaminated with listeria. America has already blocked dozens of consignments of Scottish smoked salmon amid fears that they may be contaminated with listeria. In 2001, the European Commission recommended each member state carry out a study of listeria contamination in smoked fish products. Of the 15 member states, only six participated including France, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland and Spain. The Sunday Times investigation is therefore the first confirmation that the bacteria is present in some Scottish-reared fish.

The disclosure follows publication of a report by American scientists earlier this month, which concluded that Scottish farmed salmon was among the most toxic in the world. Salmon producers reject the findings and say they are considering legal action against the team, based at the State University of New York. It has been estimated that up to half the people employed in the industry could lose their jobs as a result of the negative impact of the report.  The industry, worth £300m a year, relies heavily on foreign markets and accounts for 40% of Scottish food exports.

America, Australia, New Zealand, Austria and Italy have all adopted a “zero tolerance” approach to food contaminated with listeria. France, which accounts for a third of all Scottish smoked salmon exports, has said it may follow suit. However, it is legal to sell smoked salmon contaminated with minimal amounts of listeria in Britain. The Sunday Times commissioned a team of scientists at a government-approved laboratory in Scotland to test salmon samples for listeria.  A total of 11 packets were bought from Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Harvey Nichols, Safeway, Marks & Spencer, Jenners, Harrods, Loch Fyne Oysters and Fortnum & Mason. Loch Fyne classic smoked salmon and Harrods Scottish smoked salmon tested positive for the bacteria. Both samples had fewer than 10 colony- forming units (CFU) per gram which is not considered a risk to human health by the UK authorities. Guidelines issued by the Health Protection Agency state that listeria counts of less than 100 CFU per gram are “acceptable”. The other nine samples were declared listeria-free.

Although listeria does not generally pose a risk to healthy people, it can in sufficiently high levels prove fatal to children, the elderly and those with impaired immune systems and can cause pregnant women to miscarry. The bacteria is killed by cooking but it can survive both salting and the cold smoking process. It can also multiply when refrigerated. Yesterday the scientist who oversaw the tests said: “Under the zero tolerance policy adopted by a number of countries these samples which tested positive would be banned. Listeria can multiply even at low temperatures. Under ideal nutritional conditions, at refrigerated temperatures, it could double in number between 12 and 24 hours.”  Olivier Pierre, chief inspector of the French government’s consumer watchdog body, said: “We would obviously begin questioning our policy if there were problems.”  Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University in London, called for urgent action by the Scottish executive to tackle the food scares associated with farmed salmon.  “The presence of listeria in smoked salmon is very disturbing. This is yet another reminder that all is not well with the intensive fish-farming scene,” he said. “The Scottish executive must get a grip on the salmon farming industry. At the moment the industry is not passing muster and that is not acceptable.”

Don Staniford, of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said: “Why has Britain failed to carry out tests for listeria in smoked salmon products? By adopting a zero tolerance approach, the American Food and Drug Administration has put consumer safety first. Meanwhile, the British Food Standards Agency is protecting the salmon farming industry from public scrutiny.”  A spokesman for Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents 65% of the industry’s producers, said: “We have to live by the advice of scientific experts and why that advice in the UK differs from that in other countries I cannot tell you. “Our advice to consumers is not to be concerned because it is a question of dose and there is nothing to indicate that the low presence of listeria that has been found is a matter of concern.”

A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency said: “Food producers carry out testing for listeria in their products. They have a legal duty to produce safe food by using good hygiene and manufacturing practices to minimise the risk of contamination.”  Last night a spokesman for Harrods said: “We will certainly consult the supplier concerned to understand why that particular line from our large range of smoked salmons contained traces of listeria. That said, the traces are negligible when compared with the tolerances dictated by the relevant government bodies.” Nobody was available for comment at Loch Fyne Oysters yesterday.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-976779,00.html?submit.x=38&submit.y=1

 

Read more about Loch Fyne Oysters and listeria contamination in “US rejects ‘filthy’ farmed salmon - industry fury as 27 shipments banned by food watchdog” (The Sunday Herald, 30th November 2003): http://www.sundayherald.com/38340

 

 

The Herald, 24th January

 

Salmon farms face US lawsuits on toxins - Scots producers named over cancer risk chemicals

 

Martin Williams

 

Four of Scotland’s biggest farmed salmon producers are involved in possible legal ac­tion in the US for failing to warn that their fish carry “po­tentially dangerous” levels of toxic chemicals.  Stolt Sea Farm Ltd on the Isle of Harris and Ross-shire-based Mainstream Scotland are among 50 salmon farms, fish processors and grocery chains named in a proposed global legal action being brought by American environ­mental groups.  The action involves high concentrations of dioxins and polychiorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have been linked to an increased risk of cancer.  Fish farming groups Nutreco of Holland and Pan Fish of Norway, the parent companies of Marine Harvest Scotland and Pan Fish Scot­land, are also implicated. Gro­cery chains such as Safeway and the cash and carry whole­saler Costco are also named.

 

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the Centre for Environmental Health (CEH) filed notice in San Fran­cisco superior court that they intend to sue the companies under California’s anti-toxics law, known as proposition 65. It requires companies to notify consumers if their products contain hazardous levels of chemicals known to cause can­cer or reproductive harm.  The state’s law requires groups first to file notice of their intent to sue to allow the state attorney general and other prosecutors 60 days to decide whether to join or take over the action.  Don Staniford of the UK Salmon Farm Protest Group said it was considering ways to take similar legal action in Europe.  The US groups say PCBs in farmed salmon are high be­cause many fish farms typical­ly raise salmon on feed high in fatty fish and fish oils.

 

Factions within the Scottish salmon farming industry yes­terday indicated, for the first time, that it had to examine its feed procedures to answer the critics.  Pan Fish Scotland, based in Argyll and one of the largest suppliers of farmed salmon in Scotland, said it was considering switching from using fish oil to vegetable oil. Alex Adri­an, its technical manager, said: “We don’t think there is any­thing in the salmon that is a cause for concern, but at the same time we cannot sit down and keep chanting that out as a mantra.  “It may be that the reason why we see Scotland having higher levels of PCBs in its salmon is because we are the only major salmon production area that predominantly uses fish oil.”  

 

The environmental groups have taken action in the wake of a controversial study, pub­lished in the journal Science, which suggested that eating more than three portions of farmed salmon a year could increase the chance of devel­oping cancer.  It also found fish from Scot­tish farms contained the high­est concentrations of cancer-causing toxins in the salmon farming world.  A separate EWG study of farmed salmon bought at vari­ous stores in America discov­ered one salmon imported from Scotland containing PCBs at levels so high that the US Environmental Protection Agency would restrict con­sumption to no more than six meals a year.  Michael Green, executive di­rector of Oakland-based CEH, said it was “challenging the entire industry to make farmed salmon safer”.  Jane Houlihan, vice presi­dent for research with EWG, said farmed salmon should come with a warning label about the levels of toxins.

 

Dr Graeme Dear, managing director of Marine Harvest Scotland, insisted salmon was a vital part of a good, well-bal­anced diet. “Let’s be clear, farmed salmon is good for you and our fish meet all the quali­ty and health standards set nationally and internationally by the World Health Organisa­tion, the American Food and Drugs Agency and the UK Food Standards Agency, among others.”  The Food Standards Agency said it has enlisted experts to measure toxin levels in wild and farmed salmon in Scotland as well as sea fish.  A separate panel is looking into the potential risks of eat­ing more than the recom­mended amounts of salmon.

 

 

FOUR UNDER FIRE

 

• A subsidiary of the Norway-based chemical transportation firm Stolt-Nielsen, Stolt Sea Farm Ltd’s multi-million pound fish farm and process­ing factory on Scalpay, off Harris, employs around 200 people.

 

• Alness-based Mainstream Scotland, part of the Oslo-run Mainstream Group, the fifth largest fish farming company in the world, has 18 Scottish farms, with the majority in Orkney and Shetland.

 

• Pan Fish Scotland, based on Loch Fyne, employs more than150 staff and operates around

32 marine and three fresh­water farms.

 

• Owned by the Dutch multi­national Nutreco, Marine Harvest Scotland produces around a third of salmon farmed in Scottish waters.

 

More details on the lawsuit can be found via: www.ewg.org

 

 

Fish Farming Today, 23rd January

 

Salmon study authors hit back at critics

The authors of the January 9 Science article on contaminants in salmon have issued a press release defending their stand, despite the widespread criticism it has attracted.  Ron Hites, David Carpenter, Jeff Foran and Barbara Knuth wrote: “Since its publication in the journal Science on January 9, our study, which showed significant levels of environmental contaminants in farmed salmon, has been distorted and mischaracterized in a number of ways. Since these distortions have high potential to confuse the public about our results, we would like to address a few of the issues that have been reported by the media.” 

 

Regarding government standards and the meaning of the consumption recommendations reported in the study, the authors say that since the purpose of the study was to do a health-based analysis, they naturally used the health-based guidelines rather than regulatory levels that balance a variety of other factors. They say, “It is simply wrong for critics and even government regulators to assert or imply that a certain level of contaminants is safe because it falls under the FDA or FSA regulatory thresholds.”

In response to criticism of the methodology they say that the study was focused on contaminant levels in the types of salmon broadly available to consumers, they tested farmed salmon from all major producing regions of the world and the only type of wild salmon widely available to consumers: Pacific salmon.  The authors also deny that they were tools of a U.S. trade policy out to damage European aquaculture or that the science was manipulated by the study's sponsor, the Pew Charitable Trusts. “First, the study went through peer-review and scientific editing processes at Science, one of the world's most respected scientific journals. Science's review process is widely seen as among the most rigorous in the scientific community”.

Second, at no time in the development or execution of the study were any of the authors in contact with U.S. trade policymakers or individuals representing wild salmon fisheries in the U.S.  The authors continued: “For critics to claim without any factual basis that the U.S. government or the study's sponsor manipulated one of the world's premier scientific journals and six highly experienced and credentialed research scientists is merely an attempt to discredit the study through suspicion and innuendo.”  

http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/1665/Salmon_study_authors_hit_back_at_critics.html

 

The Daily Telegraph (Letters), 23rd January

 

Salmon are prisoners

 

How Gerard MacDonald (Letters, Jan 21) can claim to deplore cruelty to animals while remaining a salmon farmer is hard to swallow.  Every farmed salmon is denied its most basic instinct: to migrate tens of thousands of miles.  Mr MacDonald should consider whether it is possible to have high standards of husbandry when your animals want to go to Greenland but are kept in a cage in Wester Ross.

 

Donald Rice, London W11

 

 

See also in The Daily Telegraph (17th January):

 

Fish farms cannot be allowed in a country that considers itself civilized

 

By Adam Nicolson

 

I have, in the past, driven behind a fish farm lorry for half an hour along the long slow roads of the Outer Hebrides. European money has improved stretches of them. You suddenly find yourself on a double-width, unnaturally expensive-looking surface, with unnecessarily large gravelled verges, and you give thanks to Brussels for its structural funds and its love affair with the poor outer margins of the Continent, before returning to the narrow, indigenous strip of tarmac, somehow paid for in the distant past by the Western Isles council.  That is one of the moments when the reality of modern fish-farming hits home. The old road is not the lovely, moneyed euro carpet. It is bumpy and, at each bump, the large plastic containers on the lorry in front of you are given a little jerk. They contain dead, mature salmon, being driven from the farm to the processing plant. But the fish are swimming in their own blood and, at each bump, the blood slops out of the containers, on to the back of the lorry, and sprays the car behind.  You have to keep your wipers going to see through the blood. The whole front of your car is sticky with it afterwards. It is like a horror film, weirdly overstated in its crudity. These blood-bumps are like the evidence of a body in the boot, a horrible slopping-out of a hidden fact. 

 

Why is this so disgusting? Partly, I think, it is a question of deceit. Go into your average supermarket and look at the images with which salmon is sold: fresh, Scottish, beautiful and, above all, clean. You won't find any pictures of windscreens coated in blood, nor, as I have seen, of salmon still alive and thrashing in containers filled to the brim with their own and other fish's blood. Perhaps only in eggs and chickens is there a greater gulf between the realities of production and the deceptions of the chill cabinet.  Fish farms are horrible places: horrible to work in, horrible to look at, horrible in the relationship they represent between money, mass production and the mass consumption of food. In common with all other battery-farming systems, fish farms are inherently careless. Beyond the needs of production, they do not and cannot care about the welfare of the salmon, which is - of course in all but its first and last phases - an oceanic animal, whose entire biological system is designed for the very opposite of the cage.  Beyond the requirements of legislation, they do not and cannot care about the wellbeing of the larger environment, whether that is the seabed, the appearance of the bays and lochs in which they are set up, or the ocean ecosystem itself (where it is thought 40 per cent of all salmon are now farm escapes), because to do so would cost, and margins are so tight that to spend money on anything except the minimum would make a company non-competitive.  And they do not care, beyond the needs of the market, about the quality of the product. Cost is the governing factor in fish farm production and so cheap is good. It would cost more to ensure that the fish are not swimming in their own blood en route to the processing plant.

 

In 2002, 145,000 tonnes of salmon were produced in Scotland by 1,306 people, about 111 tonnes a man. If the average weight of a farmed salmon is about 3kg, that means each man is producing about 37,000 fish a year, a level at which individual care can clearly not be given.  The average space in a fish farm cage for each salmon is a little over three cubic feet. That is the equivalent for an Atlantic fish of spending your life in the rush hour on the Northern Line.  Is this absurd?  Should one be concerned for the life conditions, or even death conditions, of a fish? It always strikes me as strange that people get exercised about farming and its conditions only when there is a food scare.  BSE started to matter in the press only when it was realised that it could cross the species barrier into human beings. The current crisis over farmed salmon is entirely generated by the suspicion that the flesh carries an unacceptable level of marine pollutants.  Those are of course legitimate anxieties and they will no doubt be addressed. Fish farm companies are even now looking for vegetable-based substitutes for their fish-based food and, once they have sorted that out, no doubt the heat will be off. Those supermarket pictures will reassert themselves and everything will be all right again.  But it won't be, because the brutalising methods of production will continue.

 

The jobs involved in this business are usually said to be crucial to the hard-pressed communities that have little other opportunity for employment. And one is meant to bow down before that double god of social and economic need.  But two things need to be said. The jobs themselves are not only uncertain - the economic conditions of the industry yo-yo from year to year - they are both grindingly dull and very demanding. It is not as if greater regulation of fish farming would endanger some exquisite form of indigenous coastal existence.  And it is surely now clear that government, on a global level, needs to improve the conditions in which the fish grow, to reduce the levels of pollution and to improve the quality of the product. In future, people will surely look back on these early years of fish farming and see in them the equivalent of conditions before the great Victorian factory Acts: in a word, uncivilised.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2004%2F01%2F17%2Fdo1704.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=63714

 

Lawsuits over PCBs in farmed salmon:

 

Breaking News on two lawsuits in the wake of the damning Science study:

“Two environmental groups have gone to court against 50 salmon farms, grocery chains and fish processors worldwide under California's tough anti- toxics law, claiming that the businesses are failing to warn consumers of  dangerous PCBs in farmed salmon….The 50 defendants named in the filings include farmed salmon producers based in Canada and Europe, such as Marine Harvest, Panfish, Stolt Sea Farm, Heritage and Mainstream, as well as large U.S.-based retailers such as Safeway, Kroger, Albertson's and Costco” (More details via www.ewg.org)

The 50 defendants names in the lawsuit include: Atlantic Salmon of Maine, Fjord Seafood USA, Cermaq Group, Mainstream Scotland, Creative Salmon Company, Ltd., Cypress Island, Inc., Omega Salmon Group Ltd., Panfish ASA, Grieg Seafood, B.C., Ltd., Heritage Salmon, Inc., Marine Harvest USA, Marine Harvest Canada, Nutreco Holding N.V., Stolt Sea Farm, Inc. (USA), Stolt Sea Farm, Inc. (Canada), Stolt Sea Farm Holdings plc (London) and Stolt Sea Farm Ltd. (Scotland) (a full list is available from Intrafish: www.intrafish.com)

 

“Meanwhile, Scottish Quality Salmon has denied that it is considering legal action against the Pew-funded scientists who produced the fish farming report” (West Highland Free Press, 23rd January)

 

Please find enclosed a press update including:

“Lawsuit aims to force reform in PCB levels” (Intrafish, 23rd January)

 

“Farmed salmon industry to face lawsuit over contaminants in fish” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22nd January)

 

“Anti-toxics law cited in legal action against salmon farms” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22nd January)

 

“Groups plan California lawsuit against farmed salmon over PCB levels” (EWG, 22nd January)

 

“European Parliament calls for reassurance over Scottish petitioner’s concerns” (Intrafish, 22nd January)

 

“Blaming the activists is fishy” (Gallon Newsletter, 22nd January)

 

“Salmon health scare raises key questions” (The Scotsman, 21st January)

 

“Green MEP wants European food watchdog to report on carnivorous fish” (Intrafish, 21st January)

 

“Costco moves to leaner fresh fillet” (Intrafish, 21st January)

 

“Careful shopping will help keep you on salmon's wild side - risk of PCBs in farm-raised fish means consumers must ask questions at the store” (The Oregonian, 20th January)

 

“Farming salmon/Low price doesn't cover costs” (Star Tribune, 20th January)

 

“Scottish producers may consider legal action over US study” (Intrafish, 20th January)

 

“Europe to consider petition accusing Executive” (The Scotsman, 19th January)

“Scots salmon chiefs set to sue scientists” (The Sunday Times, 18th January)

“Farmed salmon argument escalates – Greens repeat call for inquiry” (Scottish Green Party, 18th January)

 

“Pink and poisonous?” (New Scientist, 17th January)

 

“A fishy tale of salmon, dioxins and food safety” (New Scientist, 17th January)

 

“Primary source vs the spin on salmon safety” (The Vancouver Sun, 17th January)

 

“Dr Andrew Weil” (The Globe and Mail, 14th January)

 

 

Includes:

 

“Two environmental groups have gone to court against 50 salmon farms, grocery chains and fish processors worldwide under California's tough anti- toxics law, claiming that the businesses are failing to warn consumers of  dangerous PCBs in farmed salmon.  The Center for Environmental Health in Oakland and the Environmental Working Group in San Francisco brought the action in San Francisco Superior Court last week against companies in San Francisco, San Jose and San Bruno as well as in Norway, Scotland, Canada and England, among other locations” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22nd January)

 

“Under Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, companies are required to notify consumers if their products contain hazardous levels of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm.  The law requires private groups to first file notice of their intent to sue to give the state attorney general and other prosecutors 60 days to decide whether to join or take over the lawsuit” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22nd January)

 

“We want the farmed salmon industry to reform its practices and switch to nontoxic feed stocks, which would not contaminate farmed salmon," said Bill Walker, vice president of the Environmental Working Group. "If they don't want to change their practices, we think consumers should be informed" through warning label” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22nd January)

 

“The salmon farming industry must stop needlessly exposing consumers to a cancer risk in every bite," said Michael Green, executive director of Oakland-based CEH” (EWG, 22nd January)

 

“Scotland´s salmon farming industry is considering legal action against the authors of the report that claimed their produce was among the most toxic in the world.  Scottish Quality Salmon (SQS) is preparing a case against American scientists who said Scottish farmed salmon was contaminated with high levels of cancer-causing particles including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)” (The Sunday Times, 18th January)

 

“What are fish made of? "Five per cent protein, 95 per cent politics" goes the reply of one former fisheries official.  In the case of farmed salmon, it seems the ingredient list should also include dioxins, PCBs and several other organochlorine pollutants.  And as the war of words raging over last week's study confirms, these too come laced with politics” (Editorial in New Scientist, 17th January)

 

“Despite the industry's efforts to clean up, sea lice, disease, insecticides and escaping fish all continue to make salmon farming an environmental pariah. The contamination issue isn't the most important reason to worry about farmed fish. Let's hope it might just be the one to spur some action” (Editorial in New Scientist, 17th January)

 

“The disagreements over safety limits, however, do nothing to answer the key question of how to balance the damaging impact of the pollutants against the beneficial effects of eating oily fish. This calculation was not done by the US study, and is still being investigated by one of the FSA's expert committees, which is expected to report later this year.  The question is important because it does not just concern salmon.  Farmed sea bass are more contaminated with PCBs than wild sea bass, say Portuguese scientists (Chemosphere, vol 54, p 1503). And the same is likely to be true of animals, including sheep and other livestock, that are also fed fish oils to boost their levels of health-giving omega-3 fatty acids” (New Scientist, 17th January)

 

“The fish are swimming in their own blood and, at each bump, the blood slops out of the containers, on to the back of the lorry, and sprays the car behind.  You have to keep your wipers going to see through the blood. The whole front of your car is sticky with it afterwards. It is like a horror film, weirdly overstated in its crudity. These blood-bumps are like the evidence of a body in the boot, a horrible slopping-out of a hidden fact.  Why is this so disgusting? Partly, I think, it is a question of deceit. Go into your average supermarket and look at the images with which salmon is sold: fresh, Scottish, beautiful and, above all, clean. You won't find any pictures of windscreens coated in blood, nor, as I have seen, of salmon still alive and thrashing in containers filled to the brim with their own and other fish's blood” (The Daily Telegraph, 17th January)

 

“The bottom line for consumers: stop eating farmed salmon until salmon farmers clean up their acts.  Now if you ask me where to get those essential omega-3 fatty acids, my answer is: from plant sources including flax seeds, walnuts, hemp seeds (really!), and a green called purslane. From animal sources look at oily fleshed cold-water fish such as mackerel, sardines and wild salmon.  My personal preference is wild salmon from the great Pacific Northwest.  In the face of this new study, I remain puzzled at the fact that government and industry keep demanding more proof that what they’re doing is causing harm. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” (Dr Andrew Weil in The Globe and Mail, 14th January)

 

 

For regular updates on salmon farming issues including an international media and document archive see The Salmon Farm Monitor: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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Press Release from the Salmon Farm Protest Group, Thursday 22nd January

www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

  

Contaminated Scottish farmed salmon on trial in Europe

- Allan Berry gives oral evidence to the European Parliament´s Petitions Committee

 

 The European Parliament will meet today (Thursday 22nd) to debate the environmental and public health disaster that is Scottish salmon farming.  Allan Berry, who submitted his petition in April 2002, has been invited to attend in person and will give oral evidence to the Petitions Committee in Brussels this morning.  Mr Berry has asked that his petition is discussed in public and further evidence will be presented by other interested parties.  Officials from the European Commission´s Directorate General of Fisheries (DG FISH), Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO) and Environment (DG ENV) will also be in attendance.  

 

In the wake of the damning Science study which concluded that Scottish farmed salmon was so contaminated with cancer-chemicals it was safe to eat only three times a year, public scrutiny by the European Parliament could not have come at a more embarrassing time for the Scottish Executive and the Scottish salmon farming industry.  Allan Berry´s petition (518-2002) accuses the Scottish Government of gross negligence and fraud in promoting sea cage fish farming at the expense of wild salmon and Scotland’s pristine marine waters.  Mr Berry’s European petition follows a petition (PE 96) he submitted to the Scottish Parliament in February 2000.  PE 96 led to an ‘Aquaculture Inquiry’ by the Scottish Parliament (2001-2002) but Mr Berry’s central concerns were never addressed and he was never asked to given oral evidence. 

 

Speaking exclusively to The Salmon Farm Monitor, Allan Berry said:

 

“I am delighted that the European Parliament is finally meeting to discuss my petition and only hope that the European Parliament has more success than the Scottish Parliament in placing the Scottish Executive under close public scrutiny. The UK Government clearly do not want their dirty linen washed in public but the issue of sea cage farming cannot be allowed to continue to fester in a political climate of apathy and denial. The UK government and the Scottish Executive have adopted a partisan and inappropriate approach to the whole matter of sea cage fish farming, deliberately suppressing scientific evidence, which might lead to limits on production.  For twenty five years the Executive has ruthlessly promoted and protected the industry regardless of the consequences - it clearly has a great deal to hide - and has no intention of permitting public scrutiny.

 

“Since the advent of salmon farming in Scotland in the 1970s, sea lice larvae originating from cage farm stock have caused the virtual extinction of wild sea trout and salmon in most West coast and Island waters where salmon are farmed. Sea cage fish farming is now the largest licensed industrial polluter in Scotland.  The Scottish salmon farming industry uses our coastal waters as an open sewer, discharging annually nearly eight thousand tonnes of nitrogen as waste ammonia ; equivalent to the sewage wastes of 9 million people (Scotland's population is only 5.1 million).  In the case of sea cage fish farming in Scotland, the Executive has deliberately concealed, misrepresented and denied the effects of such abuse, while using the power of the state to pervert proper scientific assessment of industry impact.  Let us hope the deliberations of the Petition Committee will result in proper objective scientific examination of the adverse effects of sea cage fish farming.  The European Parliament has one last opportunity to save Scotland’s wild salmon from extinction and to put an end to salmon farmers’ free use of the our once pristine coastal waters as an open sewer”

 

For further information please contact Don Staniford on 00 34 952 49 49 16 or Allan Berry in Brussels on 00 44 7754 150 194 

 

 

Notes to Editors:

 

(1) Further information including a photo of Allan Berry and the full text of his petition is available on The Salmon Farm Monitor: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

Further information on the European Parliament´s Petitions Committee including an agenda, list of members and written papers can be found on:

http://www.europarl.eu.int/committees/peti_home.htm

 

The clerk to the Petitions Committee, David Lowe, is on 00 32 2284 2396

 
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Sunday papers swarm on Scottish salmon like files around…….

 

Salmon farmers around Scotland will be choking on their contaminated smoked farmed salmon this morning as they yet read more front-page headlines, editorials, opinion pieces and exposes. 

 

Please find enclosed a personal synopsis of today’s Sunday press coverage in The Sunday Herald, The Sunday Times, The Independent on Sunday, The Observer and Scotland on Sunday.  All the internet links are provided so readers can access the full articles and judge for themselves (the Mail on Sunday is sadly not available on-line but also features contaminated farmed Scottish farmed).  For further information including a media archive see The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

Sunday press coverage in the UK includes:

 

“Government scientists warned watchdog of salmon safety risk - Food agency told of poison fears last year … but ignored advice” (The Sunday Herald – front page)

“Spawning a new crisis – Official dissent over a devastating US study showing farmed Scottish salmon could harm human health has raised new questions about regulation” (The Sunday Herald)

“Salmon?  Another fine mess we have allowed” (The Sunday Herald – editorial)

 

“The salmon scandal they tried to ignore” (The Sunday Times)

“Salmon farmers need to come clean” (The Sunday Times)

“America in new Scots salmon health scare” (The Sunday Times)

“Salmon farmers get £100m lifeline” (The Sunday Times)

“Sales backlash expected on ‘toxic salmon’ scare” (The Times)

 

“Toxic salmon faces EU-wide sales ban – Second cancer alert as surveillance reveals that fish farmers have continued to use known poison to disinfect their eggs” (The Independent on Sunday)

 

“Farmed and dangerous: Has fish had its chips?” (The Observer)

“US in fresh blow to Scottish salmon farms” (The Observer)

 

 

1) The Sunday Herald

 

A front page ‘Investigation’- “Government scientists warned watchdog of salmon safety risk - Food agency told of poison fears last year … but ignored advice” - by award-winning environment editor Rob Edwards lambasted the UK’s Food Standards Agency:

 

“UK government scientists warned last year that people who followed the Food Standards Agency advice to eat one portion of salmon a week would breach the safety limit for toxic chemicals.  The government study contradicts repeated assurances by the FSA and the Scottish Executive that salmon farmed in Scotland is within international safety limits. It also backs up the findings of the controversial US research which sparked a salmon safety scare last week”

 

“The government warning is contained in a report by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Central Science Laboratory, which concludes that eating a single portion of salmon a week would result in an average daily toxins intake of 4.46 picograms – just above the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) highest “tolerable daily intake” of 4 picograms.  It urges: “We recommend that the existing toxicity data should be re-examined to determine more objective estimates of the uncertainty.”

 

“The Defra study has been seized upon by those demanding an independent inquiry into the safety of Scottish salmon.  “This appears to be entirely at odds with what the FSA has previously said. That it would criticise its own scientific advisers simply amplifies the need for an independent investigation to get at the truth,” said Mark Ruskell, Scottish Green Party environment spokesman.  Ruskell also condemned the deputy environment minister, Allan Wilson, for backing the FSA’s line. “The minister’s bland assurances that children should be fed contaminated salmon, without any fear for health, is a transparently inadequate response to the serious concerns being raised for food safety by respected and authoritative scientists”

 

Full article: http://www.sundayherald.com/39220

 

In “Spawning a new crisis – Official dissent over a devastating US study showing farmed Scottish salmon could harm human health has raised new questions about regulation”, Rob Edwards writes:

 

“Like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the Scottish salmon farming industry always looks on the bright side of life”

 

“Dr Richard Dixon, head of policy at the environmental group WWF Scotland, pointed out that the FSA had been set up to end the cosy relationship between government and the food industry. “But it now seems to be falling into the same trap,” he alleged. “The FSA has attacked organic food, sung the praises of genetically modified food and is now urging people to ignore scientific advice suggesting that farmed salmon may be unsafe. It looks more like a defender of big business than a champion of public health”

 

“This has provoked angry criticisms of the FSA, and new calls for it to revise its advice. “The FSA should urgently set contaminant limits which protect human health, not industry profits,” said Dan Barlow, head of research at Friends of the Earth Scotland. “The FSA must demonstrate that it is willing to champion human health and informed consumer choice, rather than defending food industry practices.”

 

“I and my family do not eat farmed salmon,” revealed Jeffrey Foran, a University of Michigan toxicologist and one of the authors of the US study. “My hope is that public health agencies will look at our study and issue advice encouraging people to eat less contaminated fish.” He stressed that the solution was not to shut down the salmon farming industry, but for it to reform and cut contamination . “I hope the industry doesn’t shoot the messenger,” he commented”

 

“If they choose to misread a serious scientific study, then they only have themselves to blame,” said Paul Johnston, principle scientist at the Greenpeace research laboratory at Exeter University. “It is a clear case of garbage in, garbage out. It they feed salmon garbage, they will be contaminated.”

 

Full article via: http://www.sundayherald.com/39188

 

An Editorial – “Salmon?  Another fine mess we have allowed” – states:

 

“From being one of the most lustrous of Scotland’s economic jewels, farmed salmon was revealed last week to be yet another cankered foodstuff. Salmon raised on Scottish farms are fed dyes to ensure the flesh turns pink and are contaminated by 14 pollutants and toxins which could cause cancer. Worse still – and reminiscent of the BSE scandal – the salmon are fed fish, rather than plant-based material. A lot of this fish comes from industrial trawlers that scrape the bottom of the polluted North Atlantic for their catches. Little wonder that US environmental scientists conclude it would be unwise to eat a portion of this salmon more than three times a year. So bad is the situation that Scottish farmed salmon is now ranked the most contaminated in the world. No longer the healthy alternative, it will now be viewed as a potentially life-threatening food which many of us will from now on avoid”

 

“Their fierce attacks on the US research last week suggest they are more interested in shooting the messenger than finding a solution.  Disappointingly, the industry has been supported by the government’s watchdog, the Food Standards Agency, and the Scottish Executive. This leaves the public wondering to whom they can turn for truly independent and trustworthy advice. That is why we think that Scotland now needs an independent inquiry into the salmon farming industry – not designed to shut it down, but to save it”

 

Full article via: http://www.sundayherald.com/39134

 

 

2) The Sunday Times

 

In “The salmon scandal they tried to ignore” award-winning journalist Richard Girling writes:

 

“This week’s revelation that eating Scottish salmon may significantly increase the risk of cancer comes as little surprise. Nor, sadly, does the industry’s response to the latest blow to its tattered credibility. Whenever salmon is criticised Scottish Quality Salmon (SQS), the trade association of Scottish sea farmers, always reacts in the same way, like a she-cat defending its kittens — furious, determined, unthinking.  It happened in September 2001 when I wrote an award-winning piece in The Sunday Times Magazine (download via: ) describing the environmental damage caused to wild salmon stocks and other marine life by pollutants from the west coast fish farms. Like all critics of SQS I was denounced as ignorant, biased and malevolently anti-Scottish” 

 

“Later this month the European parliament will hear a petition calling for it to investigate the failure of the Scottish executive to hold a full public inquiry into the environmental impact of sea-cage farming. If SQS has as clean a record as it claims, it will back this to the hilt”

 

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-958675,00.html

 

In “Salmon farmers need to come clean” columnist Allan Massie writes:

 

“A study from America, published in the magazine, Science, has now asserted that farmed Atlantic salmon from Scotland contain the highest levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the world. The fish are, it is said, so contaminated that they should not be eaten more than three times a year. They are stuffed to the gills with dioxins, dieldrin, toxaphene, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Enough to make the average consumer’s flesh creep”

 

“Not surprisingly, Scottish Quality Salmon, the body representing most salmon farms here, doesn’t agree, claiming that consumers should be reassured by this research. Its take on the findings is that PCB and dioxin levels in Scottish salmon are significantly lower than the thresholds set by international watchdogs.  So that’s all right then. We are in danger of being only a little contaminated or poisoned.   Perhaps more reassuring are the words of Sir John Krebs, chairman of the Food Standards Agency, a zoologist and former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council. He plays down the risk, reiterating that the benefits of eating one portion of oily fish a week “outweigh any possible risk”. To some all this recalls the sort of complacency with which officialdom typically responds to bad news. They may be reminded of the then agriculture minister, John Gummer, having himself photographed feeding a hamburger to his young daughter at the height of the BSE scare”

 

“Robin Harper’s demand for an inquiry should be granted. But the inquiry has to be comprehensive, addressing economic, environmental, and health issues. It will take years to complete.  Meanwhile the salmon farming industry can only help itself if it responds to this American survey not by denial, but by imposing stricter standards and controls on the rearing and feeding of its fish”

 

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-959494,00.html

 

In “America in new Scots salmon health scare” Nick Fielding reports that:

 

“Concerns about listeria contamination have been growing for some time. Since adopting a “zero tolerance” approach to any contamination, American regulators at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have rejected dozens of consignments of salmon from Scotland, citing concerns over listeria”

 

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-959712,00.html

 

In “Salmon farmers get £100m lifeline” it is revealed that:

 

“Scottish executive has been forced to provide a rescue package for salmon farmers worth up to £100m because banks are refusing to finance an industry they believe is a bad risk.  Ministers have pledged to underwrite bank loans for fish farmers to safeguard thousands of jobs under threat. A report published last week by American scientists, claiming Scottish farmed salmon was the most toxic in the world, was yet another blow to the already beleaguered industry”

 

“It has also emerged that ministers could be forced to appear before the European parliament to answer claims that the industry has caused massive pollution and damaged wild sea trout with sea lice from salmon farms”

 

“Ministers and officials are now devising a scheme to prevent the collapse of any more fish farms which give fragile rural communities a lifeline and account for 50% of Scotland’s food exports.  Allan Wilson, the fisheries minister, is proposing the executive should act as guarantor, reassuring the banks that they will make good on bad debt if a crisis threatens to plunge a debtor into bankruptcy. He said: “We are willing to invest in the industry because it would be investing for the good of the whole country”

 

“The move, involving Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, will be accompanied by a charm offensive to assure banks and insurance companies that the fish farming industry is to be put on a more secure footing.  Ministers also plan to offer a series of incentives to make “greener” organic fish farming more financially worthwhile, and have commissioned a consultant to draw up organic standards which are expected to rule out controversial pesticides and fish feed”

 

“Yesterday the Shetland Isles Council convener Sandy Cluness warned that 50% of industry jobs across Scotland could go as a result of the latest consumer scare”

 

Download via:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-959450,00.html?submit.x=21&submit.y=5

 

In The Times (10th January) article “Sales backlash expected on ‘toxic salmon’ scare”, consumer editor Valerie Elliot reported that:

 

“The reassurances of Sir John Krebs, chairman of the Food Standards Agency, about the safety of farmed salmon met with some scepticism because the agency has asked experts for a new opinion about the long-term effect on health of eating farmed salmon. It has yet to receive the report.  The agency admitted that government scientists had not tested farmed salmon since 1996 but insisted that the levels of contaminants found by the US study were exactly the same as previously known in Britain and were all within World Health Organisation limits”

 

“Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Safeway and Marks & Spencer briefed staff to reassure customers that their fish was safe and that supplies were checked for toxins”

 

“One London fishmonger, Michael Lear, of Chalmers & Gray, said: “I’ve already had customers this morning who were going to use salmon in a recipe but because of this report have decided not to”

 

The Times also launched a debate on:

 

“Will warnings put you off salmon?”: Send your e-mails to: debate@thetimes.co.uk

 

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-957969,00.html

 

3) The Independent on Sunday

 

In “Toxic salmon faces EU-wide sales ban – Second cancer alert as surveillance reveals that fish farmers have continued to use known poison to disinfect their eggs”, Severin Carrell writes:

 

“Sales of Scottish salmon could be banned across Europe because of contamination by an illegal and toxic chemical, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.  Safety tests have proved that samples of farmed salmon and trout are tainted by a banned chemical which can cause cancers and mutations. As a result, the European Commission is to introduce even tougher health limits and is threatening legal action against the UK”

 

“The FSA admits there are real safety risks over the continuing use of a different chemical in farmed salmon and trout from Britain - a cheap dye called malachite green once routinely used as a fungicide in fish farms. Fears about the toxicity of malachite green are expected to be confirmed next month by US safety experts on the National Toxicity Program. That panel is expected to state - for the first time - that it is a proven carcinogen which causes mutations”

 

“Several fish farms are under investigation by the VMD, and at least one has had its fish temporarily banned from sale, after repeated traces of malachite green were found in salmon and trout. One fish farmer is facing prosecution.  But under even stricter safety regulations being prepared by the European health commissioner David Byrne, an even larger number of fish farms will face automatic bans across the EU from the end of this year. Dr Byrne is to introduce a far tighter maximum limit for malachite green in December of two micro-grammes per kilogram - a level which Scottish and English fish farms have repeatedly breached”

 

Full article via: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=480055

 

More information on malachite green including the Salmon Farm Protest Group’s submission to the US National Toxicology Program is available via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

 

4) The Observer

 

In “Farmed and dangerous: Has fish had its chips?”, Stephen Khan (Scotland editor) reports that:

 

“Stacks of salmon steaks and fillets remained on ice at Chapel Street Market in Islington on Friday. Only weeks ago ago they were disappearing at a record rate, destined for millions of festive dinner tables. Now shoppers flashed a concerned glance and passed by. Farmed fish was having its mad cow moment.

Just as BSE research prompted an EU ban and shoppers' boycott of beef almost eight years ago, now public confidence was being rocked in the very foodstuff nutritionists have been telling us we must eat more of”

 

“Across the UK this weekend sides of smoked pink fish 'fresh from the crystal clear waters of Scotland' sat untouched on shelves alongside curiosities such as salmon nuggets and tikka bites. Staff in one branch of Tesco near Glasgow estimated that the store was shifting less than half its usual stock of farmed fish.  Back at the Islington market in London, Jamie Curtis revealed that sales had nosedived. 'I've had people coming up to me all day,' he said. 'A lot of customers have been saying that since hearing the news about the risks associated with eating salmon they're going to give it up for good”

 

“On hearing details of the American research, one shopper considered ditching her purchase. Nicola Burn, a 30-year-old teacher, said: 'If I had known about it I'm not so sure I would have put this packet of salmon in my basket. I'll definitely be reading the labels on fish more carefully from now on.'  Reactions like this will distress Scottish fish farmers as they begin the mammoth task this week of attempting to rebuild public trust”

 

“One person who won't be serving any of them, however, is Jackie MacKenzie who worked at a fish farm in the north-west of Scotland for three years in the 1990s before quitting over concerns that the chemicals he was using were having a detrimental effect upon his health.  'There used to be fresh salmon on the table when I was a boy,' he told The Observer. 'But that was a different fish to what we get now. I wouldn't feed my children the stuff that comes out of these farms.'  He claimed that the aquaculture industry had taken a quality product and turned it into 'gunk'.  Wild salmon, he said, was a firm, muscular, healthy fish. What now masqueraded as the king of fish was a flabby, dyed-pink beast that bore little resemblance to its wild relative”

 

“In Britain, a million Scottish-farmed salmon a week were sold during the Christmas period. Thousands more trout, sea bass, sea bream and cod that lived and died in captivity were also eaten. None, however, passed the MacKenzie family's lips. It appears that many more families up and down the country are now following their lead”

 

Full article via: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1120704,00.html

 

In “US in fresh blow to Scottish salmon farms”, The Observer reports:

 

“Salmon from Scottish fish farms was refused entry to the US after tests showed the batches were unfit for human consumption, according to strict Food and Drug Administration guidelines. The US government agency condemned 27 imports of smoked salmon last year amid concerns that they may have been contaminated with listeria”

 

“Just last month Scottish salmon farmers enjoyed record sales of more than a million salmon a week during the build-up to Christmas.  Almost overnight, though, it appears confidence in the product has been shattered”

 

“Scottish salmon is one of the most frequently refused of UK food imports. Last year 15 shipments of smoked salmon were turned away because they were contaminated with listeria. A further nine salmon shipments from Scotland were classified as 'insanitary'. According to the FDA, they 'may have become contaminated with filth' and 'may have been rendered injurious to health'.”

 

“Neil Spreckley - managing director of Bathgate-based EWOS Ltd, the world's largest salmon feed company - said the study had the potential to be 'very damaging' to the industry.  'We might find customers not buying any salmon for the next two weeks,' he said”

 

Full article via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,1120635,00.html

 

 

5) Scotland on Sunday 

 

In “Salmon is safe says US food expert”, the fiercely patriotic and pro-salmon farming Scotland on Sunday unashamedly (and inaccurately) proclaims Professor Charles Saunterre (his surname is Santerre) as a “leading American food safety expert” (since 1st January 2004 he has in fact been employed as a paid consultant to the salmon farming industry).  Murdo MacLeod’s article is also accompanied by a photo of Nick Joy of the oxymoronic ‘Sustainable Salmon’ company proudly holding up a contaminated farmed Scottish salmon.  According to Scotland on Sunday:

 

“Santerre said: "In the United States we reckon that we could save 100,000 lives a year from heart illnesses if we got more people to eat salmon in their diet. That far outweighs any risks from toxins”.  Santerre suggested that very cautious consumers might remove the skin from the fish because most of the toxins are found in or near the skin. He said: "I don’t think it’s necessary but people might want to do it. I believe that your Scottish salmon is very safe and I would not have a problem eating it”

 

Full article via: http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/index.cfm?id=34952004

 

In “Salmon scare – off the hook?”, Murdo MacLeod explains that “Reports of dangerous levels of toxins in Scottish salmon have been exaggerated, say experts, who claim toxins in farmed salmon are no higher than in other foodstuff”.  He points out the importance of farmed salmon sales to Scotland (the Scottish Executive claim that Scottish farmed salmon contribute some 50% of the value of all Scottish food exports):

 

“Fish heading further afield are driven to airports such as Glasgow Prestwick, to be flown to North America. Within 48 hours a Scottish salmon can have gone from the waters of the West Highlands to a plate in a swanky New York restaurant. In the past three years, exports of Scottish salmon to the USA have almost trebled - from less than 4,000 tonnes in 2001 to 11,000 tonnes last year. Just under a 10th of all the salmon exported from Scotland goes to the United States.  But last week the king of fish found itself at the centre of a damaging new health scare - one that threatens to kill the US market, rock the Highland economy and damage Scotland’s international reputation as a producer of luxury goods”

 

“The salmon industry is now engaged in a furious fight to repair its battered reputation”

 

The article states that “even in the US, experts are beginning to distance themselves from the research” and then goes on to quote “Charles Santerre, associate professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana” stating:

 

“Farmed salmon is delicious and nutritious and a vital part of our diet”

 

Mmmm – if you were being paid thousands of dollars by the salmon farming industry that’s exactly what you would say isn’t it?

 

Full article via: http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1080&id=34622004

 

In another error-ridden, xenophobic and jingoistic article – “Spreading salmon scare stories” – columnist, and apologist for the Scottish salmon farming industry, Magnus Linklater writes:

 

“What an irony that America, the most health-conscious nation in the world, which insists that its beef is safe to eat, despite an outbreak of BSE, should be attempting to decimate the Scottish farmed salmon industry by spreading wholly unjustified scare stories.  It is barely 10 days since the USA launched a campaign to persuade the dozen or so countries that have suspended imports of American beef that the fears about its safety were grossly exaggerated.  Now its Environmental Protection Agency has issued a report which claims that Scottish farmed salmon is full of toxins and potentially carcinogenic. Yet the evidence is far flimsier, far less convincing and far more distorted than the case against their own contaminated meat”

 

The article refers to “One American scientist who has read the report in detail” who “says that in his view it is an argument for eating more farmed salmon rather than less”.  Is this the very same Professor Charles Santerre (or Saunterre as Scotland on Sunday likes to refer to him as) who is a paid consultant to the salmon farming industry?  And could Mr Linklater not managed to check other facts such as the fact that the Science study was not conducted by the US EPA but respected scientists at Indiana University, the University at Albany and Cornell University?  His jingoism goes on:

 

“So where does the scare come from, and why is it being spread so zealously by the Americans? A cynic would have no difficulty in reaching a conclusion. This would appear to be a naked bid to protect the USA’s own farmed salmon industry, and to promote the Pacific salmon which it claims is entirely safe to eat.  By alleging that North European salmon are contaminated, it effectively undermines the opposition while promoting its own product. If that were the case, then it would be remarkably short-sighted. There would be no sympathy whatsoever for US beef producers as they attempt to shore up their own industry; and the next time there was even the smallest scare story about American food, the Europeans would simply turn their backs on it.  A more likely explanation is the sheer paranoia of American consumers, producers and scientists alike”

 

The article concludes by making a plea (no doubt supported by paid consultant to the salmon farming industry, Professor Charles Santerre) for the US to disregard independent peer-reviewed research published in the world’s foremost scientific journal, Science, and to advocate the consumption of more contaminated farmed Scottish salmon:

 

“So the Americans are right to play down the risk from their single case of BSE-infected cattle. But if they want our support, they should desist from spreading unwarranted scare stories about other people’s food.  The best thing they can do to redress the damage is to issue a clear statement now which emphasises that their own report has been widely misunderstood.  In fact, they should say, it demonstrates that Scottish, Norwegian and Irish farmed salmon is perfectly safe to eat, is good for your health, and should, if anything, be consumed in greater quantities than before. Then we can all breathe easier”

 

Full article via: http://www.news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=34492004

 

An editorial – “Fishing for answers” – outlines the very real economic implications of a consumer boycott of contaminated farmed Scottish salmon:

 

“The image of salmon took a blow last week with the publication in Science, the highly respected American scientific journal, of a report suggesting that the levels of dioxins and PCBs - potentially cancer-causing chemicals - found in farmed Scottish salmon are substantially higher than those found in wild salmon.  Fish farming is one of Scotland’s great business successes. The Scottish salmon-farming industry is the third largest in the world, producing 150,000 tons of salmon a year, generating £500m a year and directly and indirectly employing more than 6,500 people.  However, competition is growing, particularly from South America, and profit margins are under pressure. The fear is that this warning from American scientists could have a substantial impact on Scotland’s salmon farmers. This would hurt the Highlands, where salmon provides half of the region’s food exports, but it could also affect the Scottish food industry more broadly.  Over the last 10 years Scotland has established a growing international reputation for the production of top-quality food, and salmon has been widely seen as a symbol of the excellence of ‘Scotland the Brand’. Any reluctance by consumers to buy Scottish farmed salmon could cause wider damage to the food industry”

 

Full article via: http://www.news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=34812004

 

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For press up-dates including a media archive please see The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

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Science press up-date (9th January):

 

For further up-dated information on the Science study see The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

 

Further press information can be found via the Institute for Health and the Environment: http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/index.html

 

Includes:

 

The Science paper – “Global Assessment of Organic Contaminants in Farmed Salmon”: http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/completestudy.html

 

“Salmon meals per month recommendations”: http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/graph1.html

 

“Frequently asked questions about the Science study”: http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/faqs.html

 

 

 

Please find enclosed the following press coverage on the recent Science publication:

 

“Only eat salmon three times a year” (The Daily Mail, 9th January)

 

“Warning!  Eating salmon can seriously damage your health: farmed salmon linked to cancer risk – scientists warn against eating more than one portion every 8 weeks” (The Times, 9th January)

 

“Scottish farmed salmon is ‘full of cancer toxins’” (The Daily Telegraph, 9th January)

 

“Cancer warning over Scottish farmed salmon” (The Guardian, 9th January)

 

“Toxins cited in farmed salmon – cancer risk is lower in wild fish, study reports” (The Washington Post, 9th January)

 

“Wild healthier than farmed” (CBS News, 9th January)

 

Includes a video clip: “We are certainly not telling people not to eat fish….We’re telling them to eat less farmed salmon” (Dr David Carpenter, University at Albany, N.Y – co-author of the Science study)

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/08/health/main592163.shtml

 

 

 

Other press links enclosed include New Scientist, Reuters, BBC News, The New York Times, Reuters, USA Today, ABC News, The Herald, The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, CBC News, The Scotsman, The Oregonian and The London Evening Standard (for up-dated links to news articles see The Salmon Farm Monitor’s media and press archive: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org)

 

 

See also press releases on the Science study:

 

“Science: Scottish farmed salmon the most contaminated in the world – consumption advice is that no more than one meal every four months should be consumed in order to avoid an increased risk of cancer” (The Salmon Farm Protest Group, 8th January: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org)

 

“New report: Scots farmed salmon top world ‘toxic league table’ – scientists warn of human health risk” (Friends of the Earth Scotland, 8th January): http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/press/pr20040101.html

 

“Salmon contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals, study shows (Friends of the Earth, 8th January): http://www.foe.org.uk/resource/press_releases/salmon_contaminated_with_c.html

 

“Food Standards Agency – Greens not convinced, demand for inquiry” (Scottish Green Party, 9th January): http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/2004/jan/090104fsa.htm

 

“Scottish farmed salmon contamination – investigation needed say Greens” (Scottish Green Party, 8th January): http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/2004/jan/080104salmon.htm

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The Times includes a cartoon: Two cats sitting in a restaurant reading a menu and saying to the waiter: “Cancel the salmon.  We’ll just have the mice”]

 

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The Daily Mail (Front page), 9th January

 

‘Only eat salmon three times a year’ – salmon health alert

 

Sean Poulter (Consumer affairs correspondent)

 

Scientists issued a devastating new warning last night about the safety of Scottish farmed salmon.  They said the fish is so contaminated with toxic chemicals it should be eaten no more than three times a year.  The chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and birth defects, come from the feed used in fish farms.  The findings could have a shattering impact on the £700 million-a-year Scottish salmon farming industry, which supports some 6,500 jobs.  Sales of salmon soared as farming brought prices down and the health benefits of oily fish emerged.  It has overtaken cod as the best-selling fresh fish in Britain – 98 per cent comes from Scottish farms.  Salmon farmers there branded the latest study ‘deliberately misleading’ last night while the Food Standards Agency said the levels of pollutants were within safety limits used by Britain, the EU and the World Health Organisation.  Its chairman Sir John Krebs said the health benefits of eating oily fish outweighed any risk.  Dr Jeffery Foran, an American toxicologist involved in the study, said neither he nor his family would eat farmed salmon again after what he discovered. 

 

[Photo of a farmed salmon and caption: What’s in your dinner?

 

PCBs, dioxins and pesticides collect in seas through dumping, rain and run-off into rivers.  They accumulate in fat of ocean fish used to produce feed pellets for farmed salmon.

 

PCBs: Now banned, once used as electrical insulation.  Worries over increased cancer risk, damage to brain and immune system

 

Dioxins: Given off in waste incineration, chemical manufacturing, paper bleaching.  Linked to higher cancer rates

 

Toxaphene and Dieldrin: Pesticides previously used in agriculture.  Worries over cancer risk

 

Canthaxanthin: Chemical colour fed to farmed salmon to dye flesh ‘healthy’ pink.  EU wants to restrict use, fearing it damages eyesight

 

Radioactive waste: Technetium-99 found by separate studies in Scottish salmon.  Experts say no risk at levels detected but Sellafield considering stopping discharges

 

Malachite green: Used by farmers to treat parasites.  Now banned as cancer risk, but recently found in 15 per cent of farmed fish]

 

The project – based at the University of Albany in New York state – looked at pollutant levels in farmed and wild salmon bought in Britain, Europe and North America.  Previous small-scale studies had identified a contamination risk, but this is by far the biggest and most comprehensive study.  Researchers measured the levels of industrial pollutants – PCBs and dioxins – and agricultural pesticides such as toxaphene and dieldrin.  They examined 700 fish, some bought in London supermarkets and some direct from Scottish farms.  The highest concentrations were found in fish from Scotland and the Faroe Islands.  Dr Foran said this may be because their feed contains oil recovered from the ground-up bodies of tiny sea life harvested in the North Atlantic – a dumping ground for decades for man-made toxins.  Fish from Norway also performed badly. 

 

The study, published in the respected U.S. journal Science concluded: “The consumption advice is that no more than one meal every four months should be consumed in order to avoid an increased risk of cancer”.  Even smaller amounts, it suggested could trigger harmful effects to brain function and the immune system.  Dr Foran said: “All the compounds we were looking for are classified as probable carcinogens.  The evidence from comprehensive animal studies points to a range of cancers including liver, breast, lymphatic and thyroid.  There are a variety of other health effects, particularly in relation to PCBs.  They include reproductive and developmental effects.  There are also neurological, brain function effects and immune system effects”.  All the fish tested was in fillets, but the findings apply equally to smoked salmon.  Almost all tinned salmon, however, is produced from wild fish which have only low levels of pollution.

 

Despite the startling results of the survey, the FSA said it was sticking by its advice to consumers.  Sir John Krebs said: “People should consume at least two portions of fish a week – one of which should be oily like salmon.  There is good evidence that eating oily fish reduces the risk of heart attacks.  We advise that the known benefits outweigh any possible risks”.  Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents farmers, said the researchers had been wrong to use strict guidelines drawn up by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency rather than those used elsewhere in the world.  Technical consultant Dr John Webster said: “PCB and dioxin levels in Scottish salmon are significantly lower than the thresholds set by international watchdogs”.  The organisation said its members apply “the most stringent and independently inspected quality assurance standards in the world”.  It said feed suppliers had taken steps to minimise PCB and dioxin levels, including sourcing fish meal and oils from seas which are less polluted and switching to plant oils.

 

But Don Staniford of the Salmon Farm Protest Group (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org) said: “This scientific study blows out of the water the myth that farmed salmon is safe, nutritious and healthy.  It’s official – farmed salmon is now the most contaminated foodstuff on the supermarket shelf”.  Dr Dan Barlow, head of research for Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “We have long known that farmed salmon were more heavily contaminated with toxic pollutants than their wild relatives.  We now know Scottish-raised salmon are among the most contaminated and that the levels of contaminants may be so high as to possibly detract from the health benefits of eating fish.”  Pollutants are not the only problem facing salmon farmers.  Recent studies have found contamination with radioactive waste from Sellafield nuclear plant, while there are concerns about the use of malachite green to kill parasites and infections.  There are also health fears over feeding the fish chemicals which colour their flesh pink.  Scotland’s estimated 300 salmon farms produce some 160,000 tonnes of salmon a year.  Almost three-quarters of the jobs in the industry are in remote rural areas with fragile economies.  These are boosted by an estimated £1 million a week in wages alone.

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The Times (Front page), 9th January

 

Warning!  Eating salmon can seriously damage your health

 

Farmed salmon linked to cancer risk – scientists warn against eating more than one portion every 8 weeks

 

Mark Henderson (Science correspondent)

 

People who regularly eat farmed salmon may be raising their risk of developing cancer, scientists said yesterday.  Salmon raised on British fish farms are so contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals that consumers would be unwise to eat them more than once every other month, a major study has concluded.  The analysis of more than 700 fish weighing more than two tonnes in total found that farmed salmon across Europe and North America had much higher concentrations of 14 pollutants than fish caught from the wild.  The chemicals, which include dioxins, DDT and PCBs, belong to a class known as organochlorines, which are linked to cancer and birth defects.  Levels in salmon bought from European supermarkets were so high that eating more than one portion every two months could raise a person’s risk of cancer, according to guidelines from the US Environmental Protection Agency.  The most polluted salmon came from farms in Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark.  It was so contaminated that the EPA advice would allow only an 8oz (227g) portion every four months.  North American farmed salmon had lower levels of the chemicals, allowing up to two portions a month to be eaten safely.  Wild salmon is cleaner, and can be consumed up to eight times a month without any negative effects.

 

[Photo of a farmed salmon ‘today’s special’: Food for thought – consumers who spend £700 million a year on farmed salmon in supermarkets are likely to be alarmed by the study into the health risks]

 

The findings, which are published today in the journal Science, suggest that the cheap farmed salmon sold in supermarkets is far from a healthy option.  The British industry is worth £300 million a year, and consumers spend £700 million on farmed salmon in supermarkets.  Sales have risen from 600 tonnes in 1980 to 140,000 in 2001.  While salmon is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which reduce the risk of heart disease and may protect against some cancers, these benefits may be outweighed by the environmental pollutants.  “Risk analysis indicates that consumption of farmed Atlantic salmon may pose health risks that detract from the beneficial effects of fish consumption,” the scientists said.  David Carpenter, of the State University of New York, one of the study authors, said: “The punch line is that eating the wrong kind of fish has real dangers.  Fish that is not contaminated is a healthy food, high in nutrients, such as omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, that are known to have a variety of beneficial health effects.  However, this study suggests that consumption of farmed salmon may result in exposure to a variety of persistent bioaccummulative contaminants, with the potential for an elevation in attendant health risks”.

 

[Cartoon: Two cats sitting in a restaurant reading a menu and saying to the waiter: “Cancel the salmon.  We’ll just have the mice”]

 

The most likely explanation for the high levels of pollutants in farmed salmon is the feed they are generally given, which consists of a high-fat mixture of other fish, ground into fishmeal and fish oil.  As organochlorines build up in the fatty tissues of fish, they become concentrated in this high-fat food, and are passed on to the farmed salmon.  Experts said that the results showed the importance of changing the feed regimes on salmon farms.  “This is a definitive study,” Miriam Jacobs, a nutritionist and toxicologist at the University of Surrey and the Royal Veterinary College said: “Further action has to be taken to reduce contaminant levels in feed”.  Mary Taylor, a chemicals campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “The figures look pretty shocking.  I think consumers and food producers alike will be alarmed.  We need to get to grips with the problem of persistent chemicals.  There’s a need for more studies along these lines.  It’s not just a problem with farmed salmon; the same problem could apply to other intensively farmed animals”….

 

Ronald Hites, of Indiana University, who led the study, said: “I think it’s important for people who eat salmon to know that farmed salmon have higher levels of toxins than wild salmon.  Farmed salmon retails at between £3 and £4 for 10oz of steak, although a single piece at a fresh fish counter can cost as little as £1.  The farmer gets about 65p for 10oz.  The study’s conclusions do not apply to tinned salmon, most of which is wild and imported from Alaska.  They do, however, apply to smoked salmon. 

 

Full article via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk

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The Daily Telegraph, 9th January

 

Scottish farmed salmon is ‘full of cancer toxins’

 

Includes: “We think it's important for people who eat salmon to know that farmed salmon have higher levels of toxins than wild salmon from the open ocean,” said Prof Ronald Hites of Indiana University, who led the study.

 

“My choice would be, if I were to seek out farm-raised Atlantic salmon, to select north or south American sources, based on these data,” added co-author Prof Barbara Knuth of Cornell University

 

Full report via:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/09/nfish09.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/09/ixhome.html

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The Guardian, 9th January

 

Cancer warning over Scottish farmed salmon

 

Includes: “Levels of cancer-causing toxins in Scottish farmed salmon are so high that consumers are being advised not to eat more than one portion every two months to safeguard their health. Some scientists were so alarmed by the findings that they believe that young girls and women of child bearing age would be advised not to eat Scottish salmon at all for fear of causing birth defects and brain damage in their unborn children”

 

“The research, published in today's Science magazine, which analysed salmon samples bought around the world, including from shops in London and Edinburgh, concluded that salmon farmed in Scotland and the Faroe Islands was the most contaminated in the world. Wild salmon was given a clean bill of health and farmed salmon from Chile and North America, while containing some pesticides and dioxins, was cleaner than that from the North Atlantic.  Some of the most dangerous chemicals associated with cancer - dieldrin, lindane, dioxins and PCBs, now all banned or carefully controlled - were found in samples of Scottish salmon.  The size of the sample was massive, with 594 individual whole salmon purchased and 144 fillets in cities across Europe and North America - a total of two tonnes of fish. The study, by a group of American universities, is the largest of its kind”

 

Full report via: http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1119339,00.html

 

Also in The Guardian:

 

“Contamination of the food chain - Salmon scare to hit fish farms and the fleets” (9th January):

 

Includes: “The discovery of high quantities of cancer-causing chemicals in farmed salmon from Scotland is catastrophic news for fish farming in Britain, as well as for the already hard-pressed fishing fleets.  The loss in sales that will follow will affect them both - because the chemicals found in farmed salmon do not come from the water they swim in but from the food they eat. This food is manufactured from fish caught on the bottom of the seas round Britain, predominantly in the North Sea”

 

“The report comes as a body blow for Scotland's salmon farmers after a difficult year. Prices have slumped in the past year and there have been a series of studies condemning the industry for the quality of its product and its impact on wild fish.

“What can you say?” said one salmon farmer, who asked not to be named, yesterday. “There isn't a week goes by when there isn't negative press. Everybody is totally depressed. Why do we need this?”

 

Full report via: http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1119227,00.html

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The Washington Post, 9th January

 

Toxins cited in farmed salmon – cancer risk is lower in wild fish, study reports

 

Includes: “The two-year, $2.4 million study, funded by the Pew Charitable Trust and published yesterday in the journal Science, is the latest blow to the commercial fish industry, already suffering from growing concerns about elevated levels of mercury in tuna and shellfish”

 

“Consumers may have difficulty distinguishing between farmed and wild salmon, because many stores and restaurants do not clearly label them. Wild salmon is three to four times as expensive, but some retailers confuse the issue by identifying farmed salmon as "Atlantic salmon." The study called for labels differentiating wild from farmed and noting the country of origin”

 

Full report via: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A733-2004Jan8.html

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CBS News, 8th January

 

Wild salmon healthier than farmed

 

Includes Video to download:

 

“We are certainly not telling people not to eat fish. ... We're telling them to eat less farmed salmon” (Dr David Carpenter, University at Albany, N.Y – co-author of the Science study)

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/08/health/main592163.shtml

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Other press articles includes (see also The Salmon Farm Monitor’s press archive: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org):

 

 

 

“New warning over poisons in farmed salmon” (The Herald, 9th January): http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/7685.html

 

“Eating farm salmon 'raises risk of cancer'” (The Scotsman, 9th January): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=27102004

 

“Study finds higher level of toxins in farmed salmon” (The Seattle Times, 9th January): http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2001833048_salmon09.html

 

“Study warns of danger in eating farmed salmon” (Seattle Post Intelligencer, 9th January): http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/155971_salmon09.html

 

“Farmed salmon have more contaminants than wild ones, study finds” (The New York Times, 9th January): http://www.nytimes.com

 

“Scientists split on safety of salmon” (The London Evening Standard, 9th January): http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/8519194?source=Evening%20Standard

 

“Salmon health warning sparks inquiry call” (The Scotsman, 8th January): http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2388000

 

“Study finds farmed salmon contains pollutants: Good or bad for you? - contaminants found in farmed salmon tarnish a healthy food's reputation” (ABC News, 8th January):

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/SciTech/Living/salmon_risk_contaminants_040108-1.html

 

“Scare over farmed salmon safety - Salmon farmed in Scotland is among the most tainted with cancer-causing chemicals, US scientists have warned” (BBC News, 8th January): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3380735.stm

 

“Farmed salmon more contaminated than wild” (New Scientist, 8th January): http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994547

 

“Farmed salmon loaded with chemicals, study finds” (Reuters, 8th January): http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=042D3MGQFOVUOCRBAE0CFFA?type=healthNews&storyID=4096208

 

“More dioxins found in farmed salmon, but FDA unconcerned” (USA Today, 8th January): http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-01-08-salmon-study_x.htm

 

“Study raises concerns for salmon farming industry” (The Oregonian, 8th January):

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1073615340121480.xml

 

“Farmed salmon loaded with chemicals, study finds” (Reuters, 8th January): http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=042D3MGQFOVUOCRBAE0CFFA?type=healthNews&storyID=4096208

 

“Study raises questions about safety of farmed salmon” (CBC News, 8th January): http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/08/salmon_040108

 

“Study confirms farmed salmon more toxic than wild fish” (CBC News, 8th January): http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/08/salmon040108

 

 

The Salmon Farm Protest Group Limited

An ruda bhios na do bhrôin, cha bhi e na do thimhnadh

That which you have wasted will not be there for future generations  

 

JANUARY EDITION OF SALMON FARM MONITOR

ON-LINE MONDAY 5TH JANUARY 2004:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

  • European Parliament petitioned to investigate Scottish Executive fish farm fraud
  • Fish farm protesters out in San Francisco, USA and Queensland, Australia
  • Nutreco under investigation for fraud and breach of contract
  • Green Party leader, Robin Harper slams “out of touch fisheries minister”
  • Malachite green meeting in February on "toxicology and carcinogenesis"
  • Leading Canadian environmentalist writes New Year 2004 guest column
  • Massive Irish fish farm application chucked out by Appeal Agency
  • WWF and SWT denounce Executive claims of ‘sustainable fish farm growth’
  • International News, News from around the Fish Farms, Rod McGill
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org
The simple and elegantly laid-out Salmon Farming Monitor site has table-thumping news and views of the fish farming industry here and throughout the world
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/index.shtml

Embargoed Until 12pm 20th December
“Santa Says No No No to Farmed Salmon”
- Ten Reasons to Boycott Farmed Salmon This Christmas
The Salmon Farm Protest Group (SFPG) today (Saturday 20th) takes to the streets of Edinburgh to celebrate wild salmon and to protest about the danger factory farmed salmon poses to wild fish populations. SFPG supporters will be dressed as Santas and chefs handing out tins of wild Alaskan salmon to Christmas shoppers on Princes St (12-1pm outside M&S) and Rose St (1-2pm outside Sainsbury’s). At 2.15 pm the SFPG will personally deliver a surprise Christmas present to the First Minister of Scotland at St Andrews House on Regents Road.
Bruce Sandison, Chairman of the SFPG, said:
“Consumers should avoid farmed salmon this Christmas. Before buying customers should count to ten and think again. Ten reasons to say no to farmed salmon include: fish farm sea lice infestations killing wild salmon, a possible risk of listeria, artificial colourings and contaminants. Before buying these products in supermarkets, consumers would be well-advised to ask staff if it is wild or farmed salmon, and what chemicals it contains. Better safe than sorry. Have a happy, healthy Christmas.”
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org


Notes to Editors:
Ten Reasons to Boycott Fresh Farmed Salmon This Christmas:
1) Sea lice – factory salmon farms are infested with parasites and spread sea lice to wild salmon and sea trout
2) Escapes – a recent scientific paper published by the Royal Society concludes that mass escapes from farms can lead to extinctions in wild salmon
3) Wastes: Salmon farms discharge untreated wastes directly into pristine marine waters thereby using the sea as an open sewer
4) Unsustainable: far from saving wild fish, salmon farming is a drain on depleted marine resources and is inherently unsustainable
5) Listeria – One in ten smoked salmon are contaminated with listeria which can cause meningitis, blood poisoning and still births in pregnant women
6) Insanitary and filthy – the US FDA have refused over 200 cases of Irish, Scottish, Chilean and Norwegian salmon for being ‘insanitary’ and ‘filthy’
7) Fatty – Farmed salmon contains more fat than wild salmon (up to ten times fattier in some cases)
8) Chemicals – Factory farmed salmon are dependent upon a cocktail of toxic chemicals to control diseases and parasites
9) Artificial colourings – farmed salmon contain synthetic pink dyes such as Astaxanthin and Canthaxanthin (E161g)
10) Contaminants – farmed salmon can contain DDT, chlordane and dioxins and can be up to ten times more contaminated with PCBs than wild salmon
For the more details on the “Ten Reasons” including web-links and further information: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/pr201203notes.shtml

Press Release from The Salmon Farm Protest Group: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Please find enclosed a press up-date on sea cage fish farming issues from around the world. 

 

Includes articles from Nature, Science, New Scientist, Reuters, National Geographic, ABC, Bloomberg, ENN, Mail on Sunday (Scotland), LA Times, The Irish Examiner, Intrafish, The Seattle Times, The Salmon Farm Monitor, The Irish Independent, The Advertiser (Australia), The Press & Journal, Scoop (New Zealand), Independent on Sunday, The Oregonian, The Belfast Telegraph, Latin American Press, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Herald, The Mercury and the Inter Press Service

 

Keep up-to-date on sea cage fish farming issues via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

The Salmon Farm Monitor includes an international news archive (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/archive.shtml) and all the latest international news: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/news.shtml

 

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1) “Santa Says No No No to Farmed Salmon” - - Ten Reasons to Boycott Farmed Salmon This Christmas: The Salmon Farm Monitor, 20th December 

 

2) Irish licence appeals board gives thumbs down to Marine Harvest site: Intrafish, 17th December

 

3) Natural salmon naturally better, says leading chef: The Seattle Times, 15th December

 

4) I lost my girlfriend and my career and almost lost my mind – because of a chemical used in fish farms: Was the life of a bright young student destroyed by poisons that were used every day in the mass production of fish for human consumption?: The Mail on Sunday, 14th December

 

5) Kingfish farm locations cause concern: ABC News, 11th December

 

6) Tighter rules for organic fish farms: Independent on Sunday, 7th December

 

7) Salmon farming must change; we have a lot to lose - the escape of Atlantic salmon into Northwest waters could cripple the region's iconic wild fish: The Oregonian, 7th December

 

8) Threat to salmon is probed - scientists look at danger from fish farm escapes: The Belfast Telegraph, 5th December

 

9) Salmon farm industry struggles to live up to its promise: ENN, 5th December

 

10) Going Dutch: The Salmon Farm Monitor, December

 

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“The accident Mr Findlay refers to as ‘the end of my world’ happened on May 28, 1990.  Already disturbed at the lax conditions he had found at the Cromarty Salmon Company, he was unhappy to be told he would have to ‘delouse’ the cages more than a mile out in the Firth.  Given a slight, protective mask and wearing overalls, he watched as a mix of Aquaguard SLT, an organophosphate compound, was added to a bucket of water and he was then shown how to sluice it over the trout cages moored in the Cromarty Firth.  As he did so, the bucket slipped in his hand and its contents went all over his head, face, shoulders and upper body.  “I felt an immediate burning sensation and I wretched the mask off, shoving my head forward to stop anything running into my mouth.  The manager, Brian Shaw, grabbed me and tried to wash my face with the cage water which was already contaminated with the compound” (Extract from The Mail on Sunday, 14th December)

 

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11) Marine Harvest fish farm blockade: The Salmon Farm Monitor, December

 

12) Pollution minister ‘out of touch’ on fish farming, say Greens: The Scottish Green Party, 4th December

 

13) State takes dim view of GloFish, bans sale: Los Angeles Times, 4th December

 

14) The big business agenda driving the destruction of Scotland’s marine environment: The Salmon Farm Monitor, December

 

15) Policing aquaculture: The Irish Independent, 3rd December

 

16) Salmon farmers reject claims Irish fish were 'filthy': The Irish Independent, 3rd December

 

17) Executive ‘unaware’ of fish farm jobs: The Press & Journal, 2nd December

 

18) Salmon industry under fire - fish farming needs to clean up act, say critics: Latin American Press, 1st December

 

19) Farmed salmon – a dream turned nightmare: The Salmon Farm Monitor, December

 

20) Scottish salmon banned in U.S. after discovery of ‘deadly’ bug – Queen’s supplier among firms whose products are rejected as unhealthy: The Daily Mail, 1st December

 

21) New Zealand government extends ban on new marine farms: Bloomberg News, 1st December

 

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“Chile the production of salmon in the country has climbed spectacularly in recent years, the industry is now having to fend off an increasing number of accusations concerning poorly monitored farming processes, badly paid workers and its destructive effects on Chile’s coastline. Illegal chemicals are still being used in the production process, some food safety campaigners claim, while others allege that certain Chilean producers use more antibiotics in their rearing of the fish than they should. Antibiotics are added to the food given to salmon to protect them against disease and infection. Several Chilean shipments were stopped by both the United Kingdom and Netherlands customs authorities this year, after inspections revealed that the salmon cargoes contained a banned anti-fungal chemical, malachite green. The substance, which is cheaper than accepted anti-sea lice agents, has been linked to cancer” (Extract from the Latin American Press, 1st December)

 

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22) US rejects ‘filthy’ farmed salmon - industry fury as 27 shipments banned by food watchdog: The Sunday Herald, 30th November

 

23) Pacific Northwest salmon farms breed concerns - authorities in the region grapple with diseased stocks escaping and the ill effects posed by high food costs and tons of fish waste: The Oregonian, 30th November

 

24) Spawning freaks of nature: The Oregnonian, 29th November

 

25) Eat your veg - with fish farming on the rise, researchers are seeking ways to make aquaculture sustainable.  One solution may mean turning carnivorous fish into vegetarians: Nature, 27th November

 

26) Oversized fish cause concern: Scoop, 26th November

 

27) Salmon farms need to clean up their act: Irish Examiner, 24th November

 

28) Legal battle looms over lost fish: The Advertiser, 22nd November

 

29) Glowing fish to be first genetically changed pet: Reuters, 21st November

 

30) The future for fisheries: Science, 21st November

 

31) New illegal salmon catch: The Mercury, 21st November

 

32) Sea star menace spreads: The Mercury, 5th November

 

33) Genetically altered fish raises ethical concerns: Inter Press Service, 28th October

 

34) Wild-farm hybrids not reaching spawning grounds?: National Geographic, 28th October

 

35) Fish farm danger: New Scientist, 25th October

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Keep up-to-date on sea cage fish farming issues via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

"INSANITARY" AND "FILTHY" FARMED SALMON
United States refuses imports of Irish and Scottish salmon

Over the last year the US FDA has refused to allow the import of over 260 farmed salmon products from Ireland, Scotland, Norway, and Chile. Reasons for the issuing of Import Refusal Reports include "Insanitary" (226 cases), "Listeria" (23), "Filthy" (9) and "Mislabelling" (4).

Findings include:

Irish salmon was by far the most "insanitary" representing 210 out of 226 cases

Salmon from the United Kingdom was the most likely to be contaminated with listeria accounting for 15 out of the 23 cases (65%)

"Filthy" salmon was refused from Ireland (4 cases), UK (3), Chile (1) and Norway (1)

Nolans Seafoods, Tipperary Fine Foods Ltd, Wrights of Howth, Loch Fyne Oysters Ltd, Lossie Seafoods Ltd, Chiefdale and Pinneys Of Scotland Ltd were the worst offenders

The FDA's define the offences in their 'violation codes' as follows:

'Filthy': "The article appears to consist in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise unfit for food"

'Insanitary': "The article appears to have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health"

'Listeria': "The article appears to contain Listeria, a poisonous and deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health"

Don Staniford, MD of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said:

"The US FDA has discovered what many of us have known all along - that there are farmed salmon products from Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Chile that might be a health hazard and 'unfit for food'. The refusal of the FDA to allow some imports of farmed salmon from Scotland into the USA is a particularly devastating blow for an industry that accounts for 40% of total Scottish food exports and is still reeling from a threat by the EU to ban Scottish salmon contaminated with malachite green.

"If the US is refusing to allow some Irish and Scottish salmon into the country, then why should consumers be duped into buying what could possibly be, on the evidence from the US, 'filthy' and 'insanitary'? Scotland and Ireland's hard-won reputations as purveyors of high quality foods are being internationally degraded by the export of smoked salmon that is unfit for human consumption"

For further information contact Don Staniford on Tel: 07880 716082
(00 44 7880 716082 from outside UK)
See also: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

 

A selection of news links to sea cage fish farming articles from:  

Reuters, The Sunday Times (Australia), The Irish Examiner, BBC News (UK), The New Zealand Herald, Kansai Time Out (Japan), The Times Standard (Canada), Castlebar News (Ireland), The Press & Journal (Scotland), Greenzine International, The Salmon Farm Monitor (UK), Salon (United States), ABC (Australia), The San Jose Mercury, The Oregonian (US), The Alaska Journal of Commerce, The Chicago Tribune, The Anchorage Daily News, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail (Canada), The Sea Around Us, Environment, The Northern Advocate (New Zealand), EcoAmericas (Chile), Science Daily and Save The Swilly (Ireland) 

International issues featured include:

 

- Contamination of Chilean farmed salmon

- Illegal chemical use on Japanese fish farms

- Royal Society paper on farmed escapees

- Stanford University study of salmon farming

- GM fish coming to a supermarket near you soon?

- Irish salmon farming inquiry after a TV expose

- Shark attacks on tuna farms in Mexico

- Escapes threaten wild salmon in Iceland

 

Keep up-to-date on international sea cage fish farming issues via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

The enclosed Word document features:

 

1) Poison fish: Kansai Time Out (November)

 

2) The salmon farm industry in Southern Chile: from panacea to Pandora’s box?: The

Salmon Farm Monitor (November)

 

3) Forum educates the public on farmed salmon dangers: The Times Standard (16th November)

 

4) One fish, two fish, genetically new fish - firm seeks OK for altered salmon: The Chicago Tribune (12th November)

 

5) Marine farmers look to grow overseas: New Zealand Herald (12th November)

 

6) Radioactive Russian salmon feared among Scottish stocks: The Press & Journal (11th November)

 

7) Farmed and dangerous: Salon (7th November)

 

8) Sea trout and wild salmon have been victims of ethnic cleansing: Save The Swilly (5th November)

 

9) Escapes enter Icelandic rivers: The Salmon Farm Monitor (November)

 

10) Scottish Seafarms Limited pollute West Highland river: The Salmon Farm Monitor (November)

 

11) Diver attacks Great White: The Sunday Times (2nd November)

 

12) Fish farm campaigner - Earthbeat meets an international campaigner on
the environmental and health effects of sea-cage fish farming, who says Australia should be wary of overseas experience: ABC (1st November)

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Quote of the month “The present conflicts in the Chilean southern archipelagos is part of an emerging global environmental battle over high-intensity fish farming.  Environmentalists, coastal communities and the artisan fishermen in south of Chile are calling for the consumers’ awareness concerning the negatives impacts of Chile's rapidly expanding salmon-farm industry.  This problem is a global concern in salmon industry terms, and a time bomb in ecological terms” (Juan Carl Cardenas of Ecoceanos writing in the November issue of The Salmon Farm Monitor): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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13) Salmon aquaculture in the Pacific Northwest - a global industry with local impacts: Environment (October)

 

14) Farmed salmon come under fire: The Globe and Mail (31st October)

 

15) Think twice about eating farmed salmon: The New York Times (31st October)

 

16) Farmed salmon have negative impact on Alaska fishing industry: The Alaska Journal of Commerce (27th October)

 

17) Fish farm waste treatment at sea?: ABC (23rd October)

 

18) Debate grows over fish farms - environmental concerns are key issue at UW forum: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (21st October)

 

19) Farm threat to wild salmon: BBC News Online (20th October)

 

20) Despite all the rage there are still fish in a cage: Greenzine International (16th October)

 

21) Threat to Northern Ireland’s wild salmon: BBC News, 16th October

 

22) Fishy goings-on with salmon farming: The Irish Examiner (14th October)

 

23) Fisheries Board to go to the E.U. if action not taken on fish farms: Castlebar News (4th October)

 

24) Scientist issues finfish farming warning - is our clean green image at risk?: The Northern Advocate (4th October)

 

25) Salmon farms spawn fortunes, and critics, in Chile: Reuters (2nd October)

 

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Quote of the month: “RTE’s recent Prime Time programme finally exposed what really goes on in the murky world of salmon farming. For the first time, TV cameras unveiled salmon farming’s routine and scandalous abuse of our environment: a) sea-beds knee-deep in dumped salmon carcasses; b) stocks of wild salmon and sea trout eaten alive with parasites from the densely-packed salmon-cages; c) fisheries destroyed; d) bogs used as convenient dumps for diseased salmon and offal…..

 

How, then, can the appalling environmental sacrileges and illegalities exposed by Prime Time be allowed to go unpunished?  Simple. The backbone of the Marine Institute board comprises men who are up to their necks in salmon farming.  And the latest recruit to the aquaculture appeals board is an ex-salmon-feed manufacturer. These political shenanigans guarantee that salmon farmers ignore scientific findings, ride roughshod over environmental concerns while simultaneously remaining protected from sanction and prosecution. We must be grateful for Prime Time finally dragging some of these spurious environmental protectors under the full glare of public scrutiny” (Dr Roderick O’Sullivan in The Irish Examiner, 14th October)

 

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26) Fungicide and antibiotic sideline Chilean salmon: EcoAmericas (September)

 

27) Fish farms bite fishermen's bottom lines: The San Jose Mercury (27th September)

 

28) Salmon farms pose significant threat to salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, researchers find: Science Daily (23rd September)

 

29) Imported seafood goes untested - despite evidence of illegal contaminants in imported fish, only a tiny fraction is screened before reaching U.S. consumers: The Oregonian (14th September)

 

30) Chile’s fish tainted by dangerous antibiotic - high levels of the toxic antibiotic oxytetracycline found in farmed salmon from Chile are sending shock waves through the industry: Anchorage Daily News (13th September)

 

31) Finfish farming – should New Zealand adopt the new technology?: Whangarei Crusing Club (September)

 

32) Salmon farming in Chile: The Sea Around Us (July/August)

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Quote of the month: “Salmon farming is but one facet of the international cartel to privatise the near-shore coastlines and ocean-bottoms for everything from algae production to shellfish to fish.  Given that the overwhelming bulk of the world’s marine landings come from waters under national jurisdiction, this is a social, legal and international issue that needs immediate attention in Chile and in all coastal nations” (Jim Fulton writing in The Sea Around Us, July/August)

 

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The Salmon Farm Monitor includes a monthly up-date of ‘International News’:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/news.shtml

 

And an International news archive:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/archive.shtml

 

============================================================

 

Kansai Time Out, November

 

Poison fish: Pufferfish (fugu) are a traditional winter delicacy. But the way they're farmed is a cause for concern.  Nevin Thompson reports

 

Includes: “In May, fisheries officials in Nagasaki Prefecture ordered over a million farm-raised fugu to be destroyed after local aquaculture cooperatives admitted to dumping formalin into floating sea-cages. Formalin, the liquid version of formaldehyde, the same chemical used to preserve laboratory specimens and embalm corpses, is used to kill external parasites. Formalin is also a known carcinogen and has been banned from human consumption in Japan since 1981”

 

“Although fish farmers often have to resort to smuggling formalin over from Taiwan and Korea, its use is a widespread, underground activity that is unofficially sanctioned by the government," says Matsumoto Motosuke, an activist based in Amakusa, Kyushu”

 

Full article available via Kansai Time Out: http://www.kto.co.jp/article1.html

 

See also: “Cancer-causing chemicals found in Japanese fish” (The Salmon Farm Monitor: June 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item10

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The Salmon Farm Monitor, November

 

The salmon farm industry in Southern Chile: from panacea to Pandora’s box?

Juan Carlos Cárdenas, Chile’s leading environmentalist, on the big business interests behind the explosive development of Chile's damaging salmon farming industry

Includes: “The recent case of shipments of Chilean farmed salmon contaminated with carcinogenic malachite in the Netherlands and the UK, or the retention of salmon exportations in Japan because of higher levels of antibiotics than the standards of this country allow, prove that the industry still has a long way to go before it can demonstrate it can develop in agreement with sustainable environmental standards.  Regarding effects on public health, the use of malachite green in aquaculture in Chile has been prohibited since 1997. However, many Chilean salmon companies still continue using this substance in order to eliminate fungus from their fish farming centres. However, Chile has no regulation on antibiotic use, as other countries such as Norway, Canada and the USA. Antibiotic use is growing as the salmon industry grows. It reached a peak in the year 2000, when 500 tonnes of antibiotics were used”

“The present conflicts in the Chilean southern archipelagos is part of an emerging global environmental battle over high-intensity fish farming.  Environmentalists, coastal communities and the artisan fishermen in south of Chile are calling for the consumers’ awareness concerning the negatives impacts of Chile's rapidly expanding salmon-farm industry.  This problem is a global concern in salmon industry terms, and a time bomb in ecological terms”

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/guest.shtml

 

See also on The Salmon Farm Monitor:

 

“Japan finds antibiotics in Chilean farmed salmon” (October 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsoctober2003.shtml#item1

 

“Malachite green contamination in Chilean salmon” (September 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsseptember2003.shtml#item1

 

“Nutreco fined for illegal use of malachite green” (September 2003):

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsseptember2003.shtml#item2

 

“Contaminated Chilean salmon impounded in Europe” (August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item1

 

“Chile is a Wild West without a sheriff” (August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item9

 

“Chile caught using 75 times more antibiotics than Norway” (July 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjuly2003.shtml#item10

========================================================

 

Times Standard, 16th November

 

Forum educates the public on farmed salmon dangers

By Meghan Vogel

Arcata - Not all salmon are the same. That was the message brought to the public at the Farmers Market in Arcata on Saturday. Local volunteers for an international movement, Farmed and Dangerous, were at the market to let people know the difference between farmed salmon and wild salmon. "We're here to teach people there is a difference, especially in the market place, where you don't know how to tell the difference," said Libby Earthman, one of the forum's organizers. "We're hoping local grocers will show their support for wild salmon." Earthman said already the Co-op in Eureka and Arcata, along with Eureka Natural Foods, will no longer carry farmed salmon. Reid Bryson, another organizer, said farmed salmon is a detriment to public health, the environment and the local economy.

“Salmon is a seasonal affair, and when the marketplace is flooded with farmed salmon, the price goes down," Bryson said. "This affects the business of commercial fishermen, who have often used their expertise in salmon restoration efforts." Raised in net cages, farmed salmon can multiply quickly and spread diseases to wild salmon outside the cages. Antibiotics are fed to the farmed salmon to control disease outbreaks, and when eaten, the antibiotic residue can be passed to humans, increasing their risk of developing antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  Farmed salmon are also given food colorants to make them more marketable.  Preliminary findings suggest farmed salmon contain more toxic chemicals such as dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls, which have been linked to cancer, strokes and other health problems. "We believe there's a significant difference between farmed and wild salmon," Bryson said. "We want consumers to make better informed decisions."

For more information about the dangers of farmed salmon visit www.farmedanddangerous.org

http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127%257E2896%257E1770946,00.html?search=filter

 

See also: “Farmers market to be forum against salmon farming - farmed salmon are foul, some say: that's why fishermen, conservationists and tribes are calling for Humboldt Bay residents to gather at the Farmers Market today to join an international movement for the reform of salmon farming practices” (Growfish, 17th November):
http://www.growfish.com.au/content.asp?contentid=878

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The Chicago Tribune, 12th November

 

One fish, two fish, genetically new fish - firm seeks OK for altered salmon

 

Includes: “Elliot Entis has a whopper of a fish tale to tell. Now if he could only come up with an ending.  Entis' story is about a salmon that has been genetically modified to grow to its full size of 8 pounds in just 18 months, half the time for a normal fish. Entis and his backers champion the fish, called the "AquAdvantage" salmon, as cheap, nutritious and environmentally friendly.  Entis hopes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will soon proclaim that his salmon is safe to eat, making it the first genetically modified animal allowed into the human food chain and opening the door for other biotech animals to be sold as food. "You have two options when you go first: either you get your head blown off or you get to the other side first and pick up the flag," said Entis, president and chief executive officer of Aqua Bounty Technologies, which is based in a Boston suburb. "I'd like it to be an advantage to be first. My investors certainly hope so”

 

“Entis said he hopes the FDA will agree sometime next year that his fish is safe to eat, but he is less certain when the agency will finish its environmental review. Even if he wins over the FDA, Entis still faces the question: Will anyone eat a genetically engineered fish?”

 

Full article available via:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

 

More on GE fish can be found via:

 

“Frankenfish to flood the international marketplace?” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, October 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsoctober2003.shtml#item10

 

“Frankenfish stand Darwin on its head” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, April 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsapril2003.shtml#item6

 

“GM fish” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, February 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsfeb2003.shtml#item10

=============================================================

 

New Zealand Herald, 12th November

 

Marine farmers look to grow overseas - marine farmers at the top of the South Island - frustrated by the aquaculture moratorium, law reforms and the fisheries permit process - are looking overseas for expansion plans

Includes: “Mr Govan said countries like Chile were already starting to hurt New Zealand's industry in the United States and Europe”

 

Full article available via: http://www.growfish.com.au/content.asp?ContentId=855

 

See also in The New Zealand Herald:

 

“British activist rubbishes wild fish farming” (29th September 2003): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3525894&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

 

“Going wild over salmon” (22nd June 2003): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3508558&msg=emaillink

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The Press and Journal, 11th November

 

Radioactive Russian salmon feared among Scottish stocks

 

A new threat has emerged to the future of Scotland’s king of fish in the form of escapees from salmon farms in waters near a graveyard for Russian nuclear hulks.

Fears that the hump-backed oncorhynchus gorbusa has mixed with Atlantic salmon are allied to concerns that the mi­grant fish from the North-west tip of Russia could be a source of radioactive contamination.  The alert was sounded after a so-called Pacific pink was landed from the River Leven on August 19.  The Pacific pinks have es­caped into the Kola Fjord in the White Sea near Murmansk, which is home to a clutch of redundant nuclear-powered submarines and ice-breakers from the former USSR’s north­ern fleet.  Western experts believe con­tamination has leaked from the nuclear hulks into the sur­rounding environment and been washed out to sea.  According to the Salmon Farm Monitor (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org), the Leven catch should prompt further concern for the integrity of Scotland’s wild fish stocks.

 

Spokesman, Sutherland an­gling writer and broadcaster Bruce Sandison, said yesterday that gorbusa was imported dur­ing the 1930s from the east coast of the-then USSR to fish farms on the Kola Peninsula in west­ern Siberia.  The species caught in the Leven was positively identified by a fish scientist after it was taken to Stirling University.  Mr Sandison said it is certain that the gorbusa did not come alone.  “If there was one, it’s than likely that there would be quite a few more,” he said yesterday from his home near Tongue.  Mr Sandison claimed the catch again illustrated the major problems being caused by fish farms.  “It is another example of how ill-managed, unsustainable and irresponsible the farmed salmon industry is.”  Mr Sandison said there was no evidence to back up fears that the fish migrating from the Kola Peninsula were contam­inated.  That aside, he said, they were adding to the threat posed to wild Atlantic stocks through cross-breeding.  He believes that many of the surviving estimated population of 500,000 salmon have already been genetically altered through contact with farm fish.

 

Mr Sandison: “Disease and pollution from Scotland’s own fish farms is driving west High­land and Island wild salmon ever further towards extinction, and this is a further unwelcome threat.  “While the Scottish Executive may not be able to do anything about the gorbusa, it really needs to get its act together to deal with the damage being caused by fish farms in Scot­land.”  The Food Standards Agency this summer detected traces of radioactive technetium 99 in farm salmon being sold in the main supermarkets. The con­tamination, thought to have come from the reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, was found to be at such low levels that it was deemed not to pose a threat to human health.

 

See also: “Russia's nuclear fish threat: Scottish wild salmon stock at risk” (The Observer: 9th November 2003):

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1081042,00.html

 

“From Russia with love” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, October 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/ncoctober2003.shtml

 

“Radioactive waste found in supermarket salmon” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, July 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjuly2003.shtml#item3

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Salon, 7th November

 

Farmed and dangerous - in front of a Whole Foods grocery store in San Francisco, environmentalists and fishermen agree: Salmon raised on fish farms are pallid, polluting affronts to nature!

 

Includes: “In front of Whole Foods Market in San Francisco, at the corner of California and Franklin streets in Pacific Heights, Blumstein strummed along on the guitar, serenading the passing rivers of traffic, migrating FedEx trucks and BMWs. He started out with a solo number called "Real Color," a folk protest song he'd written just last week for this occasion:

"Don't try to fool us with your pink-colored dye.
Don't try to sell us, what you won't buy.
Don't try to fool us with your genes modified.
True color comes from the inside."

A gigantic 12-foot-long salmon, made out of silver insulation, bobbed along to the tune, under the semi-control of the stilt-walker wearing it. A posse of about 15 other protesters lined the sidewalk, waving green and aqua banners suggesting "Think twice about eating farmed salmon" and, more directly -- "Farmed salmon: Don't you think it's kind of gross?”

“Might the lady in the giant-salmon costume and the folksinger with his tale of pink-dye woe be better off making the case against farmed salmon in front of some big-box retailer where lower-grade, antibiotic-stoked, dyed salmon, dumped on the market from Chile, is sold for cut-rate prices?  Kate Dugas, consumer campaign coordinator for Living Oceans Society one of the 10 organizations making up the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform which organized the protest outside, disagrees. She says that her organization has been trying to work with Whole Foods for a year, with no luck, urging them to pressure their suppliers to stop using open-net pens for salmon farming…..Like little kids in a kindergarten, in such close quarters, if one of them gets sick they all do," says Dugas”

“The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, a coalition of 10 environmental, fishing-industry and native groups in British Columbia, organized the protest at Whole Foods, as well as similar actions in Los Angeles, Seattle and Vancouver at Whole Foods and Safeway stores there, as part of its "Farmed and Dangerous" campaign (http://www.farmedanddangerous.org) which also included a recent full-page ad in the New York Times. Dugas explains that the Canadian campaigners are bringing their reform-salmon-farming message to the U.S. because 80 percent of the fish farmed in British Columbia is exported to this country, and much of that is sold to consumers in Washington, Oregon and California”

Full article available from: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/07/farmed_salmon/index_np.html

See also in Salon (http://www.salon.com):

“Stalking the wild Frankensalmon” (5th May 2000): http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/05/biofoods/ =============================================================

Save The Swilly, 5th November

 

Sea trout and wild salmon have been victims of ethnic cleansing

Includes: “Ireland has experienced the equivalent of an ethnic cleansing of our wild fish stocks over the past 20 years. The Federation of Irish Salmon and Sea Trout Anglers (FISSTA), in a submission today to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, said the problems in the salmon-farming industry highlighted by the recent RTE Prime Time programme were not unique, or a case of "one or two bad apples".

FISSTA was one of several groups asked to appear before the Joint Committee following revelations in the Prime Time programme which focused on the problems of sea-lice and on breaches of regulations by a number of salmon farmers.  These were not isolated incidents, according to FISSTA chairman Mr Noel Carr. He said there are issues relating to sea-lice infestation and pollution from salmon farming that pose a real and increasing environmental threat to the Irish coastline. "We hope and trust that a wake-up call is heard and understood"

Full press release available via:

http://www.loughswilly.com/Press/Nov0503.htm

 

More information on FISSTA available from: http://www.fissta.com/News.htm

 

For more information on Irish salmon farming see:

 

“Press release on RTE TV fish farm report” (FISSTA, 15th October, 2003): http://www.fissta.com/News.htm

 

“Prime Time exposes aquaculture’s shortcomings” (Save The Swilly, 24th September 2003): http://www.loughswilly.com/Press/Sep2403.htm

 

“RTE’s Prime Time show”: http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime.html

 

“Irish salmon farming dead in the water?” (The Salmon Farm Monitor: August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item2

 

“Another disaster in Inver Bay – inquiry essential” (Save The Swilly, 21st July 2003): http://www.loughswilly.com/Press/Jul2103.htm

 

“Irish salmon farming crisis goes global” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, March 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmarch2003.shtml#item5

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The Salmon Farm Monitor, November

 

Escapes enter Icelandic rivers

 

According to the North Atlantic Salmon Fund farmed escapee salmon thought to be of Norwegian origin have started entering the premium clear water rivers in Iceland. Already an escapee salmon has been caught in the middle reaches of the famous Selá river on the east coast of Iceland. The Selá river is considered in the top rank of the world’s best rivers. Orri Vigfússon, the chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund who is also the chairman of the River Selá Syndicate Strengur said that the first salmon had been caught about six kilometers up river. It was a 77 cm long cockfish and weighed 4,8 kilos. Experts quickly and easily identified the salmon of farmed origin.

Orri Vigfússon says he has demanded a full enquiry, a DNA-research into the origin of the escapees and a new range of regulations for this industry in Iceland. We fear that the Norwegian strain will pick up diseases and viruses that are lethal for the fragile Icelandic salmon stocks. “It is vital that the purity of their environment never becomes compromised.”. Six weeks ago fish farmers in the neighbourhood admitted that 3,000 Norwegian salmon had escaped from their farm pen in the vicinity of some of the famous Icelandic rivers Selá, Hofsá (where HRH The Prince of Wales used to fish), Vesturdalsá and Breiðdalsá. One of the escapees was tagged with a number from the very salmon farm in question.

According to the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, Icelandic authorities have in the past flatly rejected environmental impact assessment, any statistical monitoring and the river owners are having a fierce row with the Director of Fisheries and Fish Disease Veterinary Officer who have actively been promoting relaxed or no regulation atmosphere in this infamous industry in Iceland. The Minister of Agriculture in Iceland has ignored all requests for information that may lead to proper monitoring of the salmon farms. The Icelandic Government, like their counterparts in Canada, Scotland and Ireland, are selling wild salmon down the river.

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsnovember2003.shtml#item3

 

See also on The Salmon Farm Monitor:

 

“Iceland salmon escape” (September 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsseptember2003.shtml#item7

 

“The failures of the Scottish Executive – Orri Vigfùsson, international chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund accuses Scottish Executive of deciding that Scotland’s wild salmon are not worth saving” (July 2003):

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/guestjuly.shtml

 

“Iceland turn up heat on fish farm expansion” (February 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/documents/intlnewsfeb2003.html#item7

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The Salmon Farm Monitor, November

Scottish Seafarms Limited pollute West Highland river

Bruce Sandison

The River Rannoch at Ardtornish in Agyllshire might not be one of Scotland’s major salmon streams (long, steep falls prevent this) but it deserves better care than it has received in recent years. There is a salmon hatchery by the river and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has issued written warnings to Scottish Seafarms about their practices there, or rather lack of them.  This time, however, when Scottish Seafarms illegally discharged liquid waste into this lovely little stream, SEPA decided to act and sent a report on the incident to the procurator fiscals office in Fort William. In consequence, Scottish Seafarms, after pleading guilty by letter to the charge of illegally polluting the river, was fined £1,000.  A SEPA spokesman said: “We understand that Scottish Seafarms are now taking action, but we are disappointed that it has taken a pollution incident and a court case to achieve this. Some preventative steps would have protected the environment and saved the company considerable time and expense.”

It is hard to understand how Scottish Seafarms were involved in “considerable time and expense”. Scottish Seafarms pleaded guilty by letter, no doubt written by their solicitor and stamped by his secretary, and £1,000 is hardly likely to break their piggy-bank, and they would have had to take preventative steps sooner than later anyway.  I also wonder why Ardtornish Estate continue to lease their land to a company that has clearly shown a complete disregard for environmental probity; although that might be a bit too much to ask since the estate itself has been closely involved in fish farming for more than a decade.

Until fish farm crime is treated with the seriousness it merits, then some of these people will always be tempted to take short cuts in the hope that they will get away with it – and given the fact that SEPA is hardly MI5 or sufficiently well-staffed to cope with the problem, they most often do.  In my view, also, it is an insult to public decency that the few fish farmers hauled up before the beak for environmental crimes have the courtesy to appear in court personally to plead guilty to their crime. It seems to me that a ‘point system’ could well be applied, as in driving offences: when the culprit accrues a predetermined number of points on his licence, he is automatically banned from operating.

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/farmnewsnovember2003.shtml#item5

 

More on water pollution offences by Scottish salmon farms:

“Fish farming pollution up by 100%” (The Sunday Herald, 18th May 2003): http://www.sundayherald.com/33928 =============================================================

The Sunday Times, 2nd November

Diver attacks great white

Includes: “Dean "Deano" Stefanek spent 30 minutes battling an enraged 6m great white shark – and lived.  The South Australian tuna diver has told how he volunteered to jump into a tuna pen to try to kill the injured shark. "Somebody had to do it, no one else was too keen, so I went in," Mr Stefanek, 38, said. The struggle took place recently at a tuna farm off the coast of Mexico and the tale of the Aussie who "wrestled" the fearsome fish has spread”

"It started to get messy and I jumped into the water and swam outside the net so I could shoot it with a power head (spear-fitted with a shotgun cartridge)."

"The shark saw me and went berserk. I tried to kill it quickly and fired at its head, which only stunned it. I fired eight more times and it kept coming back and thrashing. I think it was then that I started to get a bit scared”

"The great pity was it had to be killed – particularly as it was wounded. I know they (great whites) are becoming extinct. But there is only one of me and it could have made me extinct very quickly."

Full story including a photo of Deano with the dead Great White Shark: http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,7737422%5E949,00.html

See also: “I fought Great White” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, November): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/ddu1103.shtml#item9 ===========================================================

ABC, 1st November

Fish farm campaigner - Earthbeat meets an international campaigner on
the environmental and health effects of sea-cage fish farming, who says Australia should be wary of overseas experience

Includes: “The feed supply for farmed tuna and farmed salmon and farmed kingfish is essentially wild fish. And not only is that depleted as in there's not plenty more fish in the sea any more; it's also contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals. So I think that's the Achilles heel — the real fatal flaw that's going to blow sea cage aquaculture out of the water.  Farmed tuna, for example, they require twenty tonnes of wild fish to produce one tonne of farmed tuna. so it's twenty-to-one. It's a false economy. It's biological nonsense. You're producing less fish from more fish, and it simply doesn't add up”

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s979604.htm

For more information on sea cage fish farming in Australia see The Salmon Farm Monitor’s ‘Don Down Under’:

Includes: “Kingfish dead in the water?”, “You’re a bunch of *******”, and “Cowboy country”

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/ddu1103.shtml

Includes: “Australia making the same mistakes”, “Battle for Moreton Bay”, Tasmanian salmon farmers told to clean up their act”, “Australia quarantines Norwegian salmon”

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/ddu1003.shtml ============================================================

Environment, October

Salmon aquaculture in the Pacific Northwest: a global industry with local impacts

By Rosamond L. Naylor, Josh Eagle and Whitney L. Smith

Includes: “A more insidious ecological risk to wild salmon comes from the escape of farm fish from netpen facilities….Escapees are capable of establishing and reproducing in the wild and competing with wild salmon populations for food and spawning habitat.  Atlantic salmon have been found in more than 80 rivers in British Columbia, and naturally reproduced feral juvenile populations have been found in three locations…..Escaped Atlantic salmon have been caught by fishers throughout Alaska’s southeastern region, and a few have been caught as far north as the Bering Sea”

“Open salmon netpen operations release untreated nutrients, harmful chemicals, and pharmaceuticals into marine ecosystems, using a ‘dilution as a solution’ to water quality problems”

“Unless some actions are taken internationally, local communities and ecosystems will remain at high risk from the expansion of the global aquaculture industry”

Order a copy of the 20-page article from Environment via: http://www.heldref.org

Further details can be obtained from Stanford University’s “Salmon farms pose significant threat to salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, researchers find”: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/03/salmon924.html

See also: “Stanford University study” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, November): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsnovember2003.shtml#item2 =============================================================

The Globe and Mail, 31st October

 

Farmed salmon come under fire

 

Includes: “Taking a page from the lesson book of anti-logging campaigns, a B.C. coalition has purchased an ad in The New York Times urging U.S. supermarkets to stop selling farmed salmon.  The ad, which cost $23,000 (U.S.) and is to run today, takes aim at farmed fish bred off British Columbia's coast. The ad singles out six top grocery chains, including Safeway and Whole Foods. It urges readers to "tell these stores to stop selling farmed salmon."  The ad has outraged the farmed-fish industry; one group has threatened to sue the environmentalists”

“Jennifer Lash of the Living Oceans Society said the Times ad was a last resort, purchased in a bid to bring supermarkets into a discussion about the environmental effects of salmon farming. "We really weren't given a choice but to ramp things up a bit in order to say to [grocery stores], 'Look, this is an issue that is not going to go away. This is an issue that's very important to the people of British Columbia.' "

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20031031/UFISH31/TPEnvironment/

See also in The Globe and Mail:

“Farm-raised salmon called cancer danger” (30th July 2003): http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030730.wsalm0730/BNStory/International/

“Farmed salmon high in PCBs, study says” (17th May 2002): http://www.eurocbc.org/page470.html

“Canada’s apartheid - trouble in paradise: friends don’t let friends eat farmed salmon” (19th November 2001): http://www.globeandmail.com/series/apartheid/stories/20011119-3.html =============================================================

New York Times, 31st October

Think twice about eating farmed salmon

Farmed salmon are fed antibiotics, colorants, and pesticides.  Bon appétit.

Salmon raised on farms are very different from wild salmon. For starters, they’re raised in floating feedlots that pollute the ocean. They’re fed chemical additives to make their flesh pink like wild salmon’s. Antibiotics and pesticides are used to control disease outbreaks on the farms. If that’s not bad enough, farmed salmon contain disturbing levels of PCBs. Despite human health and environmental concerns, many restaurants and stores are still willing to sell farmed salmon to you—including some health and natural food stores you’ve come to trust. And that’s enough to make anyone lose their appetite.

T H I N K   T W I C E   A B O U T   E A T I N G  F A R M E D  S A L M O N www.FarmedAndDangerous.org

For a list of retailers that sell only wild salmon visit www.FarmedAndDangerous.org

Click here to see ad in the New York Times: http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/fad%20website%20files/LS01.01%20SalmonAdFNL1.pdf

See also: “LA Times refuses to run ad aimed at protecting consumers right-to-know about the fish they eat” (29th October 2003): http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/media.htm

See also in The New York Times:

“Farmed salmon is said to contain high PCB levels “(30th July 2003): http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1870 =============================================================

The Alaska Journal of Commerce, 27th October

Farmed salmon have negative impact on Alaska fishing industry - for Alaska salmon fishers facing hard times, it's no secret farmed fish from abroad have chewed a huge hole in domestic and foreign markets the Alaska product used to dominate

Includes: “Coastal communities have felt the impact. The reduction in the number of actively fishing permit-holders resulted in a decline in crew jobs and shore-based employment.  Monthly employment in the state's seafood processing industry fell from 11,200 in 1992 to 7,400 in 2002, according to Gilbertsen.  The impact of farmed salmon on world markets is largely to blame, he said. Farmed salmon has several key advantages. Pen-reared fish are available to the market year round, quality control is better, the supply is predictable and production can be planned to meet anticipated levels of demand, he said. Chile and Canada are the two major suppliers of the U.S. domestic market”

http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/102703/loc_20031027027.shtml

See also in The Alaska Journal of Commerce:

“Japan cracks down on Chilean farmed salmon after toxin found”:  http://www.alaskajournal.com/PalmPilot/stories/092903/fis_20030929012.html=============================================================

ABC, 23rd October

Fish farm waste treatment at sea?

Can you imagine tuna and kingfish farms treating fish-farm waste out at sea?  This is the controversial proposal of a marine scientist and environmental campaigner from Scotland, Don Staniford, who claims the operators are using the sea as an open sewer. He's proposed a “polluter pays" system where operators are forced to treat waste or pay for the pollution to the sea in much the same way as industry on the land.

INTERVIEW: DON STANIFORD, marine scientist and environmental campaigner from Scotland (listen to this interview below).

Tuna impact benign - But the head of the Tuna Boat Owners Association Brian Jeffriess claims the tuna industry causes little pollution to the sea.  He says this is because tuna are efficient feeders, predators eat escaped fish or uneaten feed, and the fish are farmed for only three to six months a year. He says compared to international standards, the intensity of fish farming is much reduced with 2.5 kilograms of fish per cubic meter compared to up to 20 kilograms per cubic metre in other countries. Mr Jeffries says he supports the idea of a "polluter pays" system but says the notion of waste treatment plants out at sea is idealistic.

INTERVIEW: BRIAN JEFFRIESS, President of the Tuna Boat Owners Association (listen to this interview below).

http://www.abc.net.au/eyre/stories/s973307.htm ============================================================

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 21st October

Debate grows over fish farms - environmental concerns are key issue at UW forum

Includes: “In British Columbia, several dozen licenses have been issued allowing the start-up of black-cod farms. Feeding the black cod market, which is particularly lucrative in Japan, could produce an economic boost to the Olympic Peninsula, creating perhaps 400 jobs in Port Angeles alone, said Bill Dettmer, chief executive officer of Olympic Aquaventures, a company gearing up for black cod farming”

“Lynn Hunter, a former member of the Canadian Parliament now active in fighting fish-farming, pointed out that food for salmon in Northwestern net pens consists of huge quantities of herring and other fish caught off the coast of South America. "There is a question, a social-justice issue here, too. You're literally taking food out of the mouths of poor itinerants in South America and converting it to a product for the white-tablecloth crowd -- the overfed white-tablecloth crowd -- in North America," Hunter said”

“Hunter questioned the motives of the fish-farming industry, dismissing the notion that farming fish is the way to feed the world's hungry multitudes. Other speakers pointed out that most black cod is sold in Japan, Taiwan, the United States, Canada and Europe. "Do you think they're doing it out of a sense of altruism? No, they're doing it because they want to make money on our wild coast," Hunter said”

“I'm not sure where in the Third World they're going to pay $6 to $20 a pound. The reality is that we raise fish for rich people," Wickham said. "You're raping the ocean to raise fish for rich people”

Full article is available via: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/144789_fishfarms21.html =============================================================

BBC News, 20th October

Farm threat to wild salmon

Includes: “Repeated escapes of farmed salmon could drive endangered populations of wild Atlantic salmon to extinction, say scientists in the British Isles. There has been concern over the past decade that domesticated salmon are breeding with native salmon, changing the genetic make-up of the fish and damaging their ability to survive in the natural environment. Until now, there has been little direct scientific evidence but, according to a report published in the journal Royal Society Proceedings B, the fears of environmentalists may be justified. In a 10-year study, researchers from Ireland, Northern Island and Scotland, found that wild salmon were vulnerable to extinction because of genetic and competitive pressures from farmed fish. Experiments with wild and farmed salmon hybrids in fresh and marine water showed that the offspring of fish that had interbred had a much lower survival rate -
some 70% of the fish died in the first few weeks of life”

“The team, led by Dr Philip McGinnity of Ireland's national agency, the Marine
Institute, and Professor Andy Ferguson of Queen's University Belfast, warn that
accidental and deliberate introductions of farmed salmon could lead to
extinction of vulnerable wild populations of Atlantic salmon. They write in Proceedings B: "Our experiments, uniquely carried out over two
generations, demonstrate conclusively that these intrusions lower survival and
recruitment in wild populations and that repeated escapes produce a cumulative
effect, which could lead to extinction of endangered wild populations”

Full article available via: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3195062.stm

Download the Royal Society paper via: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsnovember2003.shtml#item1

See also: “Wild salmon at risk from escapees” (The Scotsman, 29th October): http://www.news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1192942003 ===========================================================

Greenzine International, 16th October

Despite all the rage there are still fish in a cage

By Gemma Howell

In past years there has been considerable debate surrounding industrial fish farming methods on an international scale. Many environmentalists and marine scientists consider it an unsustainable method of supplying large-scale fish produce, while producers maintain that not only are sustainable practices implemented, but that the industry is essential for many third world nations to thrive. A recent Brisbane conference discussing the future of mari-culture in Australia's marine Environment, focused on the issue of fish farming in Australia and brought up concerns that are universal to fish farming practices in a number of countries.  Salmon Farm Protest Group Managing Director, and a member of the European Commission's Advisory Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, Mr Don Staniford, arrived from Britain last month and spoke at the conference. Mr Staniford attacked the expansion of intensive sea-cage fish farming, an aquacultural method used in many countries, including Australia. He said Australia was making the same mistakes made by Scotland, Ireland, Canada, USA, Norway, Finland, Faroe, Iceland and Chile.

Criticisms of the closed cages include the threat of pollution from fish faeces, toxic chemicals and feed waste. According to Mr Staniford, farmed fish escaping their cages cause the spread of parasites and infectious diseases to wild fish in the area.
“Sea cages have spread like cancer around the European coastline,” Mr Staniford said in a paper, which was presented to the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries last year. During his visit to Australia, Mr Staniford warned against the proposal by aquacultural company Sunaqua to create sea-cage fish farms in eastern Moreton Island.  He said claims by Sunaqua of state-of the-art intelligent fish feeding systems to create low feed waste was window dressing as there would still be discharge into the marine environment.

Problems may arise as technolgy is under-researched

Moreton Bay Research Centre Director, Dr Ian Tibbetts, is focused on researching fish community structures at the Moreton Bay research station with the University of Queensland. He also believed that concerns regarding closed-cage fish farms were justified. “Steel mesh cage technology is untried technology,” Dr Tibbetts said.
He said the potential for seed wastage and parasite problems had not been properly addressed, and there were no studies yet available to really know the potential for environmental damage.  In the past twenty years, there have been numerous conferences and conventions addressing the risks involved with unsustainable fish farming practices. The increase in attention on the issue fuelled a defensive on behalf of farmers, processors, exporters and contributors, with one outcome of this being the Global Aquacultural Alliance.

Earlier this year, European Aquacultural Society President, Michael New, presented a paper outlining the importance of aquaculture in low-income food deficit countries, especially developing Asia.  He said although there had been some irresponsible shrimp farming in developing countries, great strides towards improvement had been made.  While it can pose enormous economic and environmental risks when poorly managed, it can provide significant potential for responsible poverty alleviation when managed properly, Mr New said in his paper.

International compliance standards are needed

A more politically driven problem, which has surfaced, is differing international compliance standards across borders. Despite World Wildlife Fund recommendations for fish farming exclusion zones, the 1994 Oslo Resolution cannot enforce regulations upon any international signatory.  So does the benefit of social and economic development outweigh the negative environmental impacts?  Perhaps there does not have to be such a clear-cut decision, but instead, an environmentally sustainable compromise amongst the international community. For example, Mr Staniford did not rule out all fish farming, and said land-based containment systems were a more effective method, because it prevented waste entering and polluting the marine environment.  University of Oxford Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Dany Garant (in a June article of the New Scientist) discovered some rivers in Norway which had been completely invaded by farmed salmon, which he believed would threaten stocks of wild Pacific salmon. According to a report this year from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the most likely cause for the pink salmon collapse in the Broughton Archipelago in 2002 was the result of sea lice effected by fish farms.

Australia has not seen the last of fish farming proposals

In a movement away from traditional fishing methods, Mr Staniford warned that Australia had not seen the last of fish farming proposals, such as the one which may be implemented in Moreton Bay over the next three years. “You'll be seeing increasing pressure to find new sites in the future,” he said, the impacts of which are still unknown and need consideration before any decision is made.

http://www.greenzine.info/more.php?id=27_0_1_0_M =============================================================

BBC News, 16th October

Threat to Northern Ireland’s wild salmon - the future of wild salmon is being put in jeopardy by specially bred farm salmon, according to the latest report by Irish scientists who are warning of an "extinction vortex" if the problem is not tackled soon

Includes: “If escapes continue to occur, the results of our research clearly demonstrates that extinction is a real possibility, said Paulo Prodöhl, a researcher from Queen's University Belfast, one of the report's co-authors.  "It is especially true in cases where populations are already being threatened by a number of other factors.  We cannot ignore this data. We have to do something about it."  The research is bound to cause controversy, especially in Scotland where salmon farms and fish escapes are numerous. "While a farm salmon will add about £1.50 to the economy, a wild salmon will add hundreds of times that amount," said BBC Northern Ireland environment correspondent Mike McKimm. "Rod fishing for salmon is big business worth tens of millions of pounds. And often when the fish is caught, they throw it back, so it starts earning all over again”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3198934.stm

Also on BBC News Online:

“Warning of farmed salmon threat” (2nd August 2002): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2167661.stm

“Salmon farms threaten wild fish” (30th May 2002): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2016319.stm

“Anglers’ heaven after great escape” (29th August 2001): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/1515813.stm ============================================================

Irish Examiner, 14th October

Fishy goings-on with salmon farming

RTE’s recent Prime Time programme finally exposed what really goes on in the murky world of salmon farming. For the first time, TV cameras unveiled salmon farming’s routine and scandalous abuse of our environment: a) sea-beds knee-deep in dumped salmon carcasses; b) stocks of wild salmon and sea trout eaten alive with parasites from the densely-packed salmon-cages; c) fisheries destroyed; d) bogs used as convenient dumps for diseased salmon and offal. 

And what about the IFA spokesman’s claim that salmon-farmers were legally entitled to dump their dead salmon in the nearest bog-hole? That the two principal salmon farmers exposed in some of these practices were also members of the boards of the Marine Institute (which regulates salmon farming) and BIM (which bankrolls salmon farming), beggared belief. Since 1992, the county councils knew dead salmon were being dumped on municipal dumps and bogs but turned a blind eye. Eleven years on, the unexpected arrival of TV cameras galvanised the Galway CC to investigate these practices. Will the Mayo and Donegal councils now commence digging in Achill and Fanad to remove buried carcasses? Remember, dead salmon don’t decompose in bog-soil.

What about the wild fisheries, their owners, hotel and guesthouse proprietors that depended on wild salmon and sea-trout angling for their livelihoods? Hard cheese, a chara, it’s salmon farmers first. The State authorities (BIM, Department of Marine/National Resources, etc) routinely broadcast that salmon farming is rigorously controlled and regulated. How, then, can the appalling environmental sacrileges and illegalities exposed by Prime Time be allowed to go unpunished?

Simple. The backbone of the Marine Institute board comprises men who are up to their necks in salmon farming.  And the latest recruit to the aquaculture appeals board is an ex-salmon-feed manufacturer. These political shenanigans guarantee that salmon farmers ignore scientific findings, ride roughshod over environmental concerns while simultaneously remaining protected from sanction and prosecution. We must be grateful for Prime Time finally dragging some of these spurious environmental protectors under the full glare of public scrutiny. Unless this opportunity is now seized to clear the decks and honestly enact worthwhile legislation to protect what is left of our environment, then by next week it will be an admonishing wag of the finger from the Marine Institute then, “back to business, lads”.

Dr Roderick D O’Sullivan, 8, Devonshire Place, London W1N 1PB, England.

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/10/14/story516060960.asp

For more information on RTE’s Prime Time show: http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime.html

See also in The Irish Examiner:

“Minister acts against salmon firm” (22nd September 2003):  
 http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/09/22/story34934771.asp

“Calls for accurate labelling after radioactive scare in salmon” (25th June 2003): http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/06/25/story524141284.asp ===========================================================

Castlebar News, 4th October

Fisheries Board to go to the E.U. if action not taken on fish farms

Includes: “The fallout from the recent Prime Time programme on the fish farming industry continued this week with the announcement from the Central and Regional Fisheries Boards that if action was not taken on the poor quality of salmon farm management, they were prepared to go to the European Union and request that the EU declare sea trout in the affected areas an endangered species. Meetings were held by a number of bodies last week in response to the Prime Time programme which highlighted the problem of sea lice in fish farms and the impact it was having on wild fish stocks, as well as incidences of illegal dumping of dead fish. At a meeting of the Central and Regional Fisheries Boards last week, it was decided that the Boards would "strongly advise" the Minister for the Marine, Mr. Dermot Ahern, to take immediate positive action to ensure that "poor husbandry practices" in the fish farming industry were stopped. Indeed, criticism has been levelled at the dual role held by the Department of the Marine in promoting the aquaculture industry and simultaneously acting as an environmental watchdog. The Green Party has questioned this clear conflict of interest”

“So the rotting piles of dead fish beneath the nets at Inver were revealed to be the real cause of the deaths of caged salmon? The fisheries boards and tourists interests of course have suffered over the past 20 years due to the explosion of sea lice populations around salmon cages. The wild sea trout fell foul of these parasites on their way back into the rivers to spawn. Most of the famous sea trout rivers in the West are now defunct as fisheries. The huge mortalities now being experienced in the fish cages by fish farmers themselves are a bridge too far for the fisheries authorities especially when the fish farmers start looking around for someone else to blame for their misfortune. The fish farmers were very quick to blame anyone and everyone else for the disastrous decline of sea trout when it was as obvious as the nose on your face that they’re lack of control of sea lice around the sea cages were to blame for this ecological disaster”

Full article available via: http://www.castlebar.ie/news/mn-20031002.shtml

See also: “Ireland flouting EU law” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, June 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item4

“Launch of petition and complaint to the EU Green MEP condemns Minister Fahey for promoting unabated and unchecked fish farming developments in designated areas” (Patricia McKenna MEP press release, 19th March 2002): http://www.pmckenna.com/media/statements/2002/02.03.25.html =============================================================

The Northern Advocate, 4th October

Scientist issues finfish farming warning - is our clean green image at risk?

Mike Dinsdale

Northland could lose its clean, green image if it allows finfish to be farmed in cages on the region’s coastline, a British marine scientist warns. Don Staniford was in the region this week to talk about his concerns over farming fish in cages. He visited local authorities and spoke at a public meeting on the issue on Thursday night attended by more than 100 people. Mr Staniford said he wanted to raise public awareness of aquaculture issues and future choices for aquaculture and fish farming in Northland and New Zealand. "From my perspective I see no long term future for farming carnivorous finfish such as kingfish in the sea," he said. "Kingfish farming is fundamentally flawed and is not the panacea that people are painting it to be." Mr Staniford is a British marine scientist who was awarded the Andrew Lees Memorial Award at the 2002 British Environmental Media Awards for his work in exposing illegal chemical use in Scottish salmon farms. He is the author of several publications including ‘The Five Fundamental Flaws of Sea Cage Fish Farming’ presented in October 2002 to the European Parliament.  Mr Staniford said people should be wary of marine farming proponents saying fish farming would lead to more jobs. "In the Scottish salmon farming industry there are less jobs than there were 10 years ago," he said/ "Yet in that 10 years there has been a five fold expansion in production. But advances in mechanisation and automated feeding means that it doesn’t naturally flow on that there will be more jobs".

[Photo: British marine scientist Don Staniford, pictured at Whangarei Heads, says farming finfish in cages in Northland waters will not be good for the environment: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/ddu1103.shtml]

The environmental effects of fish farming were also a major concern to Mr Staniford. "The environmental and social costs of fish farming have not been factored into any economic analysis of these farms", he said. For example, he said, scientists had found that every 1000 tonnes of salmon reared in Scottish farms produced the equivalent sewage as a city of 20,000 people. That would mean that every 3000 tonnes of fish farmed in Northland waters would produce the same amount of untreated sewage as Whangarei. Mr Staniford said with that amount of untreated sewage flowing into Northland’s pristine waters, it would not take long for the region’s clean, green image to suffer. That would then have a flow-on effect on tourism and other associated industries, he said. ============================================================

Reuters, 2nd October

Salmon farms spawn fortunes, and critics, in Chile

By Mary Milliken

Includes: “Puerto Chacabuco - An air hose blows chocolate colored-pellets into a submerged pen, thousands of plump fish vie for the food and a few do the characteristic salmon jump before another batch of pellets hits the water.  This simple formula for fattening salmon in the pristine waters of Chile's Patagonia is reaping huge returns for the most-advanced economy in South America, set to take over Norway as the world's largest producer of farmed salmon. Norwegian production of salmon grew threefold in the last 10 years, but Chile's jumped nearly 20 times to 35 percent of the world total, compared with Norway's 37 percent share”

“But not everyone is thrilled with the voracious appetite of Chile's "salmoneros" - as the industry is known in Spanish. Environmental activists fear Aysen and its unique biodiversity will fall in the same plight as the 10th region, the birthplace of Chile's salmon farming in the 1980s. The 10th region is still home to some 80 percent of salmon production, but its waters are saturated.  Environmental groups have warned of contamination from intensive farming, including "mountains" of organic waste from food and feces. "They depleted the 10th region and now they are going to replicate this model in the 11th," said Rodrigo Pizarro, executive director of Terram, a Santiago-based think tank that specializes in the environment”

http://www.enn.com/news/2003-10-02/s_9024.asp

See also on Reuters:

“EU probing suspected Chile salmon dumping – Nutreco” (27th August 2002): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17453/newsDate/27-Aug-2002/story.htm

“Friends of the Earth slam Nutreco for Chile salmon” (22nd August 2002): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17401/story.htm ===========================================================

EcoAmericas, September

Fungicide and antibiotic sideline Chilean salmon

Includes: “The seizure in Rotterdam of 180 tons of Chilean farmed salmon contaminated with the fungicide – and suspected carcinogen – malachite green has prompted probes and legal action in Chile.  Dutch officials impounded the European Union-bound salmon, worth US$200,000 in July.  Since then, environmental groups have filed suit in Chile’s courts, and Chile’s government has pledged to investigate”

“In March, the European Union’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) circulated three food alerts to EU members about malachite green-tainted Chilean salmon.  Chile’s National Fisheries Service (Sernapesca) has said it is trying to determine which Chilean companies shipped the tainted salmon to Holland”

“Malachite green isn’t the Chilean salmon farmers’ only problem.  Another is the alleged overuse of antibiotics to fight disease in farmed fish.  This month, Japan blocked two containers of Chilean farmed salmon on grounds that concentrations of the antibiotic oxytetracycline found in the fish exceeded the maximum allowed under the country’s health regulations”

Subscriptions to EcoAmericas and for a copy of the full article: http://www.ecoamericas.com/english/Login.asp?storyid=495 =============================================================

San Jose Mercury News, 27th September

Fish farms bite fishermen's bottom lines

Includes: “The Pacific Northwest's commercial fishing industry is in crisis thanks to the growing popularity of farm-raised salmon, a Stanford University study has found.  Researchers from Stanford's Center for Environmental Science and Policy and the Stanford School of Law determined that worldwide production of farmed salmon has increased fivefold since the late 1980s. Over that time, commercial fishing operations have seen their market share plummet from more than 99 percent to less than 40 percent.  Not only has that created financial hardships for fishermen in many coastal areas -- including many Native American communities -- but it also is having unforeseen environmental consequences, said Josh Eagle, director of the Stanford Fisheries Policy Project……..Stanford researchers spent more than two years interviewing fishermen in Alaska, British Columbia and Washington State.  Their study will be published in the October issue of Environment magazine”

Full article from: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/6874942.htm

Further details can be obtained from Stanford University: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/03/salmon924.html =============================================================

Science Daily, 23rd September

Salmon farms pose significant threat to salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, researchers find

Includes: “Salmon aquaculture is currently prohibited in Alaska, for economic and environmental reasons. Raised in pens built along the shore, farm salmon are particularly susceptible to diseases and parasites, such as sea lice, that can be lethal to fish. The report cited instances where lice, viruses and other pathogens have contaminated wild salmon stocks swimming nearby.

"A more insidious ecological risk to wild salmon comes from the escape of farm fish from netpen facilities," the authors wrote, noting that well over a million salmon have escaped from farms in Washington and British Columbia during the past decade. Most of the escapees were Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), which, although not indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, are the main species raised in West Coast fish farms.

"Escapees are capable of establishing and reproducing in the wild and competing with wild salmon populations for food and habitat," according to the authors, who noted that Atlantic salmon have been found in dozens of rivers and lakes throughout British Columbia and Alaska. The report also found that open netpen aquaculture can threaten other organisms by releasing untreated nutrients, chemicals and pharmaceuticals into the marine ecosystem. Such concerns led the government of British Columbia to establish a six-year moratorium on salmon farming in 1996. Strict regulations for waste disposal were finally introduced last year when the moratorium was lifted. Whether the regulations are successful in curbing pollution will depend on how rigorously they are enforced, the authors wrote”

Full article via: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030923064756.htm =============================================================

The Oregonian, 14th September

Imported seafood goes untested - despite evidence of illegal contaminants in imported fish, only a tiny fraction is screened before reaching U.S. consumers

Includes: “European countries this year seized dozens of tons of farmed salmon from Chile found to be contaminated with malachite green, a fabric dye banned in the United States since 1991 and suspected of causing cancer.  But the United States imports thousands of tons of salmon from Chile without testing for malachite green, which also acts as a fungicide, and other chemicals used at foreign fish farms.  It is unclear whether salmon tainted with such compounds is entering U.S. markets. Earlier this year, however, Canadian inspectors found malachite green in smoked salmon they believe was first imported to the United States and packaged here. And Northwest-based Costco, which annually sells more than 30 million pounds of mostly Chilean farmed salmon, said Friday that it will soon begin screening for the fungicide”

Full article available via: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1063454304187750.xml ============================================================

Anchorage Daily News, 13th September

Chile’s fish tainted by dangerous antibiotic - high levels of the toxic antibiotic oxytetracycline found in farmed salmon from Chile are sending shock waves through the industry

Includes: “The discovery was made two weeks ago during a random inspection of farmed Atlantic salmon sent to Japan by two major Chilean fish companies. Oxytetracycline hydrochloride is an acutely toxic fungicide listed with a skull-and-crossbones warning by the Pesticide Action Network, which tracks current toxicity and regulatory information for pesticides. The PAN states that oxytetracycline is known to cause reproductive or developmental disorders, among other problems”

“"If a third incident of antibiotics over the government limits is found," Atkinson said, "Japanese law might require a complete ban on the importation of Chilean farmed salmon. And with shipments of farmed coho from the 2003-04 season getting ready to start, the situation is being taken very seriously by all concerned." The Norwegian Seafood Export Council quickly distanced itself from its Chilean counterparts by issuing a statement saying that Norwegian salmon farmers don't use oxytetracycline”

Full article available from:                            http://www.adn.com/business/story/3910222p-3933192c.html ============================================================

Whangarei Cruising Club, September

Finfish farming – should New Zealand adopt the new technology?

By Dr Godfrey Banham

“When the moratorium on fish farms is lifted in March 2004, I would suggest that as far as finfish farming is concerned, that only closed containment systems with good waste management be allowed or alternatively that the moratorium continues until pilot projects for CRBs and floating systems have been tried.  Closed containment systems will remove most of the problems associated with net pens and there will be other benefits in the form of reduced mortality, reduced cost of feed, increased productivity, reduced labour costs and reduced repair and maintenance costs compared with existing farms….If New Zealand and Northland thinks they can reap the benefits of an expanding aquaculture industry without damaging the environment, then open sea cages should be banned and the new technology applied”

Full article can be downloaded via: http://www.wcc.net.nz/news.html

Further information on New Zealand sea cage fish farming can be obtained via The Salmon Farm Monitor’s ‘Don Down Under’:

 

Includes: “Theft of the Seaside”, “Kingfish are coming to Northland”, “Protect Peach Cove”, “NIWA prostitutes itself”, “NIWA says fish off”, “Salmon farmers are stupid”

 

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/ddu1103.shtml

 

Includes: “Green and clean New Zealand?”, “King Salmon visit” and “Fishermen call for closure of New Zealand marine farms”

 

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/ddu1003.shtml

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The Sea Around Us, July/August

Salmon farming in Chile

By Jim Fulton

Includes: “The impacts of salmon farms and hatcheries in freshwater lakes have been horrific….Of the 17 resident species eaten by locals, 10 have been extirpated, due to the escape of salmon and trout….Artisanal fishers at virtually every location near salmon farms complain of declining catches, which are affecting coastal communities with lost jobs”

“There are striking similarities here to the inherent conflict of interest seen in Canada, where the regulator (the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans) acts as the promoter of salmon farming.  No-one in government seems to actually act to protect, conserve and restore wild fisheries!”

“During my trip, I was struck several times by the impression that pressure tactics and criminal force are a big problem here.  In recent months, the offices of all non-governmental organisations working on environmental issues in Santiago have been burgled”

“Salmon farming is but one facet of the international cartel to privatise the near-shore coastlines and ocean-bottoms for everything from algae production to shellfish to fish.  Given that the overwhelming bulk of the world’s marine landings come from waters under national jurisdiction, this is a social, legal and international issue that needs immediate attention in Chile and in all coastal nations”

Full article available via: http://saup.fisheries.ubc.ca/Newsletters/Issue18.pdf ============================================================

Keep up-to-date on international sea cage fish farming issues via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

Find enclosed an international  news up-date  of press articles on sea cage fish farming issues  including The Sunday Times,  The Oregonian, Worldwatch, New Zealand  Herald, San Francisco Chronicle,  Dissident Voice, Courier Mail  and the Sydney Morning Herald.   

 The  latest September issue of The Salmon Farm  Monitor also features  a new paper:

"Closing  the Net on Sea Cage Fish Farming"  (Keynote paper presented at  a conference in Brisbane,  Australia): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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 1) Making waves down under: The Salmon Farm  Monitor, September

 2) Feedlots of the sea - artificially colored,  mass-produced  "farm" salmon are causing a new kind of ecological and economic  red tide: Worldwatch, September/October

 3) Holland detects new shipments of salmon with malachite green: Ecoceanos News, 12th September  

4) Nutreco fined for illegal malachite green  use:  The Salmon Farm Monitor, September

5) Call  for New Zealand's oldest marine  farms to be closed down: Intrafish,  11th September

 6) Marine farming high and dry: New Zealand  Herald, 8th September

 7) Tasmania calls for Norwegian salmon ban  following seizures  of sea lice 'infected' imports: Intrafish, 8th  September

 8) Angling industry goes to war over fish farm  danger: The Scotsman, 5th September

 9) Mass escape of fake salmon in North West  Sutherland: The Salmon Farm Monitor, September

 10)  First batch of diseased salmon found since import ban  overturned: The Sydney  Morning Herald, 5th September

 11)  Salmon propaganda:  Dissident Voice, 3rd September

 12) Japan denied access to Chilean salmon for  high  levels of antibiotics in its flesh: Ecoceanos, 2nd  September

 13) Fast fillet: The Oregonian, 31st  August

 14) Massive fish farms may take over sea: The  Sunday Times, 31st August

 15) Bill banning ocean fish farms heads to  governor: San  Francisco Chronicle, 28th August

 16) Scientist warns against fish farms in Moreton  Bay: The Courier Mail, 26th August

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 Out now - "Making Waves  Down  Under" - the September issue of The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 Subscribe for free to The Salmon Farm Monitor  for  regular up-dates on international news, a media and document  archive, guest  column and useful information on sea cage fish  farming: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org 

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 The Salmon Farm Monitor,  September

 New issue - "Making waves down under" - out  now

 Includes:  "Australia is making the mistakes made  in Scotland, Ireland, Canada,  USA, Norway, Finland, Faroe, Iceland and in Chile.  The species  farmed may be different but the environmental impacts are alarmingly  similar: the discharge of untreated waste; mass escapes; spread  of infectious  diseases and parasites to wild fish; the use of  toxic chemicals; the use of  depleted and contaminated fish feed."  Speaking directly to the industry Mr  Staniford said: "The message  is clear: clean up your act, introduce closed  containment land  based systems, or close down."

Download "Closing the Net on Sea Cage Fish  Farming" via: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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 Worldwatch,  September/October

 Feedlots of the sea - Artificially colored,  mass-produced "farm" salmon are causing a new kind of ecological  and economic  red tide

 Download article via: http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/2003/165/

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 Ecoceanos, 12th September

 HOLLAND DETECTS NEW SHIPMENTS OF SALMON WITH  MALACHITE  GREEN - the  industry has used this cancer-inducing chemical to eliminate  fungus  in fish, but it has been prohibited in Chile since  1997

 In the beginning of August, the authorities in  Holland discovered two new  shipments of salmon contaminated with  leuco malachite.  This  exposed a serious problem in the fish  farming industry in Chile,  as it has been prohibited to use this cancer-inducing  chemical  in aquaculture in Chile since 1997.  According to the Newspaper “La Tercera” the  companies  responsible for sending these shipments are Marine Harvest Chile,  an  affiliate of the Dutch trans-national company Nutreco; the  companies Linao and  Tecmar belonging to the Norwegian trans-national  company Fjord Seafood and the  Chilean companies Multiexport and  Robinson Crusoe.  Since the ban on Malachite Green  many  companies have continued using the fungicide because of its  low cost and  effectiveness, a clear violation of fishery and sanitary  laws.  Centro Ecocéanos  state that the discovery of  salmon containing Malachite Green  only confirms what environmental organisations  have been stating  since 2001. Ecocéanos and Acción Ciudadana  demand that  SalmonChile make sure that the companies involved  publicly either confirm or  deny their responsibility and involvement  in the mentioned shipments.  After the detection of salmon containing  Malachite Green  in Rotterdam, the Servicio Agrícola y Ganadero (SAG) in Region  X  began with surprise inspections and found that four other companies  where using  the illegal fungicide.******FIN*****

 www.parlamentodelmar.cl

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 The Salmon Farm Monitor,  September

 Nutreco  fined for illegal malachite green  use

 The largest salmon farming company in the world  has been caught using carcinogenic chemicals illegally in Chile.  According to  Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands),  Dutch multinational Nutreco  were fined in December lasy year for  the illegal use of malachite green.  Nutreco, embarrassed by what  is fast turning into an international disaster,  subsequently refused  to appear on Dutch national radio. Juan Carlos Cardenas,  Director  of Centro Ecoceanos said: "It is unacceptable and unjustifiable  that a  transnational company like Nutreco/Marine Harvest, that  is suppose to have the  most higher sanitary and environmental  standards, is currently involved in this  type of illegal conduct  that broken the Chilean sanitary law, threatens the  health of  the consumers and destroys the lakes of Los Lagos, X Region (Chile)".  Marine Harvest is a corporate branch of the Dutch transnational  Nutreco, the  main producer of cultivated salmon worldwide, and  in Ch ile is the top leading  company in the ranking of volume  and value of exported salmon. AquaChile follows  as the second  company in this ranking. According to Cardenas, the current  situation  of the Chilean subsidiary of Nutreco is contradictive, because in  July  2002, the Corporate Director of Food Safety from this company,  Reid Hole,  declared that "food safety should be the most important  issue to the producers  of this food industry"; adding that "the  tracking systems, as well as the  handling and quality measures  are fundamental pillars of Nutreco". Clearly  Nutreco are content  to treat with contempt both the safety of their workers  (malachite  green is carcinogenic) and the few remaining consumers of chemically  embalmed farmed salmon

 http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsseptember2003.shtml#item2

 See also in The Salmon Farm Monitor  (September):

 "Malachite green contamination in Chilean salmon": http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsseptember2003.shtml#item1

 "Malachite green contamination in Scottish  salmon": http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsseptember2003.shtml#item3

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Intrafish, 11th September

 Call for New Zealand's oldest  marine farms to be closed down - recreational fishermen in the  Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough regions are calling for the closure  of several  hundred marine farms in the top of the South Island  as they claim these are  compromising recreational fishing rights

Full article via: http://www.intrafish.com

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 New Zealand Herald, 8th  September

Marine farming high and dry

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3522191&msg=emaillink

See also in the New Zealand  Herald:

"Marine farmers want answers on reform bill"  (1st  September): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3521009&msg=emaillink

"Going wild over farmed salmon" (22nd June): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3508558&msg=emaillink

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Intrafish, 8th September

Tasmania calls for Norwegian salmon ban following  seizures of sea lice 'infected' imports - the Tasmanian State  Government is  asking the Commonwealth as a matter of urgency to  impose a total ban on uncooked  salmon imports from Norway following  the seizure in Sydney last week of Atlantic  Salmon 'contaminated'  with sea lice - which the authorities claim "was proof  that certification  protocols in Norway were not being  observed"

Full story via: http://www.intrafish.com

See  also: "Court rules that Tassal, salmon growers worked to restrict  supply  - Australia's largest farmed salmon producer and a growers'  group were involved  in an anti-competitive fish cull to restrict  supply, the country's federal court  ruled Friday" (%th August  2003: http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=36961)

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Intrafish, 5th September

Chile tightens salmon inspections: all shipments  to Japan and EU to be tested - After a new detainment of Chilean  salmon  shipments, this time in Japan, authorities in Chile announced  that all product  shipments to Japan and the European Union will  be examined

Full  article available from http://www.intrafish.com

See also:

"Group calls for end to Chilean salmon farming  until "problems  are solved" (Intrafish, 4th September: http://www.intrafish.com)

"Antibiotic-laden salmon shipments detained  in  Japan - With the malachite green issue still making news, Chilean  salmon  companies have suffered another setback with a further  detainment of shipments,  this time in Japan, where traces of antibiotics  were detected" (Intrafish, 3rd  September: http://www.intrafish.com)

"Chile caught using 75 times more antibiotics  than  Norway" (The Salmon Farm Monitor. July 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjuly2003.shtml#item10

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The Scotsman, 5th September

Angling industry goes to war over fish farm  danger

Campaigners  have "declared war" on a fish farming  company amid fears of an  environmental disaster which could kill off one of the  finest  surviving strains of wild Atlantic salmon. They claim the entire  Tweed  angling industry, worth at least £15 million a year to  the local economy, and  which supports the equivalent of more than  500 full-time jobs, is at risk from  plans for a new salmon farm  in Selkirk. Lighthouse of Scotland, the firm  promoting plans for  the first smolt farm in southern Scotland, will be urged to  sell  up its site on the River Ettrick and pull out of the region or face  the  protests from almost every salmon angling body in Britain.  Concern over the  proposed salmon rearing operation is based on  fears farmed fish will escape and  cross-breed with the wild Tweed  stock. Lighthouse bought the existing Kendal  trout farm on the  Ettrick, at Selkirk, and subsequently announced its intention  to  invest £4 million to convert the site for salmon rearing. The company,  based  in Argyll, has promised to prevent all risk of damage to  the Tweed’s pristine  stocks of Atlantic salmon. But a spokesman  for the newly-formed Campaign Against  Tweed Salmon Farm [CATSF],  said: "There is now a sense of total disbelief that  the company,  having been made aware of the unique conservation status of the  Tweed and the widespread unambiguous opposition to their plans,  is still  apparently intending to pursue an application to proceed  with this development."  One activist said: "We are in effect declaring  war on Lighthouse after they  ignored warnings about the environmental  consequences of their inappropriate  project." Members of the campaign  include the Association of Salmon Fishery  Boards, the Salmon & Trout Association, the Scottish Anglers National  Association and  the Association of River Trusts. Nick Yonge, speaking for the  Commissioners,  and the associate Tweed Foundation, claimed: "The strength of  opposition  to this development is unprecedented, and comes from all quarters.  We  are extremely fortunate on Tweed to have one of the very few  remaining large and  entirely wild salmon stocks left in the north  Atlantic."

The  campaign is to be co-ordinated by Judith  Nicol, a previous director  of the Tweed Foundation who represented the fish  farming industry  in the 1980s before joining the Scottish Executive. She said:  "Our  first task will be to make it clear to Lighthouse that we are not  merely  posturing, but are deadly serious when we say this project  cannot go ahead."  There will be intensive lobbying by CATSF should  Lighthouse proceed with a  planning application to Scottish Borders  Council, and a separate request for a  discharge consent from the  Scottish Environment Protection Agency. "The Tweed  river system  with its pure water quality and equally pure wild salmon is  fishing’s  equivalent of a greenfield site", said Mrs Nicol. "The government  appears to be against salmon farming on the east coast of Scotland,  and this  proposal has to be stopped in its tracks." Iain Somerville,  managing director of  Lighthouse, last night claimed much misinformation  had been spread about the  project and how the company would proceed  to test its merits. He said: "When we  purchased the site in late  2001 we were not aware of the [Special Area of  Conservation] status  of the river, and we believe the previous owner had not  been properly  informed of it. Nevertheless [Special Area of Conservation] status  is not of itself a bar to our proposals." He insisted Lighthouse  had been fully  open in its plans and would now proceed to produce  an environmental statement,  dealing with the campaigners’ concerns.  It would be subjected to independent  professional scrutiny before  anything happened. "We have publicly indicated to  Mrs Nicol, and  we repeat the assurance, that if the objective assessment is that  the project is unsafe, we will withdraw," he said.

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=969932003

More on the controversial plan by Pan Fish  to  expand on the River Tweed:

"SFPG objection" (14th August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/tweedobjection.shtml

"Smolt farm could threaten Tweed plan" (18th  July  2003): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=779652003

"Storm brewing over fish farm" (20th December  2002): http://www.selkirk-advertiser.co.uk/newsstory.asp?storyid=15638&arc=True

"Assurances over $4m salmon farm project fail  to  silence opponents" (14th December 2002): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=1388872002

"Tweed salmon farm hits stormy waters" (20th  October 2002): http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/index.cfm?id=1161072002

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The Salmon Farm Monitor,  September

Mass escape of fake salmon in North West  Sutherland

In mid August Loch Duart Ltd, 'The Sustainable  Salmon Company' who operate in North West Sutherland, announced  the escape of  approximately 18,000 farm fish from their site at  Calbha Bay near Scourie.  Managing director Nick Joy was distraught:  "We very much regret this incident.  It is exactly the opposite  of how we set out to run our business and is a body  blow." He  added, "The fish will not survive for very long and the loch does  not  lead to a river, neither of which are any consolation or excuse  for what has  happened." This is the third such "body-blow" that  the company has experienced  in recent years and demonstrates,  if further demonstration were needed, that the  fish farmers are  quite incapable of preventing their salmon from doing a  'runner'.  The last time Loch Duart 'lost' fish, smolts from a freshwater loch,  they blamed the incident on otters who they claimed had chewed  a hole in the  cages to get at the captive smolts. What happened  this t ime? Yup, another  unexpected hole in the cages. The company  says that it is now reviewing its net  handling and rechecking  operation procedures. In the meantime, its business as  usual for  the 'Sustainable Salmon Company' and bad news for wild fish in North  West Sutherland.

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/farmnewsseptember2003.shtml#item1

See also on The Salmon Farm Monitor:

"Atlantics flood the Pacific" (September): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsseptember2003.shtml#item6

"Iceland salmon escape" (September): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsseptember2003.shtml#item7

"Escapes 40% higher than official figures"  (April): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsapril2003.shtml#item8

"The great escape - 2 million escapees in 2002"  (February): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsfeb2003.shtml#item3

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The  Sydney Morning Herald, 5th September

 First  batch of diseased  salmon found since import ban overturned

Includes: "The contest over one of  Australia's  top eating fish, Atlantic salmon, has turned lousy.  A routine quarantine inspection in a Sydney  bond  store has found sea lice under the skin of raw salmon imported from  Norway.  It is the first  discovery of  disease in imported salmon since a Federal Government  ban on imports was  overturned in 2000.  Tasmanian salmon  farmers say the discovery fulfils  their warnings that imported fish would bring  exotic disease with  them. They say the louse is a scourge of foreign salmon  farms,  and is the equivalent of foot and mouth disease on land"

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/04/1062548965869.html

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 Dissident  Voice, 3rd  September 

Salmon propaganda

 Includes: “That salmon farmers in British  Columbia are prepared  to jump into bed with a PR company who deals in  international  disasters such as the Gulf War and Three Mile Island illustrates  the depth of the crisis facing Canadian salmon farming. Yet, even  the expensive  fire-fighting emergency services of Hill and Knowlton  cannot mask the stench of  corruption and contamination currently  coming from Canadian salmon farming. No  amount of PR patter can  hide the fact that farmed salmon is contaminated with  cancer-causing  chemicals such as PCBs and dioxins. Like their Scottish, Irish  and  Chilean counterparts the BCSFA are fighting a losing battle to persuade  the  general public that farmed salmon is anything other than a  fatty, artificially  coloured, contaminated, cheap and nasty product.  Money can clearly buy you the  best PR company in the world but  no amount of money can buy back consumer  confidence and public  trust.”

 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Petersen_Salmon-Propaganda.htm

See also on Dissident Voice: "Farmageddon and  the  spin doctors" (28th March 2003): http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles3/Petersen_Farmageddon.htm

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Ecoceanos, September 2nd

Japan denied access to Chilean salmon for high  levels of antibiotics in its flesh

Critics from environmental organisations and  artisinal fishers to the low environmental, sanitary and labor  standards applied  by the Chilean fish-farm salmon industry have  been confirmed by the recent  detention of a couple of shipments  at different international markets. After the  blockade of salmon  shipments evidencing the presence of the well known  carcinogenic  chemical Malachite Green in the ports of Rotterdam and Bilbao,  yesterday  the Japanese authorities prohibited the entry to a undetermined  number  of containers with "top quality" salmon from Chile, due  to the detection of high  levels of antibiotics residues in its  flesh. This situation is keeping a lot of  pressure on the Chilean  salmon industry because the Japanese market represents  close to  40% of the salmon exportation volumes and together to the United  States’market are the main destinations to Chilean productions.  Because of this  situation, the National Director of the Chilean  National Fisheries Service,  Sergio Mujica, yesterday traveled  urgently to Japan to deal personally with this  situation directly  with Japanese authorities. The excessive and un-discriminated  use  of antibiotics in the Chilean aquaculture has been continuously  denounced by  Chilean NGOs and some scientists, who have said that  the Chilean fish-farm  salmon industry uses up to 75 times more  antibiotics than Norway, its main  competitor and the first salmon  producer in the world. The un-discriminated and  unregulated use  of antibiotics - and other chemical substances in the intensive  salmon productions - has severe negative impacts on the marine  and lacustrine  ecosystems as well as on health of consumers, due  to its potential for  generating bacterial resistance.

UNDISCRIMINATED USE OF ANTIBIOTICS

Medical  authorities and environmental groups agreed that the problem of  bacterial  resistance to antibiotics is one of the most serious  problems of public health  in Chile. In spite of selling antibiotics  without a medical prescription is  prohibited by law since 1998,  unregulated dosage in animal-intensive productions  – large animals,  poultry and aquaculture – is still an unsolved problem. The  Chilean  intensive aquaculture is characterized by a system of veterinary  prescription in which an important amount of antibiotics being  used are not  clearly directed to an specific bacterial pathology.  To this situation it must  be added the lack of interest of pharmaceutical  companies to carry out  scientific research towards the development  of vaccines with local strains, and  the "laisses faire" attitude  regarding the prescription of veterinary products  with pharmacological  effect. In the Chilean fish-farm productions the re are  cases  of fishing engineers, marine biologist and other professionals prescribing  pharmaceutical products of "use exclusive for veterinarians".  The main way that  the antibiotics are delivered to fish-farmed  salmon is throughout food. Its use  include various different industrial  "needs" such as stimulating fish growing,  to prevent bacterial  diseases in poor environments and also as therapeutic  agents for  bacterial diseases.

To the Centro Ecoceanos’ Executive Director Juan  Carlos  Cardenas (DVM) "this new blockade of a salmon shipment evidences  the  un-discriminated use of chemical substances in the Chilean  intensive fish-farm  industry and reaffirms the demands of local  coastal communities, environmental  groups and other organized  citizens for a radical change in the philosophy and  environmental,  sanitary and labour practices of this mega-industry" Cardenas  also  added: "the need for producing safe and innocuous food implies the  immediate banning to the use of Malachite Green and the elimination  of  antifouling paintings as well as a more comprehensive control  of chemical  colorants and antibiotics, among other substances.  We demand immediate  information and transparency not only from  the industry but also from the  Chilean government" He finally  said: "after two decades of intensive salmon  production in Chilean  waters under really low environmental, sanitary and labour  st  andards as well as weak governmental monitoring and enforcement,  denounced  several times by citizens’ organizations, they are  now generating impressive  answers from international markets and  consumers: shipments blockade for  sanitary reasons"

http://www.ecoceanos.cl/ingles/portingles.shtml

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The Oregonian, 31st August

Fast fillet

Includes: "Farmed salmon are now the chicken  of  the sea, no more wild than cattle or sheep. They live an assembly-line  life that  manufactures the biggest fish, in the least time, at  the least cost. And their  transformation from wild predator to  domestic subject represents one of the  fastest revolutions in  food production worldwide. Computers decide their birth  dates  so they will mature in time to meet the seasonal appetites of supermarket  chains. Intensive breeding pushes them to full size three times  faster than wild  salmon. Floodlights fool them into eating when  wild salmon would swim up rivers  to spawn. Cattle and chicken  farms across the country use similar methods to  make more burgers  and nuggets -- and have for so long that few in the modern  world  dine on a wild bull or wild fowl. But fish farmers have made salmon  into  mass-market livestock in a sliver of the time it took to  domesticate cattle,  pigs and sheep. "They have created an entirely  new animal that lives for an  entirely new purpose," says Mart  Gross, a professor of conservation biology and  fisheries at the  University of Toronto. "They probably did in three decades what  it took three centuries to do with other animals."

Full article via: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1062158138284260.xml

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The Sunday Times, 31st  August

Massive fish farms may take over  sea

Giant fish farms could soon dot the world's  oceans, according to plans being drawn up by the American government,  writes  Jonathan Leake.

 As global stocks plummet due to  overfishing, the American  National Marine Fisheries Service has  commissioned research into underwater  cages that could be used  to grow tuna, halibut, cod and other species. The plan  suggests  that cages tethered to the seabed miles offshore could produce as  much  fish as the world would ever need. Backers admit it has one  flaw - farmed fish  must be fed with smaller fish caught at sea.  Another research project is looking  at ways of substituting vegetable  protein. The plan is being watched in Britain  where there are  proposals to use derelict North Sea oil rigs to establish  offshore  farms. It has enraged conservationists who say the farms will generate  pollution and disease. Mike Skladany, a fisheries expert with  the Institute for  Agriculture and Trade Policy, a non-governmental  body, said: "This is an  environmentally destructive proposal."  Others see better prospects. Dr Graeme  Dear, managing director  of Marine Harvest Scotland, one of Britain's biggest  fish farm  operators, said such farms could rejuvenate the fishing and processing  industries.

More  on offshore aquaculture: "Oil rigs for  offshore aquaculture" (The  Salmon Farm Monitor, August): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item6

See also in The Sunday Times Richard Girling's  award-winning article "Fish or foul?": http://www.fobhb.org/SundayTimes6.htm

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The San Francisco Chronicle, 28th  August

Bill banning ocean fish farms heads to governor  -  Concern over introducing non-native salmon prompts law

Includes: "Fearing escapes of non-native fish  into  the wild, the state Legislature on Wednesday passed a ban  against the entry of  salmon farms and the raising of genetically  engineered fish in California ocean  waters. The Legislature sent  the bill to Gov. Gray Davis, and if he takes no  action by Sept.  12, the bill will become law. A Davis representative said the  governor  hadn't taken a position yet. At present, there are no salmon farms  off  the California coast, nor are there any producers anywhere  in the U.S. that  raise genetically engineered fish. However, the  U.S. Food and Drug  Administration is considering approving a genetically  altered Atlantic salmon  for human consumption within the year.  Drafted by Sen. Byron Sher, D-Palo Alto,  the bill is a preventative  measure to ensure that salmon farms and gene-spliced  fish don't  grow as industries in California's ocean waters. If the bill is  enacted into law, it wouldn't have any effect on bringing f armed  salmon into  the state for sale in grocery stores and restaurants.  Big suppliers include  Chile, Canada, Norway and Washington state.  Sher, who failed last year to enact  a similar proposal, is regarded  as one of the Legislature's most ardent  environmentalists. He  is hoping to get passed the gene-spliced fish ban before  his term  is up in December 2004. Unlike last year's bill, Sher's current  proposal includes a ban on any farmed salmon in California coastal  waters. That  provision was added, he said, after he learned of  problems off Washington state  and Canadian waters where the non-native  Atlantic salmon mingled with wild  salmon, threatening the purity  and survival of the native species. "There are a  lot of potential  environmental dangers from these so-called feedlots of the sea,  including escapes of thousands of fish from pens and the use of  antibiotics,"  Sher said during a phone interview Wednesday....Glen  Spain, a representative of  the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishe  rmen's Associations in Eugene, Ore., said  he believed the legislators  had responded to political pressure to protect  California's wild  salmon from escapes, pollution and disease. All the wild  salmon  caught off California's coast and about half of the wild salmon  caught  off Oregon come from Sacramento River Chinook salmon, swelled  by hatchery-grown  natives released at two inches, Spain said.  Representatives of the aquaculture  industry couldn't be reached  Wednesday. In April, Kevin Bright, general manager  of Cypress  Island Inc., Washington's only farmed salmon producer, said the  industry had improved its nets to prevent escapes into the wild.  His company  uses antibiotics only to treat sick fish, and claims  about farmed salmon having  higher levels of PCBs are based on  small-sized studies, Bright  said"

Full article via: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/28/MN117942.DTL&type=science

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The Courier Mail, 26th  August

Scientist warns against fish farms in Moreton  Bay

Industrial-scale  fish farming has been an  environmental disaster around the world  and should not be trialled in Moreton  Bay, a British marine scientist  warned yesterday. Don Staniford, in Brisbane for  an aquaculture  conference, said sea-based farms had several flaws. He said all  farms, including a kingfish and snapper farm proposed by Sun Aqua  near Moreton  Island, faced problems with fish escapes, disease,  chemicals and unsustainable  use of fish feed. Such farms also  treated the ocean like a toilet, using it to  flush away faeces  and food. "Modern mariculture is a world removed from  traditional  aquaculture – it's like comparing industrial farming techniques  with  subsistence farming," Mr Staniford said. "What we have done  in the last 20 or 30  years is farm fish which are at the top of  the food chain. "All our land-based  farm animals are herbivores.  In the sea we have chosen to farm the top  carnivores. It's like  raising tigers or lions for meat inst ead of cows." Sun  Aqua director  Julian Amos yesterday dismissed Mr Staniford as a  headline-grabbing  eco-terrorist with little understanding of the industry. He  said  fish waste would not be detectable more than 100m from the company's  sea  cages, disease would be controlled with good management and  steel mesh would  stop fish escapes. "We are not aware of Mr Staniford  having published a single  scientific paper on aquaculture that  was subject to peer review," Dr Amos said.  "His experience is  limited to salmon farms in the European environment and he  has  no experience in Australia where the regulatory and licensing conditions  are  totally different."

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,7062165,00.html

See also in the Courier Mail (4th  September):

"The proposed SunAqua  fish farm  would require a sewage treatment plant if sited on land.   Instead, the company  wants to dump that waste into the pristine  waters of eastern Moreton Bay, a  designated marine park and RAMSAR  listed wetlands.  Great!  When do I get to  stop paying rates  for sewerage and just run a pipe out to the bay?" (Lisa  Lombardi,  Auchenflower)

 For more details on  SunAqua's  proposed fish farm in Moreton Bay Marine Park see: http://www.qccqld.org.au/savethebay/index.html

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For regular news up-dates and information on  sea  cage fish farming see The Salmon Farm Monitor:

The September issue  of The Salmon  Farm Monitor also includes:

"Salmon farms are no economic  saviour"  - Guest column from David Lane of the T Buck Suzuki Environmental  Foundation in Canada

"Malachite green contamination in  Chilean salmon"

"PCB contamination in  farmed  salmon"

"Malachite green contamination in  Scottish salmon"

"California to ban sea  cages"

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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Closing the Net on Sea Cage Fish Farming

 Keynote paper presented by Don Staniford at “Charting the Best Course: The Future of Mariculture in Australia’s Marine Environment” (27th August 2003) – a conference organised by the Queensland Conservation Council and the Australian Marine Conservation Society (http://www.qccqld.org.au/aquaconf).  Conference session: Marine Aquaculture – the New Revolution or is it?

 Abstract: Aquaculture – the fastest growing sector of the world food economy - has been practised for millennia but it is only recently that intensive ‘factory’ fish farming has replaced traditional ‘family’ systems.  Similarly, the transition from capture to culture economy has ushered in a new era of resource exploitation with profound economic, social and environmental consequences.  A clash of cultures between finfish and shellfish farming means that fish have become a biological agent of pollution rather than a biological indicator. 

‘Five fundamental flaws’ characterise sea cage fish farming; namely: untreated wastes; mass escapes; diseases and parasites; toxic chemicals and fish feed/food.  The first four flaws can at least be mitigated by waste treatment and closed containment.  Ultimately, however, the dependence upon depleted and contaminated fish feed as a fuel supply represents the fifth and fatal flaw.   

Given that Australia plans to treble production by 2010 the potential to precipitate environmental impacts is significant.  Already there are alarming signs that the salmon, kingfish and tuna cages littering the Australian coastline are encroaching upon pristine waters.  Lessons can be learned from salmon farming in Chile, Scotland, Canada and Norway; from tuna farming in Japan, Spain and Croatia; from sea bass and bream in the Mediterranean as well as emerging species such as cod, barramundi, halibut and haddock.   If Australia is to avoid a similar public and consumer backlash it ought to heed these international warnings.    

To avoid environmental and food safety problems reaching crisis point, the cancerous growth of carnivorous sea cage fish farming must be stopped dead in its tracks.  In practical terms that includes ripping out cages in unsuitable locations, compulsory tagging of farmed fish, closed-containment systems and the promotion of environmentally benign shellfish farming.  Unless the net is closed, sea cage fish farming will be ‘the one that got away’.  

Contact details:  Don Staniford, The Salmon Farm Protest Group (Scotland, United Kingdom): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 Email: don.staniford@virgin.net

Tel: 00 44 7880 716082 

Closing the Net on Sea Cage Fish Farming

 Introduction: 

Aquaculture increasingly represents the future for fish but sea cage finfish farming threatens both fisheries and other fish farming sectors.  Far from being a panacea for the crisis in capture fisheries, the intensive farming of carnivores such as salmon, sea bass, tuna, sea bream, kingfish, red snapper, barramundi, cod and halibut serve only to compound the problem.  If we continue on the present course towards the global expansion of sea cage fish farming we are heading for a disaster of Titanic proportions.  The so-called ‘Blue Revolution’ has certainly ushered in a new era of fisheries resource exploitation that has transformed the way in which fish reaches our plates. Yet, sea cage finfish farming jeopardises both the integrity and water quality of the marine environment and also public health and food safety.  The transition from a capture to a culture economy has led to profound social, environmental, economic and food safety implications.  In the final analysis open sea cage fish farming is a false economy.  

 The Five Fundamental Flaws of Sea Cage Fish Farming:

 The problems inherent in intensive sea cage fish farming are international in compass.  The global reach of tuna farming in the Mediterranean, Mexico and Australia extends to markets in the Far East.  And the ecological footprint of salmon farming extends way beyond the confines of Norway, Chile, Scotland, North America, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Tasmania and New Zealand.  Feed for tuna farms in Australia for example is sourced from North America.  On the international stage sea cage fish farming has gotten far too big for its boots.  A comparison between sea cage fish farming in the Northern hemisphere and the Southern hemisphere reveals disturbing similarities.  The species farmed and the locations may be different but ‘the five fundamental flaws’ remain the same; namely: untreated wastes; mass escapes; diseases and parasites; toxic chemicals and fish feed/food.  The first four flaws can at least be mitigated by waste treatment and closed containment.  Ultimately, however, the dependence upon depleted and contaminated fish feed as a fuel supply represents the fifth and fatal flaw.  This paper seeks to build on previous papers presented in Chile and the European Parliament and frame the Australian (and to a lesser extent the New Zealand) sea cage fish farming debate in a global context [1].      

 The Blue Revolution – Making Waves Across the World:

 Aquaculture is the fastest growing sector of the world food economy.  According to the latest FAO report – “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2002” -  aquaculture accounted for 32% of the world’s fish supply in 2000 – up from less than 5% in 1970.   Between 1985 and 2000, the volume of global aquaculture production grew fourfold from 11.4 million metric tonnes to 45.7 million.  Finfish production also grew four-fold from 5.2 million to 23.1 million mt.  In 2000, half of the volume of aquaculture production came from marine waters, 45% from freshwater and 5% from brackish waters.  Mariculture is on the march.  And although carnivorous finfish species accounted for only 13% of global finfish production by weight in 2000, they comprised 34% of total production by value.  Aquaculture already consumes ca. 35% of the world’s fish meal and ca. 70% of the world’s fish oil.  If the current rate of growth in consumption continues, aquaculture will account for 56% of the world’s annual production of fish meal and 98% of the fish oil by 2010.  Aquaculture is quite literally eating into capture fisheries.  By 2020 farmed fish are predicted to have overtaken wild caught fish.  This is already the case for salmon but the shift is also taking place with other species such as cod, tuna, halibut, barramundi and kingfish [2].

 Aquaculture in Australia:

 Australian aquaculture in particular has witnessed unprecedented growth increasing in value by an average of 11% a year since 1991-92 and is now the fastest growing primary industry in Australia.  Through its ‘Aquaculture Industry Action Agenda’, Australia plans to treble production by 2010 and predicts that by the end of the decade the value of farmed fish will increase from ca. A$750 million to over A$2.5 billion – 5 times the 1999 figure.  This is eminently feasible (whether it is environmentally desirable is another matter entirely): in real terms the gross value of aquaculture production in Australia nearly trebled between 1991-92 and 2001-2.  Aquaculture now accounts for 30% of the total gross value of Australian fisheries production and 19% of the total volume (44,300 tonnes out of 233,300 tonnes).  Five species contribute the bulk of aquaculture: southern bluefin tuna ($261m), pearls ($175m), Atlantic salmon ($112m), prawns ($65m) and edible oysters ($57m).  These five species made up 91% of Australian aquaculture (in value not volume) in 2001-2 [3].

 The Australian government is running a five-year R & D plan and sees Australia becoming ‘a major global player at the high-quality end of the market’.  For example, the Australian government have just invested $28 million in a long-term project to domesticate southern bluefin tuna.  The first tuna farm was only set up in Port Lincoln, South Australia, in 1991 but the tuna farming sector has grown to the point where ca. 98% of the Australian southern bluefin tuna quota is now farmed.  Twelve tuna farming companies now operate on twenty-five sites concentrated around Port Lincoln requiring ca. 50,000 tonnes of baitfish including pilchards and herring.  Australian tuna farming production now stands in excess of 10,000 tonnes - representing 67% of the value of world tuna farming production.  Atlantic salmon and ocean trout production (ca. 15,000 tonnes valued at $111.5 million at the farm gate) is almost exclusive to Tasmania where 14 commercial operations are located in the Huon River, Port Esperance and D’Entrecasteaux Channel and Tasman Pennisula.  Tasmania’s production of farmed salmonids has risen eightfold since 1989-90 when only 1,750 tonnes was produced [3].    

It is not just salmon and tuna that are fuelling the expansion of sea cage fish farming.  The sea cage farming of barramundi ($11m) has also expanded in recent years and is predicted to grow inexorably.  Yellowtail kingfish ($13m) is increasingly farmed in South Australia and is considered ‘the next big thing’[4].  In New South Wales commercial production of snapper has commenced and may soon be followed by mulloway.  According to the Sunday Mail (3rd March 2003), prawn farmers are interested in diversifying into gold-spot cod.  A $1 million four-year project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research is exploring the commercialisation of the gold-spot cod in Queensland and South Asia.  Imported fish products now provide more than 60 per cent of seafood sold in Australia [5].  Clearly, Australia wants to be a net producer of fish.   

 New Zealand Aquaculture:

 New Zealand does not want to miss the boat either and have embarked on an ambitious plan to promote high value species such as kingfish, salmon and are even considering bluefin tuna farming.  Aquaculture contributes ca. 20% of New Zealand’s export earnings but the government are sowing the seeds for future expansion.  According to the New Zealand Herald (22nd June 2003), the industry aims to double its earnings by 2010 and reach $1 billion by 2020:

 “With its clean waters and 17,000km coastline, New Zealand should be in the vanguard of this boom, say fish-farming proponents who aim to turn the boutique industry into a billion-dollar export earner. But if New Zealand is to swim with the big fish it needs to diversify into high-value finfish species such as kingfish, snapper and grouper which, unlike South Island salmon, can be farmed in warmer northern waters, says marine scientist Andrew Jeffs.  A breeding trial at NIWA’s Bream Bay hatchery has wildly exceeded expectations, producing 30,000 kingfish with the potential to fetch hundreds of dollars a kilo in sashimi restaurants in Japan” [6]

 Salmon farming is still synonymous with sea cage fish farming in New Zealand.  The vast majority (ca. 90%) of New Zealand’s farmed salmon production originates from farms run by Malaysian-owned New Zealand King Salmon in the Marlborough Sounds and Canadian-owned Sanford Ltd off Stewart Island.  However, kingfish farming is coming to New Zealand.  In May this year it was announced that Island Aquafarms Ltd had converted four salmon farm cages to raise juvenile yellowtail kingfish in Crail Bay, Marlborough Sound.  Aquaculture programme leader Andrew Jeffs said NIWA was focussed on increasing the value of aquaculture in New Zealand: “We are trying to develop species that are worth more than mussels. New Zealand is mostly focussed on developing low value aquaculture species”.  While New Zealand aquaculture was worth about $1600 per tonne, Australian aquaculture was worth $30,000 per tonne, he said [7]. 

 Aquaculture companies are now putting pressure on the New Zealand Government to lift the moratorium on fish farming imposed in 2001.  Moana Pacific, for example, is thinking of closing a kingfish farm project in Northland and moving it instead to Australia [8].  New Zealand, famous for its Greenshell mussel farming industry, would do well though to heed international warnings before committing itself to an expansion in sea cage fish farming.  Whilst the Scottish environmental watchdog, Scottish Natural Heritage, was far too late in warning in 2001 that salmon farming and shellfish farming were “incompatible” [9], there is still time for Australian aquaculture to alter course. 

 Clash of Cultures – Finfish vs Shellfish Farming:

 As in the agricultural sector there are fundamental differences between farming systems.  Whilst aquaculture has been practised for millennia it is only relatively recently with the advent of intensive fish farming (mainly shrimp and salmon) in the 1970s that we have witnessed a shift away from sustainable ‘family’ fish farming to ‘factory’ farming.  The intensification of sea cage finfish production in the 1980s and 1990s has ushered in a new era of resource exploitation.  Subsistence shellfish farming in particular has been sacrificed for the development of finfish operations which discharge contaminated wastes directly into the sea and depend upon chemicals to control diseases and parasites.  A clash of cultures between finfish and shellfish farming means that fish have now become more a biological agent of pollution than a biological indicator. 

 Compared to sea cage finfish farming shellfish farming is relatively environmentally benign.  It requires no inputs such as fish meal and fish oil, antibiotics and other chemicals to control parasites and disease or artificial colourings and there are few outputs such as waste effluent, uneaten feed or escapes.  Shellfish farming is not without its environmental impacts [10] but sea cage finfish farming is in a different league [11].  Salmon farming in particular has been targeted as a ‘cancer of the coast’ [12].  Environmental and food safety groups in Canada, Chile, Scotland and Ireland have exposed a catalogue of crimes against the marine environment including evidence of illegal chemical use, contamination, pollution, infectious diseases, mass mortalities and escapes [13]. 

 Salmon farming, however, is not the only sea cage fish farming sector to have attracted criticism.  Tuna farming seems set to take over salmon farming’s mantle as the bete noir of environmental and fisheries groups [14].  More recently, cod farming in Norway and Scotland has been criticised for producing 50% more wastes than salmon farming [15].  And kingfish farming in Australia has come under fire for its appalling track record on escapes [16].  An international public backlash threatens to blow sea cage fish farming out of the water [17].  Nor has Australian or New Zealand aquaculture escaped the barrage of negative news articles [18] or vocal local opposition to sea cage fish farming [19]. 

 The Privatisation of Fish: 

Global protests against factory fish farming represent a potential watershed in the history of aquaculture.  Whilst on land the switch from hunting and gathering to a society based upon agriculture took several thousand years, the transition from a capture to a culture fisheries economy is occurring in front of our very eyes.  Clashes between fishermen and fish farmers and between sea cages and shellfish waters are symptomatic of the tensions of transition.  The analogies between aquaculture and terrestrial agriculture are all too obvious.  As sea cage fish farming displaces capture fisheries we are now witnessing the beginning a new era of marine exploitation - in much the same way as shifting cultivation made way for modern factory farming.   The wholesale destruction of mangrove forests to make way for intensive prawn farms and the expansion of sea cage fish farms encroaching into traditional inshore fisheries area are fencing off swathes of the seaside.  Marion Shoard’s clarion call in her 1980 book “The Theft of the Countryside” warned of the destruction of the English countryside by modern intensive farming methods [20].  Some twenty years later the same warning signs are now visible along our coastal margins and inshore coastal waters – only this time it is the theft of the seaside.  Fish are being privatised.  The sea is being sold off.     

A once ubiquitous common property resource is now controlled by a select few multinationals.  The top seven companies, for example, control 40% of the world’s farmed salmon production [21].  Multinationals such as Nutreco, Stolt and Cermaq are now diversifying their operations by adapting methods of farming salmon to other species of carnivorous fish.  The global GM giant Monsanto also moved into aquaculture in Asia in 1999 and is one of the founding members of the Global Aquaculture Alliance.  By 2008, Monsanto expects to earn revenues of $1.6 billion and a net income of $226 million from its aquaculture business [22].  Fish are being privatised so quickly that sea cage fish farming is not only a high risk strategy for the marine environment but also for investors be they in Japan, Europe, North America or Australia.  According to ABC (27th March 2003) the Director of the South Australian museum, Dr Tim Flannery, warned investors not to go into aquaculture to make money because it is a huge leap into the unknown:

“On land we’ve been used to agricultural systems for at least 10,000 years….in the oceans we have maybe 50 years experience.  Don’t get into aquaculture for the quick buck.  I personally think that the systems are so dynamic and so easily upset that you want to have every insurance that you’ll still have money in ten years time” [23]

 As if to prove the point salmon farming companies across the world are going bust losing millions.  The world’s largest salmon farming company, Nutreco, announced record losses of 186 million euros for the first half of 2003 [24].   Last year Australia’s largest salmon producer, Tassal, went into receivership with debts of $30 million [25].  The boom industry of the 1990s is now going bust.  Sea cage salmon farming is dead in the water.     

Australian Aquaculture – Heading for the Rocks:  

Australia’s plans to treble production by 2010 and the focus on high value sea cage species such as tuna pose a real threat to the future.  Already there are alarming signs that the salmon, kingfish and tuna cages littering the Australian coastline are encroaching upon pristine waters [26].  The New Zealand government have also recently published a damning research report on impacts of marine farming [27].  In South Australia, the hundreds farms are like a noose around Australia’s neck [28].  Salmon farms in Tasmania are discharging so much untreated waste in the Huon Estuary that their expansion has been capped [29].  The increasing incidence of toxic algal blooms in New Zealand and Australian waters is becoming to hazard both to shellfish and to public health.  Intensive cage finfish farming is, quite literally, suffocating marine life via the spread of contaminated wastes, mass escapes, uneaten feed, mass mortalities and the deaths of dolphins and other marine species.  Damning evidence of the ‘five fundamental flaws of sea cage fish farming’ is now emerging.  Tuna farming in particular may be making millionaires out of a small group of owners but environmental factors are not accounted for [30].  Lessons can be learned from salmon farming in Chile, Scotland, Canada and Norway; from tuna farming in Japan, Spain and Croatia; from sea bass and bream in the Mediterranean as well as emerging species such as cod, halibut and haddock.  However, such international experience is not being taken on board by the Australian authorities.  Unless Australian aquaculture drastically changes course it is heading for disaster.   

Making the Same Mistakes:

The country and the culture species may be different but the companies involved are all too familiar.  The world’s largest salmon farming company, the Dutch-owned multinational Nutreco, has already secured a foothold in Australia.  Nutreco is gearing up for huge expansion in barramundi, kingfish and is interested in becoming involved in tuna farming off Port Lincoln.  Norwegian company Stolt is already the second biggest tuna company in Port Lincoln.  In 2001 Nutreco joined forces with Tasmanian salmon company, Tassal, to buy Pivot’s aquaculture business including an aquafeed plant in Tasmania and a barramundi facility in the Northern Territory.  In 2002 the Stehr Group signed a deal with Nutreco to grow out kingfish in Spencer Gulf, South Australia [31].  By the end of the end of the decade Nutreco hope to be producing 10,000 tonnes a year from their barramundi farm on Bathurst Island.  The $20m farm, 100 miles north of Darwin, has capacity for 2.2 million fish and is capable of flooding the entire barramundi sector.  “It has the potential to certainly displace much of the wild-caught fish on the market today,” Northern Territory Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries Mick Palmer told ABC in 2001.  “That’s not to say that that industry will disappear but it will provide the consumer in Australia a cheap bulk volume product that they’ll be able to put very high quality fish on the home table at a price that’s very competitive with other products” [32].   

That’s exactly what they said about salmon before the market crashed and consumer confidence led to a public backlash against cheap and nasty farmed salmon.  Nutreco are still reeling from a BBC documentary – “The Price of Salmon” – which was broadcast across the world during 2001.  Nutreco’s share price fell 15% even before the documentary revealed that farmed salmon contained high levels of cancer-causing chemicals such as dioxins and PCBs [33].  And just this month Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) revealed that Nutreco were prosecuted and fined $1,800 in December for the illegal use of the carcinogenic chemical malachite green [34].  Last year Nutreco were also accused of shoddy labour practices in Chile, bad working conditions and dozens of workers went out on hunger strike [35].  Having left a trail of pollution in their wake in Scotland, Canada, Norway and Chile, Nutreco appear to view Australia’s pristine marine environment as an ideal place to import pollution.

Different Hemisphere - Same Problems:  

Investigating a new research topic is rather like opening a can of worms.  If the ‘five fundamental flaws of sea cage fish farming’ are used as template through which to examine Australian and New Zealand aquaculture parallels with sea cage fish farming operations around the world immediately become apparent.  The well-documented pollution problems inherent in salmon farming in Chile, Norway, Scotland, Ireland and Canada also exist in Tasmania and New Zealand for example.  It is merely a question of flushing them out.  Whilst tuna farming in the Mediterranean is only just beginning to attract the close scrutiny it warrants, the experiences in the Australian tuna farming industry over the last decade are particularly revealing.  Equally, yellowtail kingfish may appear a completely different kettle of fish but it is also farmed in Japan.  And red snapper is another name for red bream – sea bream is farmed in the Mediterranean too.   Sea cage fish farming in the Northern and Southern hemispheres are not poles apart at all.  Even the briefest of trawls through the literature reveals alarming similarities between the five fundamental flaws of European sea cage fish farming and Antipodean sea cage fish farming.  Over the coming months fieldwork in both Australia and New Zealand will flush out the issue yet further and will be published in the forthcoming book “Cancer of the Coast: the environmental and public health disaster of sea cage fish farming” [32].  Thus far the picture emerging is not pretty.   

1) Wastes: 

By discharging untreated and contaminated toxic wastes directly into the sea, tuna, salmon, cod and kingfish farmers are using coastal waters as an open sewer.  Considering all other businesses are charged waste disposal and wastewater treatment costs it is not altogether surprising that sea cage fish farmers are portrayed as unfairly freeloading on the marine environment.  WWF have calculated that an average salmon discharges the waste equivalent as the sewage from a town of ca. 20,000 people – salmon farms in Scotland for example discharge almost twice the phosphorus waste as the entire human population [33].   In enclosed bays and lochs with low tidal flows and poor water exchange it is rather like flushing the toilet only once a month.  No wonder coastal communities the world over do not want such a polluting presence their doorstep.  When SunAqua’s application to farm kingfish and red snapper in the pristine waters of Moreton Bay Marine Park, Queensland, was submitted last year Lord Mayor Jim Soorley vowed:  

“It will go ahead over my dead body.  This stupid and idiotic proposal would put nutrients and nitrogen back in the bay…Our waterways are too precious. We have to reduce waste and lower the nutrient and nitrogen levels” [34] 

SunAqua’s claim that “the likelihood of algal blooms due to increased nutrient inputs is considered to be negligible” simply does not stand close scrutiny [35].  If SunAqua wanted to eliminate risk entirely then they would adopt closed-containment technology.  The solution to pollution is surely not dilution.   

An increasing body of international research points to strong causal links between untreated finfish farm effluent and toxic harmful algal blooms [36].  Whilst there is a growing body of evidence detailing waste impacts from salmon farms, the threat posed by tuna, kingfish and red snapper farm wastes has been less well publicised.  Privately though the Australian Government have long known about tuna farming’s capacity to produce wastes.  According a 1996 Fisheries Research and Development Corporation project:  

“Environmental monitoring was undertaken from the first stages of southern bluefin tuna farming development, with the early surveys suggesting localised effects on the seafloor sediments and benthic communities, as well as surrounding water column. The causes appeared to be primarily from the shading effect of the nets, accumulation of waste feed and increased sedimentation of particulate matter, as well as the release of dissolved nutrients” [37]  

A ‘pollute and move on’ mentality has characterised the Australian Government’s approach to tuna farming: 

“Frid and Mercer (1989) recommended the siting of sea cages in areas of high tidal flow as this would disperse the sediment rain over a broader area and reduce the more localised environmental impact.  They note, however, that nutrient enrichment of the water body for a longer period could stimulate the growth of phytoplankton.  An alternative approach advocated by some resource managers and used for the farming of tuna in South Australia, is to accept that the accumulation of wastes will exceed the natural assimilative capacity of the seafloor community.  In response farmers are issued with a larger lease area so as to allow the practice of cage rotation and seafloor fallowing (Bond 1993)” [38]   

Such a state-sponsored policy of shifting cultivation has not been without its problems.  In 1996, ca. 75% of all the farmed tuna stock in South Australia were mysteriously wiped out by a toxic algal bloom with any surviving fish towed to deep water [39].  The 1996 Boston Bay incident is still highly controversial and whilst there is some documentary evidence many facts are still to emerge from unpublished insurance and Government documents [40].  Tuna farmers claim they were the innocent victims of a natural event.  However, it has all the hallmarks of man-made disaster.  The link between tuna farming wastes and the algal blooms is all too obvious.  One year after the 1996 tuna kill a researcher attached to Flinders University conducted tests at tuna feedlot sites near Port Lincoln and found 47 species of algal bloom.  One potentially toxic bloom affected all monitored sites near Port Lincoln in May and June 1997 [41].  A subsequent TV investigation in 2000 suggested that the 1996 incident was hushed up.  According to the ABC documentary ‘Cells from Hells’:   

“In the last 30 years there have been increasing numbers of fish kills around the world. The tuna in this South Australian fish-farm died in just two days in 1996.  As with so many other cases a natural cause is still the official explanation.  However more and more, evidence is shifting the blame away from mother nature…. in Australia and around the world, there's a reluctance to acknowledge that it's human activity that is triggering the transformation of normally benign organisms into increasingly dangerous forms.  If we continue to mismanage the way nutrients and pollutants are released into the environment we'll have to confront new incarnations of the cells from hells” [42]

It quoted Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff from the University of Tasmania:

“The local South Australian government prefers to stick with this explanation because it somehow claims that this is a completely natural event.  There is no human involvement whatsoever.  The alternative claim that there is an algal bloom that caused this problem is of much more concern. But in Japan Chattonella is a prime example of an algal bloom phenomenon which is actually induced by the waste products of the aquaculture industry itself and of course that’s not something that the tuna aquaculture industry want to hear”

Professor Hallegraeff told ABC that when he examined a water sample he found that it was teeming with a toxic alga never before seen in Australia called ‘chattonella’.  The same organism killed half a billion dollars worth of fish in Japan in 1972.  Professor Hallegraeff said that in Japan chattonella is “an example of an algal bloom phenomenon which is actually induced by the waste products of the aquaculture industry”.  Speaking later on radio, Professor Hallegraeff stressed:

 “What is important, there’s a very good data set from Japan more than fifty years of data that have shown a very good relationship between increase of Chattonella marina blooms (particularly the Seto Inland Sea) and the fertilisation of water by both domestic and industrial and in particular aquaculture wastes.  And this is important to take into account, that if finfish aquaculture operations develop in very sheltered areas like Boston Bay, they have to be prepared for an increasing frequency of these algal blooms” [43]

 The furore prompted a parliamentary question: do toxic algal blooms represent threats to or from aquaculture? [44].  That is a question neither the industry nor the government want to answer.  Others though are more public in declaring a direct link between tuna farm wastes and toxic algal blooms:

 “In April 1996, organic wastes and nutrients from the faecal wastes from the 66 caged tuna farms contributed to a phytoplankton bloom in Boston Bay….respected researchers, such as Dr Anthony Cheshire (University of Adelaide) and researchers from SARDI, have clearly identified the tuna farms as a major contributor to nutrient and organic loads within the bay. Poor flushing of waters within the bay, and a history of pollution within the bay, resulted in SARDI researchers actually predicting the eventual disaster as early as January 1993.  The State government, eager to please the demands of the tuna industry, ignored all scientific warnings, and are now trying to convince the public of South Australia, that the disaster was natural, and not the result of poor environmental management and monitoring” [45]

 According to the ‘Australia State of the Environment Report 2001’:

 “Tuna farming in feedlots can generate a significant amount of pollution.  Recent research suggests that pollution is causing the sudden appearance of strange micro-organisms capable of poisoning fish.  It has been suggested that a toxic algae was the cause of death of the tuna in Boston Bay, Port Lincoln in 1996” [46]

 And perhaps most damning of all - this from a whistleblower within the tuna farming industry:

 “I have participated in a research program on the tuna cages in Port Lincoln in South Australia. It is true that food and fish waste add nutrients to the nearby water column, however some of that is absorbed by the community of sessile organisms living on the cage wall.  This in itself creates a problem, the growth of these organisms slows down water exchange between the cage and outside water column.  As the fish in the cage use the oxygen in the water little is replaced so the cages are routinely cleaned. This results in large piles of decomposing organic matter on the sea floor, killing any algae and seagrass underneath for some considerable distance around the cage. This can be up to 50 cm thick.  The results of this research was quashed by some in South Australia but if you hunt through the court records in the Tuna Boat Owners Associations attempt to claim insurance against tuna losses in a ‘storm’ you should find it” [47]

 This event in Australia echoes with recent incidents in Ireland where salmon farmers have also tried to blame mass mortalities due to ‘acts of God’ rather than look for explanations closer to home [48].  Sea cage fish farming is shooting itself in the foot by overstocking and overproduction.  The Boston Bay tuna farming mass mortality incident smacks of so-called ‘self-pollution’ coined by scientists in the late 1980s in relation to salmon farming in Scotland [49].  Mortality rates on Scottish salmon farms have been between 10-35% over the last decade.  Official figures show that between 1999 and 2002 over 4 million farmed salmon died in their cages with over 2 million being attributed on insurance claims to naturally occurring algal blooms [50].  The 1,700 tonnes of dead tuna involved in the 1996 Boston Bay incident, for example, were subject to insurance claims estimated at $45 million.  Insurance claims from sea cage fish farms, be it for disease losses, algal blooms or escapes, are reaching record levels.  One cannot help but wonder if sea cage fish farming is one big insurance scam [51].  Being paid compensation for a self-inflicted wound is akin to money in the back pocket and a pat on the back as a reward for polluting the marine environment.  The ‘polluter gets paid principle’ is seemingly alive and well down on the sea cage fish farm. 

  Tuna farms are not the only species in Australian waters implicated in harmful algal blooms (HABs).  According to the Canberra Times (17th August 2000):

 “HABs often follow the establishment of fish farms due to increased nutrients in the water from waste food and fish excreta.  Nutrients flowing from a trout farm upstream from Cooma were believed responsible for a blue-green algae bloom which caused the hospitalisation of Cooma residents in 1998” [52]

 Nutreco’s barramundi farm on Bathurst Island, Northern Territory, is also classified by consultants in a newly published Environmental Management Plan as a ‘medium risk’ in terms of wastes.  Ignoring new developments in closed containment systems it states that:

 “It is impractical to catch the waste products from marine farming operations and these need to be managed in situ.  The nutrients from the faeces from a dense population of farmed fish have the potential to impact on the water column and on the bethos, causing eutrophication in the water column and benthos resulting in increase of aquatic plant growth and deficiencies in dissolved oxygen levels.  In severe cases hydrogen sulphide can be generated from the sediment.  Eutrophication will be exacerbated by high temperatures (as are found in Port Hurd), excess fish feed passing through the water column and by lack of water movement…..Eutrophication is not a desirable condition for the fish or for the environment.  Lack of oxygen and the impact of hydrogen sulphide cause stress on the fish and potential loss of fish stocks.  Increased nutrients will cause nuisance growth of algae outside the farm and will increase the potential for algal blooms” [53] 

 ‘Impractical’, as used above, is merely a euphemism for unprofitable. 

 Salmon farms in Tasmania have also been placed under the microscope.  An ongoing project - “The effect of fin-fish aquaculture on phytoplankton populations” - at the University of Tasmania for example is investigating the link between salmon farming wastes and toxic algal blooms.  The project outline states that:

 “Marine-farming of finfish releases particulate and nitrogenous waste that impacts the immediate and surrounding coastal environment. This project is examining how this waste (particularly nitrogen) is entering the pelagic environment and whether it influences phytoplankton biomass and species composition, leading to harmful algal blooms (HABs)” [54]

 A government report on the Huon Estuary in Tasmania published in 2000 also tackled the question of salmon farming wastes and the link with algal blooms [55].  This followed a 1996 FRDC project which conceded that:

 “Key environmental issues in the Huon Estuary are associated with effects and fate of nutrient and organic matter loads from the catchment, from coastal waters, and from activities in the estuary, especially salmon farming….Salmon farms may affect water quality nearby their sites.  Our field observations yielded evidence of higher ammonia concentrations in surface and mid-depth waters close to the marine farm zones” [56] 

Evidence of salmon farming’s capacity to foul its own nest has been slowly seeping out since the 1980s.  Back in 1989 New Zealand scientists investigating the impact of salmon farming wastes on Big Glory Bay, Stewart Island, warned of potential effects on the water column [57].  As a report published last year for the Ministry of Fisheries explains:

“The best documented impacts of finfish farming within New Zealand were gathered during a phytoplankton bloom at Stewart Island.  Chang et al (1990) identified the phytoplankton species responsible for the mortality of 600 tonnes of salmon in January 1989; Mackenzie (1991) provided background information regarding phytoplankters and the nature of the toxicity from the bloom, whereas Pridmore and Rutherford (1992) estimated that salmon farming increased the nitrogen concentration of the bay by about 30%” [58]

 The incidence of toxic algal blooms, coincident with the rapid expansion of salmon farming, has certainly increased over the last decade in New Zealand waters [59].  An international conference on HABs - Harmful Algal Blooms 2003 - will take place later this year in New Zealand in November [60].  We will have to wait and see what, if anything, comes out of the wash.  Sea cage fish farmers though do not like to air their dirty linen in public.  The Ministry of Fisheries report concludes by recommending a lid be kept on any problems in order to preserve New Zealand’s lucrative export market in farmed shellfish and salmon:

 “Phytoplankton blooms were linked to mass mortalities of salmon at Stewart Island and have been discussed in the benthic impacts effects section.  Their effects on wild populations are unknown; it is possible that dense blooms could have localised effects on wild fish, but mobile species would generally be expected to avoid such areas.  HABs are a recurrent feature of New Zealand aquaculture in recent years.  It is possible that their recurrence is merely due to improved surveillance, but their presence requires increased vigilance in order to maintain domestic and export markets.  Aquaculture activities have the potential to accelerate the spread of blooms, but they also provide increased surveillance”

  Farmed salmon are romantically portrayed by some farmers as ‘canaries in the cage’ acting as barometers of the health of our blue planet and monitors of pristine water quality.  If farmed salmon really are canaries then with the millions of dead salmon littering the bottom of sea cages we are already in deep trouble. 

 2) Escapes: 

 The very nature of sea cage fish farming predetermines a high level of risk in relation to escapes.  Moving further offshore to cleaner waters will only serve to exacerbate that risk.  Whilst escapes of farmed salmon have dominated the international headlines there have also been escapes of farmed cod in Norway and from sea bass cages in the Mediterranean [61].  Mass escapes of kingfish into Australian waters are also reaching crisis levels – so much so that SARFAC have set up “Kingfish Watch” to monitor the increasing number of escapes in South Australian waters [62].  Local fishermen are concerned at the expansion of kingfish farms at the gateway to the Great Australian Bight.  A campaign to stop further developments is being headed by the recreational fishing council and local professional fishermen who have heard reports from the Spencer Gulf about escaped kingfish threatening other fish stock.  According to The Australian (9th April 2003): “A year ago, an unusually high number were reported at the top of Spencer Gulf, leading to reports the aggressive predatory fish had escaped, devouring their way through schools of whiting and garfish, even through squid ‘leaving only ink and tentacles’ behind” [63].  The current situation in Australia with kingfish escapes resonates loudly with the disastrous history of farmed salmon escapes in Canada, Scotland, Norway and Chile [64].  

 Escapes of potentially diseased and infected farmed kingfish have steadily increased over the past three years, with 1882 escaping in 2001, 6069 in 2002 and 21,258 so far in 2003.  Official government figures reveal that 29,209 farmed kingfish have escaped in 10 separate incidents since June 2001 [65].  A $2 million three-year research project to address key issues including the interaction between wild and farmed kingfish and aquaculture and marine mammal populations was announced in February 2003.  “This study will increase research we have already been doing following the initial escapes,” said Fisheries Minister Paul Holloway. “We need more research and the industry does have to improve its performance”.  However, Trevor Watts of the South Australian Recreational Fishing Advisory Council wants a moratorium as a matter of precaution:

 “We still believe there should be a moratorium on kingfish farming until a range of issues are resolved, particularly the fish escaping.  We would also like to know the measurements of the chemicals and antibiotics that are used and is the industry taking note of overseas experience?”  [66]

 In April, following the eighth kingfish escape in less than two years, Fisheries Minister Paul Holloway was forced to admit once again the need for “further tightening of the industry’s operating procedures and farming practices”.  Anecdotal evidence suggests the escapees are swimming up to 50km from their pens, and locals are reporting declines in fish stocks in the area [67].  In South Australia escapes from kingfish farms have reached such level that the Government (PIRSA) are developing a code of practice and operating standards, which will be incorporated into license conditions.  The Government is currently conducting tests on kingfish aimed at distinguishing escapee farmed fish from wild kingfish [68].  Nor are escapes from kingfish farms the only problem. 

 Escapes from salmon farms have long been a feature of salmon farming in Tasmania but have increased dramatically in the last few years [69].  To such an extent that in July the Tasmanian Minister for Primary Industries, Water and Environment, Bryan Green responded to the persistent problem of escapes by urging salmon farmers to adopt a formalised code of practice [70].  The Tasmanian authorities admitted last week that:

 “Until recently large escapes were relatively rare and were rather eagerly greeted by the recreational fishing fraternity.  Two large escapes (thousands of fish) recently took place in Macquarie Harbour on the West coast, where a group of operators new to the locality underestimated the operating conditions.  The area does not have a large population of recreational fishers, and commercial licensed netters (who are not permitted to sell salmonids) complained that their large catches of salmon were interfering with their flounder catching activities and creating a disposal problem” (Darby Ross, Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, pers.comm.)

 Escapes from barramundi farms have been reported in Lake Argyle [71] and there is anecdotal evidence that recreational fishermen have caught escaped farmed snapper around Port Stephens [72].  Each escapee is a potential vector for the spread of infectious diseases and parasites.  Escaped farmed fish are highly mobile pollutants.    

 3) Diseases and parasites:

 The diseases may be different but the problems are exactly the same.  Whether it is Infectious Salmon Anaemia in North America (Maine and New Brunswick), the Faroes and Norway, Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis (Scotland and Norway), Rickettsia (Chile) or Kudoa (Canada), diseases and parasites are simply a function of intensification and overproduction [73].  Cramming migratory fish into cages at stocking densities equivalent to battery farmed chickens is a recipe for disaster.  A report by Compassion in World Farming calculated that each farmed salmon has the equivalent space to swim around in as a bathtub of water [74].  The explosion in diseases endemic in salmon farming will inevitably manifest themselves in emerging new species such as tuna, cod, halibut, barramundi and kingfish. 

 In Tasmania the biggest killer is Amoebic Gill Disease (AGD).  According to the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, “prevalence of the disease and costs associated with the freshwater treatment are increasing”.  AGD is “associated with extensive mortality and reduced production of Atlantic salmon in Tasmania” and accounts for 10-20% of production costs [75].  Overproduction has also led to welfare problems with jaws deformities in farmed Tasmanian salmon [76].   In New Zealand, whirling disease has been reported in salmonids [77].   Other problems on salmon farms include cataracts, deformities such as ‘hunchback’ syndrome and so-called ‘death crowns’ due to sea lice infestation [74].  Mass mortalities on salmon farms are so commonplace that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia have published a handy ‘Disposal Manual’ that covers ‘the safe transport and disposal of carcases, animal products, materials and wastes’.  The ‘Destruction Manual’ ‘guides the decision to destroy stock, and the choice of appropriate techniques’ [78]. 

 Diseases and parasites are also problems in other sectors; be it nodavirus or barramundi encephalitis virus (BEV) in barramundi, ‘Beko’ disease, gill fluke and black spot in kingfish or blood fluke in tuna [79].  A potentially huge problem also exists in Kudoa contamination of farmed tuna.  According to a 1991 Fisheries Research and Development Corporation project: “The only fish health issue identified during the project was the presence of the parasite Kudoa in 0.5% of the marketed southern bluefin tuna” [80].  It is not known whether these studies have been published or if Kudoa has taken a hold in Australian tuna farmed.  What is certain however is the capacity of Kudoa – a flesh eating parasite – to shatter market confidence.  In Canada, Kudoa (also known as “soft-flesh syndrome”) has devastated the farmed salmon market costing the Canadian industry CA$30-40 million and affecting 20-50% of salmon farmers.  The problem with Kudoa is that the parasite does not manifest itself until several days after the fish has been slaughtered, when it 'liquefies' the salmon's flesh [81].  Kudoa would not be good news for Australian tuna farmers dependent upon exports to the Japanese sashimi sector.  Kudoa is not the only parasite affecting farmed tuna – instead of eating the flesh of the fish this one burrows through the brain:

 “A syndrome characterized by atypical swimming behaviour followed by rapid death was first reported in captive southern bluefin tuna Thunnus maccoyii (Castelnau) in the winter of 1993.  The cause of this behaviour was found to be a parasitic encephalitis due to the scuticociliate Uronemanigricans (Mueller). Based on parasitological and histological findings, it is proposed that the parasites initially colonise the olfactory rosettes and then ascend the olfactory nerves to eventually invade the brain” [81]

   New diseases in farmed tuna are emerging all the time as tuna farming expands and problems manifest themselves.  A recent review of disease in tuna stated that: “it has become clear that much more research needs to be undertaken on the physiology of the species (southern, northern and Pacific bluefin tuna) currently used in aquaculture in order for the pathogenesis of some conditions to be properly understood” [82].

 Kingfish are also emerging as carriers of infectious diseases and parasites.  In their environmental statement for a kingfish and red snapper farmed in Moreton Bay Marine Park, Queensland, SunAqua concede that “wild snapper in Western Australia are known to have several parasites including the didymozoid trematode” and that “the pathogens Vibrio spp and Cryptocaryon irritans are also recorded in cage culture in Japan and New Zealand” [84].  In Japan, species of marine flatworm, such as hadamushi, are already significant problems in farmed yellowtail kingfish.  Hadamushi has also been found in wild yellowtail kingfish in Australia and it is predicted that more parasite outbreaks are likely to occur in Australia in the future [85].  Research by fish biologist Tim Dempster at the University of Sydney on a sea-cage kingfish farm at Port Stephens in New South Wales (and on Mediterranean farms) also shows has sea cages attract vast numbers of wild fish which can either infect farmed fish or be infected themselves [86]. 

 Imported fish meal also has the potential to devastate wild fish populations and spread diseases.  Feeding large tonnages of imported fish such as pilchards to farmed tuna is an activity that presents a high quarantine risk.  Such a high risk strategy has not prevented tuna farmers in South Australia, unable to source fish feed from local stocks, importing ca. 50,000 tonnes of pilchards from North American waters.  In 1995 and 1998 the local pilchard populations started dying off.  As the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation explains:

 “The pilchard mass mortalities of 1995 and 1998/9 were unprecedented in their rate and geographical scale of spread.  Waves of mortality spread from South Australia to Western Australia and to Queensland at a rate of 10-40 km d-1.  In many cases, stocks were reduced by over 60%.  The cause of this mortality was certainly a herpesvirus” [87]

 As with the link between toxic algal blooms and fish farm wastes, the causal relationship between imported farmed fish meal and wild fish mortalities is all too obvious.   Again, however, the government seem more interested in protecting the tuna farming industry than wild fish.  A report to CSIRO in 1997 stated that pilchards imported as feed may have been implicated in the herpes-like virus infected affecting wild populations of pilchards but indicated that there was “administrative difficulties and debate regarding the independence of scientific advice”.  According to a government scientist “there is strong circumstantial evidence for a connection between the locations of the pilchard mortalities in 1995 and 1998 and their proximities to caged aquaculture ventures in South Australia” [88].  Coincidence or causal link – we may never know for certain [89].  In 1999 the Environment, Resources and Development Committee of the Parliament of South Australia recommended:

 “The rapid phasing out of the importation of pilchards in conjunction with the phasing in of manufactured diets for farmed tuna.  The Committee would like to see commercial trials of the use of manufactured diets in the next tuna season, in partnership with the industry.  These trials should occur as a matter of urgency” [90]

 Losses from diseases and parasites are not the only mortality problems on sea cage fish farms.  In South Australia, at least 13% of all dolphin carcasses studied are believed to have died as result of entanglement, including many in the tuna feedlots near Port Lincoln.  A study by the South Australian Natural History Museum recommended minimising wastage when feeding tuna, since overfeeding attracts other fish species to the vicinity of the feedlots.  Evidence strongly suggested that dolphins and sea-lions were eating these other species in the vicinity of the feedlots, and then becoming entangled [91].  Seal predation is also a big problem in the Marborough Sounds of New Zealand [92].  The threat from predators is altogether more hazardous though in Australian waters.  As well as Leopard seals and sealions, predators include whale sharks, tiger sharks and crocodiles [93].  As one barramundi farmer in Northern Territory explained to ABC in 2001:

 “They’ve got a whole different range of predators, if we haven’t got seals coming up and nipping you on the gumboot we’ve got crocodiles potentially tearing you off and eating you, so sometimes it’s hard to see the feed loss and that sort of thing” [94] 

 4) Chemicals:

 The illegal and state-sponsored use of toxic chemicals has received considerable attention in Scottish salmon farming [95] and more recently in Chile with the illegal use of the carcinogen malachite green [96].  The use of artificial colourings has also been under the spotlight with a lawsuit in the United States taking legal action against supermarkets for not labelling farmed salmon [97].  European salmon farmers have until the end of the year to drastically reduce the levels of Canthaxanthin (E161g) after the European Commission’s Commissioner on Health and Consumer Protection declared the artificial dye unsafe [98].  Where this leaves New Zealand and Tasmanian salmon farmers using artificial chemicals to colour their farmed salmon is unclear but it is known the artificial dye astaxanthin is used in both New Zealand and Australia.  The current status of chemical use in Australia is thus far unclear. 

 Chemicals used on kingfish farms are understood to include hydrogen peroxide as a bath to control skin and gill fluke infections and Praziquantel for more intense infections.  Sunaqua’s environmental statement for their proposed kingfish and red snapper farm in Moreton Bay, Queensland, alludes to the use of ‘therapeutants and chemicals’ but does not list them [99].  When asked to list all the chemicals to be used, Sunaqua’s MD merely states that “no chemicals or agents would be allowed to be administered without QFS (Queensland Fisheries Service) consent” and that “we will not be using antibiotics as a matter of course” (Dr Julian Amos, pers.comm).  Requests to Government officials for further information on chemical use in Australia and New Zealand have either been refused or are taking time to process.  According to the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment in Tasmania, “chemical use in salmon farming in Tasmania has generally been very low” but they do not specify which or in what quantities.  They do admit that anti-fouling copper-based paints are being widely used:

 “The industry has in the past avoided the use of conventional anti-foulants on net cages, but has recently obtained a limited permit from the National Registration Authority to use copper-based anti-foulants on predator nets in an attempt to combat seal attacks during frequent net changes of unprotected nets.  A condition of the permit is a study to determine the impact of this use.  Work is still continuing on potential alternatives anti-foulants” (Darby Ross, pers.comm)

 Last year the Scottish Executive expressed “reason for concern because of the accumulation of copper in sediments below fish farms, and its potential toxicity to benthic organisms”.  A survey carried out in 1996-7 by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency found that sediments directly beneath the cages and within 30 metres of the farms were severely contaminated by copper and zinc at 7 of the 10 farms surveyed.  The report pointed out that elevated copper and zinc concentrations, in combination with high levels of other potentially toxic substances such as sulphides and ammonia, could represent a significant barrier to the recolonisation of benthic sediments when fish farm sites are fallowed [100].  New Zealand scientists have also found concentrations of zinc that exceeded the criteria for adverse ecological effects and suggested that recovery of benthic assemblages might be delayed because of heavy metal contamination in the polluted sediments under salmon cages [101]. 

 In Tasmania, “effective treatments” being investigated by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation include “the use of multiple freshwater baths to remove and kill the parasitic amoeba”.  The chemicals referred to are chlorine dioxide (Anthium dioxideTM), chloramine-T (HalamidTM) and hydrogen peroxide (EcoshieldTM).  According to FRDC, “Further development of these treatments is planned through the health program of the CRC for sustainable aquaculture of finfish (Aquafin) to provide a cost effective and efficacious treatment for AGD” [102].  As the industry trebles production over the next decade there will inevitably be an explosion in diseases, parasites and the consequent use of chemicals.  Nutreco’s barramundi farm in Northern Territory has only been in operation for a few years but it has already experienced disease outbreaks requiring chemical controls:

“Treatment for gill fluke and the copepod is relatively benign with hydrogen peroxide bathing being used….The hydrogen peroxide is transported as a 50% solution to Barrabase in 200 litre drums and moved to pens when required.  The fish to be treated are crowded into an area approximately one quarter of the size of the pen.  The hydrogen peroxide is diluted with water to a concentration of 400ppm and pumped through the pens using a soaker hose” [103]  

If Nutreco are already experiencing significant disease problems with production levels at only ca. 500 tonnes per year what chemicals will they have to resort to if production reaches the 10,000 tonnes predicted by 2010?

 5) Feed: 

The fifth and fatal flaw of sea cage fish farming relates to its dependence upon a wild fish fuel supply that is both depleted and contaminated.  Sea cage fish farming is like an oil tanker running on empty [104].  Vast quantities of fish meal and fish oil are imported from Chile and Peru countries to supply salmon, cod, halibut, turbot and tuna farms all over the world [105]   Marine fish and salmonids together account for 85% of all fish oil consumed by the aquafeed sector [106].  Such are sea cage aquaculture’s demands that krill from the Antarctic and Arctic are now being targeted by the capture sector as raw material.  Krill are a precious commodity to salmon farmers in particular as they as relatively PCB-free and also naturally contain pink pigment [107].  The crux of the current problem is that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to exploiting fisheries – we are ‘fishing down marine food webs’ but at the same time we are also ‘farming up marine food webs’. As Dr Daniel Pauly said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in 2001: “the new trend in aquaculture is to drain the seas to feed the farms” [108].  The Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation recognised this problem back in 1993:

 “If aquaculture is to continue to expand in Australia cost-effective diets based on Australian agricultural ingredients urgently need to be developed.  The replacement of fish meal as the protein source of choice is a global research priority driven by a declining supply of fish meal and rapidly expanding aquaculture and aquaculture feed industries” [108]

 Research has been ongoing in Australia over the last decade to investigate the potential of soybean meal, pea protein concentrate and lupin protein concentrate to replace fish meal protein [110].  The substitution of fish meal with vegetable protein is a significant trend within the global sea cage fish farming industry.  For example, the proportion of vegetable oils used in Nutreco Aquaculture’s total fish feed production doubled from 5.5% in 2001 to 11.4% in 2002.  Scottish Quality Salmon (SQS) recently revised its standards to allow members to substitute up to 25% of the fish oil in salmon diets with plant oil whereas Norway salmon farmers use up to a third vegetable oils [111].  A new European Union-sponsored initiative - “Fish Oil and Meal Replacement” (FORM) – is also underway across Europe to find alternative fuel supplies for carnivorous fish [112].  Tuna farmers in Australia have also looked at switching from the use of fish such as pilchards to dry feed pellets with a significant vegetable component.  Results from the studies show that food conversion ratios improves significantly from 15 to 1 with pilchards to 5 to 1 for pellets (five tonnes of pellets turns into one tonne of tuna flesh) [113].  

 Despite the savings in feed costs (and in terms of environmental impact) tuna farmers are reluctant to switch to pellets as the final product tastes different to wild fish.  Similarly, the substitution of fish meal with vegetable protein fundamentally alters the ‘meaty’ taste of carnivorous fish.  It seems carnivorous fish fed on soybeans, maize, peas and other vegetables are just not fishy enough.  You are what you eat after all.  For example, the Japanese - the largest buyers of farmed salmon and tuna for sushi and sashimi – have in the past sent back consignments of Norwegian salmon complaining that it tasted too ‘earthy’.  In taste tests farmed cod also fared badly against wild caught cod [114].  Ultimately, trying to turn a carnivore into an herbivore is doomed to failure and rather like force-feeding a tiger on lentils and rice [115]. 

 So if there are no wild fish left in the sea and vegetables are not palatable to either the fish themselves or the end consumer what options are left open to sea cage fish farmers?  Australian scientists think the answer may lie on land not out to sea.  Just as BSE was rearing its ugly head in Europe, scientists at CSIRO’s Queensland research facility and at the University of Tasmania started working on the substitution of fish meal with terrestrial protein from chickens and other meat- producing animals.  A 1993 FRDC project outlined the problem:

 “Australia is particularly vulnerable to any world shortage of fish meal because of our reliance on imported fish meal. However, Australia has an abundant supply of terrestrial animal and vegetable protein feeds which have the potential to at least partly if not fully replace the fish meal presently used in compounded aquaculture diets.  Successful and cost-effective replacement of fish meal by terrestrial proteins in aquaculture diets may provide export opportunities for Australian feed manufacturers to supply the large Asian aquafeed market” [116]

 Trials were conducted on barramundi using “three terrestrial abattoir meals (poultry offal meal and two meat meals) and blood meal”.  Diets based on meat meal or poultry offal meal performed as well as diets based on Tasmanian fish meal.  Another 1995 project by the FRDC stated that:

 “Australia has an abundant supply of terrestrial animal and vegetable protein feeds which has the potential to at least partly if not fully replace the fishmeal presently used in compounded aquaculture diets.  Fish reared on diets containing high inclusions of meat meal, with or without some fishmeal but supplemented with fish oil, was found by trained taste panel assessment to be liked as well or better than fish reared on a diet formulated with a high fishmeal content…..These results demonstrate unequivocally the suitability of meat meal as a partial or complete replacement of fishmeal protein in grow-out diets for barramundi” [117]

 When asked for further details on meat substitution in fish feeds, the author of a paper on meat meal in farmed barramundi published earlier this year [118] replied that:

 “The reported meat meal work in barramundi feeds was done before the BSE issue made headlines around the world.  Although Australia has been fortunate in not having had any BSE problems, our feed manufacturers have taken a firm position of excluding any terrestrial animal protein from aquaculture feeds where harvested fish is exported to Europe or other countries (e.g. Japan) where certification of freedom from land animal products in feeds is required.  In reality, this means that meat meal is excluded from all Atlantic salmon feeds (only one feed manufacturer in Australia) and usage in barramundi feeds would be minimal.  I am not privy to the feed formulations used by the Feed Companies.  The BSE issue is a concern but it is also a shame that meat meal is banned because it a very good source of protein for fish. I am unaware of any reports implicating transmission of BSE to humans through consumption of fish” (Kevin Williams CSIRO, pers.comm)

 Australian researchers advocating the use of meat meal in fish diets should perhaps read a report - “Prions get fishy” – published earlier this year in Nature.  It states that:

“Fish, like sheep, elk and humans, could suffer a version of ‘mad cow disease’, or BSE, preliminary evidence suggests.  The results might help to reveal how the disease jumps from species to species. Infectious prions are thought to cause BSE and human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). They probably crossed from sheep to cows, and then to humans in infected meat” [119] 

Such is the concern for cross-contamination in Europe that the UK Government are investigating farmed fish for BSE type diseases and the European Union banned fishmeal in animal feeds [120].  Nor are barramundi the only aquaculture species in Australia weaned on meat.  According to the Department of Primary Industries “farmed crocodiles are generally fed chicken heads and/or kangaroo meat and sometimes beef and horse offal” [121].   More seriously, farmed salmon have been fed on potentially infected meat meal.  A 1998 FRDC project, in collaboration between Nutreco’s fish feed company Skretting Australia (the major manufacturer of salmonid feeds in Australia) and the Nutrition Group at the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute stated that:

 “Atlantic salmon parr were used to assess the apparent digestibility of crude protein (nitrogen), indispensable amino acids and energy of 19 protein sources with potential for use in Atlantic salmon feeds.  Protein sources included marine (fish meal), animal (meat, meat and bone, blood, feather, poultry meals) and plant (canola, corn, lupin, soybean, wheat) products” [122].

 Since Australia already imports over 60% of its fish products and is committed to trebling aquacultural production by 2010 it is clearly under pressure to increase its supplies of fish meal and find alternative feed sources.  Whether that involves importing contaminated fish such as herring from Europe, disease-ridden pilchards from South America or feeding fish on potentially contaminated meat, meat and bone, blood, feather and poultry meals the risks are all too real.  The painfully obvious conclusion is that we must stop farming carnivores such as salmon, tuna, barramundi and kingfish and start supporting sustainable forms of aquaculture such as shellfish farming.

 Food for Thought:  

Fish is an important food source – in fact it is the primary source of animal protein for one billion people.  However, it is a myth peddled by apologists for expansion of carnivorous fish farming that all aquaculture “feeds the poor” and must therefore be supported at all costs.  The bulk (93%) of total finfish production within developing countries in 2000 was contributed by omnivorous/herbivorous and filter-feeding fish species.  In contrast, 73% of the total finfish production within developed countries in 2000 was due to the culture of carnivorous fish [122].  The so-called ‘Friends of Aquaculture’ [123] and Global Aquaculture Alliance’s “Feeding the world through responsible aquaculture” programme [124], for example, are clearly designed to group the whole spectrum of farmed fish sectors in the same boat and present a united front.  Yet, as in the agriculture sector, aquaculture has many different facets and affects the marine environment in many different ways.  Sea cage fish farming is as similar to shellfish farming, for example, as intensive factory farming is to small scale subsistence or organic farming.  Genetically engineered fish, for example, are portrayed as a panacea for the world food problem [125] but are nothing to do with alleviating poverty and everything to do with making money.    

 The developing world is clearly dependent upon family fish farming to support itself but factory fish farming in the developed world is altogether different.  The business of carnivorous sea cage fish farming essentially turns a cheap low quality wild fish product into a luxury cash crop.  Australian and Mediterranean farmed tuna, for example, is sold almost exclusively to the Japanese sashimi markets whilst farmed salmon from Chile, Norway, Canada and Scotland also find their way into sushi bars.  Farmed yellowtail kingfish is being marketed under the Japanese name for the fish, hirmasa.  Potential markets for Australian hirmasa are certainly not the starving millions in Africa but high class restaurants and gourmet shops in Japan and North America.   Barramundi from Nutreco’s farm in Northern Territory is not sent to Africa but exported to restaurants in New York and Europe where it is sold for $30 a plate [126].  Sea cage fish farming is as far away from ‘feeding the world’ as it gets. 

 The notion that farmed fish is a healthy substitute for wild fish is a fallacy.  There are fundamental food safety differences between wild caught fish and factory farmed fish.  Back in 1999 the World Health Organisation published a report on “Food Safety Issues Associated with Products from Aquaculture” concluding that there were considerable gaps in our knowledge which hindered the process of food safety risk assessment [127].  Australian and New Zealand scientists all contributed to a report concerned with the contamination of aquaculture products published in 2000.  They too concluded that “information is still lacking on the effects of toxicants and water quality parameters on Australian and New Zealand aquaculture species” [128].

 The high level of risk associated with farmed fish products can be graphically illustrated in the “Rapid Food Alerts” issued by member states in the European Union.  Fish products (farmed and wild) were responsible for over a quarter (26%) of all food alerts issued during 2002 – the riskiest of all food categories and ranked higher than meat, dairy and other food products [129].  The harsh truth is that fish are the most contaminated of all foodstuffs and farmed fish fed on a cocktail of toxic chemicals and on contaminated fish meal are the worst of the worst [130].  For example, the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Food concluded in November 2000 that fish can contain ten times higher levels of dioxins than some other foodstuffs and can represent up to 63% of the average daily exposure to dioxins.  The European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition concluded in November 2000 that:

 “Fish meal and fish oil are the most heavily contaminated feed materials with products of European fish stocks more heavily contaminated than those from South Pacific stock by a factor of ca. eight” [131]

 Given that carnivorous farmed fish such as salmon are fed a diet containing 30% fish oil and 45% fish meal (for tuna this rises to ca. 100%) it is not surprising that these same contaminants bio-accumulate in the flesh of the fish.  Farmed salmon, for example, have been shown in tests carried out by the UK’s Pesticides Residues Committee to be contaminated with DDT, chlordane, dieldrin and lindane [132].  The Irish Food Safety Authority has found levels of PCB contamination four times higher in farmed salmon than wild salmon [133].  And a recent report published in North America comes to similar conclusions and calls farmed salmon a cancer risk [134].  Nor is the problem restricted to salmon farms in Europe and North America.  Earlier this year, for example, Japanese farmed blowfish were found to be contaminated with the carcinogenic chemical formalin [135].  Contaminated fish such as herring from the Northern hemisphere have also been exported to feed tuna farms in Australia [136].  When questioned about the potential for dioxin contamination in imported fish meal, Food Standards Australia New Zealand stated that: “FSANZ does not consider that current scientific evidence in relation to dioxins warrants the testing of fish imported into Australia” (Mark Salter, pers.comm).   

 Given the problem of dioxin and PCB contamination in European fish (eight times more contaminated than fish caught in the Southern hemisphere), the FSANZ’s stance is alarming and represents the antithesis of the precautionary principle.  According to a report published by the European Parliament in 2001, 90% of Swedish and Finnish fish is classed as “high risk” and there are hot spots of PCB/dioxin pollution in areas such as the Mediterranean and Baltic Sea [137].  Nor is this only a public health issue – testing of sediments by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has shown high levels of PCBs under salmon cages (caused by contaminated fish feed).   

 Residues testing by the Australian authorities have revealed high levels of contamination in wild fish as well as farmed fish.  The ‘Australian National Residue Survey Results’ for 2001-2002 for example detected copper contamination in 100% of farmed salmon tested (60 out of 60 samples), mercury in 87% (52 out of 60 samples), selenium in 100% (60 out of 60 samples) and zinc in 100% of farmed salmon tested (60 out of 60 samples).  Farmed tuna fared even worse with copper detected in 100% of samples tested (18 out of 18), lead in 89% (16 out 18), mercury in 100% (18 out of 18), selenium in 100% (18 out of 18) and zinc in 100% (18 out of 18).  Heavy metal contamination was also found in farmed barramundi with 100% (8 out 8) of samples contaminated with copper, 50% (4 out of 8) with lead, 100% with mercury (8 out of 8), 100% with selenium (8 out of 8) and 100% (8 out of 8) with zinc.  Fish were responsible for 43% of samples with residues over the maximum levels permitted [138]. 

 The dangers of eating too much fish are all too real.  Another survey – “Metal Contamination of Major NSW Fish Species available for human consumption” – by New South Wales Health Department showed that 13.6% of fish sampled exceeded one or more of the metal contaminant standards.  Excessive selenium accounted for 74% of the fin fish failures and mercury 22%.  Under ‘Risks to Public Health’ the report stated that:

 “While fish is not a staple food in the Australian diet it can provide a significant proportion of dietary metal contaminants.  Fin fish is the major source of dietary exposure to mercury, crustaceans are the major sources of dietary exposure to cadmium, and fish in general is a major source of dietary exposure to arsenic” [139]

 Globally, we have polluted our marine and freshwater environments to such an extent that we are now reaping the consequences with the bio-accumulation of contaminants up through the food chain and into our fish.  The farming of carnivorous fish simply (and very efficiently) bio-magnifies these contaminants and concentrates them in the flesh of the farmed fish.  Instead of eating the end product however we should label it as ‘hazardous goods’ and dispose of safely rather than serve it up as a supposedly ‘healthy and nutritious’ meal.  There are simply too many question marks about the safety about farmed fish to inspire any kind of consumer confidence.  For example, mercury contamination in wild tuna is well known [140] but it is unclear whether tuna farming increases or decreases levels of mercury in the flesh of the fish.  When questioned whether farmed tuna is tested prior to export to Japan, for example, Government agencies in Australia and in the Mediterranean remain strangely silent on the sensitive subject.  The outstanding question is whether farmed tuna have even higher levels of mercury contamination than wild tuna.  I guess it depends on how old the tuna are when they are caught and what they are fed on.  Just as the farming of salmon bio-accumulates cancer-causing chemicals such as dioxins and PCBs, tuna farming is a potential public health disaster.  In food safety terms the farming of tuna, salmon and other carnivorous species reliant upon a depleted and contaminated food source leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.  

 Slipping through the Worldwide Net:  

Despite the burgeoning body of evidence exposing the fundamental flaws inherent in sea cage fish farming, government agencies around the world have sponsored and bankrolled rapid expansion in advance of environmental and public health safeguards.  Effectively this is state-sponsored pollution.  Farmers have been given carte blanche to do as they please and have essentially been handed a blank cheque.  Governments have protected sea cage fish farmers from public scrutiny and permitted them to pollute with impunity.  Farmers seemingly have given diplomatic immunity from prosecution.  Any fines that are handed out are merely a drop in the ocean to multi-million dollar businesses such as Nutreco.  The process of Environmental Impact Assessment, for example, has either been circumnavigated altogether or environmental assessments have been carried out after farms have already been established.  Nutreco’s barramundi farm in Northern Territory, for example, proceeded without a proper Environmental Impact Assessment.  According to Kirsten Blair of the Environment Centre for Northern Territory:

“Considering the impacts sea cages have had elsewhere, Environment Minister Tim Baldwin will be neglecting his responsibilities if he allows this operation to commence without a full public and transparent Environmental Impact Assessment…. The pristine marine environment of the Northern Territory is one of our major assets and it will be a tragedy if the NT starts repeating the mistakes already made with aquaculture elsewhere in Australia” [141] 

 Nutreco have subsequently published an ‘Environmental Management Plan’ but this is rather like shutting the cage door after the barramundi have bolted [142].  Sea cage fish farming continues to slip through the legislative net worldwide.  The lax regulatory regimes in Australia and New Zealand are no different than in Scotland, Norway or Canada who all claim to have the ‘most tightly regulated industry in the world’.  As Dr Otto Langer, a former Canadian government official now working for the David Suzuki Foundation in Vancouver, states:

 “Throughout the development of the industry there has been an obvious lack of meaningful government control and regulation.  The Provincial and Federal Governments have promoted the industry at a cost to the environment….From its very onset the industry was prone to countless violations of the Fisheries Act.  This has included the escape of hundreds of thousands of fish including Atlantic salmon, harmful alteration of habitat including the smothering of the benthos under the net pens with fish wastes, unapproved facilities that interfere with navigation, and the illegal deposit of deleterious substances.  Despite this, the agencies did not put this industry on an even playing field with other industries that would be held responsible for similar actions” [143]

 The above quotation refers to salmon farming in Canada but it could equally apply to sea bass farming in the Mediterranean or tuna farming in Australia.  The Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), for example, points to the ‘poacher-gamekeeper’ role of the state as both protector of the environment and promoter of the industry:

 “AMCS considers that there is a conflict of interest in the fact that PIRSA, a primary industry promotion and development agency, also licences, regulates and monitors aquaculture operations in South Australia.  Responsibility for industry support, development and promotion should be clearly separated from industry regulation, particularly regulation of aquaculture impacts on the environment.  DEH and EPA should have formal responsibility for approving or prohibiting aquaculture developments on environmental grounds, and sufficient staffing and resources should be provided for this task” [144]

 Sadly, such is the incestuous nature between multinational industries and global governance that the above acronyms translate easily to Norway, Scotland, Canada and Chile.  Government environmental agencies around the world, starved of funding, have had to sit idly by as farmers display a healthy disregard for the law.  Earlier this month for example, Tassal, the largest salmon farming company in Tasmania, was found guilty of price fixing [145].  Salmon farming companies in Chile were also caught using chemicals illegally [146].  In May, salmon farmers in Maine were found in violation of the Clean Water Act [147].  In the same month, Irish salmon farmers were exposed as flouting European law in at least half a dozen cases in relation to aquacultural expansion [148].  Salmon farmers it seems view themselves as above the law. 

 Tuna farmers have been caught out too.  A report published in 2000 by the Environment, Resources and Development Committee of the Parliament of South Australia stated that:

 “Its [tuna farming’s] long-term environmental impacts are unknown and its development is preceding legislative and policy control.  This case of tuna feedlots in Louth Bay demonstrates the deficiencies in the management of this form of aquaculture….As well as revealing the inadequacy of the legislation regulating aquaculture, this inquiry has also highlighted either the lack of will or the lack of sufficient compliance officers to successfully enforce the existing legislation.  The Committee finds that the current regulations for aquaculture do not adequately address planning issues surrounding this industry” [149]

 Two years previously another inquiry by the Environment, Resources and Development Committee of the Parliament of South Australia exposed gaping holes in the assessment process:

 “Development plans currently lack sufficient detail, partly due to a lack of biological data, to give developers any level of certainty on lease approvals.  This lack of biological data also hampers adequate assessment of development applications for marine aquaculture.  As a consequence the approval process is largely application driven with currently 300 applications pending and insufficient resources to properly assess them.  In the majority of applications, a site inspection, including transects by divers, does not occur despite the inadequate biological data available….Current processes for assessing aquaculture development applications are not viewed by some interested parties as sufficiently independent, transparent or scientifically rigorous” [150]

 In handing out production licences, often without public consultation and without environmental impact assessments, countries such as Scotland, Canada, Norway, Chile and Australia have served sea cage fish farmers with what amounts to ‘compulsory pollution orders’.  Dr Langer continues his Canadian critique:

 “Most jurisdictions other than Chile boast that they have the most stringent salmon farm regulations in the world.  British Columbia is no exception.  Despite the mandates of MWLA, MAFF, DOE and DFO the promotion of the industry far outstrips the necessary research, regulations, and enforcement necessary to allow salmon farmers to adopt techniques and operating procedures that are environmentally sustainable.  There has been little objective assessment of the environmental impacts caused by the salmon farm industry or how the government does its job to manage this industry.  Day to day decision by government agencies has been unbalanced in that they insist that fish farms cause no or little risk to the environment.  The information available simply does not support that politically motivated agenda”

 Once again, the above acronyms of government agencies in Canada could easily be substituted for SNH, SEPA and SERAD in Scotland [151] or SARDI, PIRSA and EPA in South Australia .  Such is the universal state support for sea cage fish farming that the Canadian critique outlined above would have similar resonance across the globe.  The lawless nature of Chilean salmon farming was recently described by Ecoceanos’s Juan Carl Cardenas in a Norwegian newspaper as like the “wild West without a sheriff” [152].  If Australia continues on its present course it could be entering the realms of cowboy country itself. 

 The Final Frontier:

 Developments in off-shore engineering technology are taking aquaculture into unchartered waters [153].  Moves by Japan and the United States in particular towards offshore aquaculture raise the prospect of a frontier economy.  Ocean scientists from Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, for example, are investigating the use of oil rigs off the Californian coast for fish farming.  The marriage of oil rigs and farmed fish may not be a perfect partnership though.  A vital issue that must be tackled relates to the growing threat of mercury pollution – wild fish such as tuna, swordfish and marlin are already contaminated with mercury.  Since oil rigs have been fingered as a source of mercury pollution in fish are they really a safe haven for raising farmed fish for human consumption? [154] 

 Food safety fears aside, the US National Marine Fisheries is busy promoting the development of aquaculture in the Exclusive Economic Zone (3-200 miles offshore) and have already published an ‘Operational Framework for Offshore Aquaculture’.  Experimental pens of halibut and haddock are already being grown in the Exclusive Economic Zone off the coast of New Hampshire and white seabass off California.  One farm 33 miles off the coast of Florida wants to farm cobia, mahi mahi, Florida pompano, greater amberjack and red snapper [155].  Other US projects are underway in waters off Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Washington State [156]. 

 In South Australia, environmental groups have voiced concern that moving tuna farms further out into Spencer Gulf will mean more interaction with wildlife, particularly near the Sir Joseph Banks Group and Dangerous Reef.   Flocks of scavenging silver gulls could displace terns and other birds on the islands, while sea lions, sharks and dolphins could have negative interactions with fish cages, according to groups such as the Australian Marine Conservation Society and the Conservation Council of South Australia [157].  Sea cage companies though see big advantages in moving into deeper water. 

 “By residing in an environment that boasts strong tidal flushing, open ocean aquaculture does not have to contend with the kind of waste build-up that occurs at near shore operations. The constant flushing also means that diseases may not have as strong a chance of flourishing” [158]

 According to Intrafish (21st August 2003):

 “It seems, then, that the question is not if open ocean aquaculture is feasible but rather how quickly fish farmers will be able to achieve the economies of scale and the automation required to make it a profitable enterprise.  Hawaii, for one, expects to have ten open ocean farms within a decade. Who will be next?”

 Orders for off-shore cages have been received from Spain, China, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the United States, Korea and Australia.  Welcome to the brave new world of 21st century fish.  

 Twenty First Century Fish - a Leap in the Dark:

 Developments in offshore technology coupled with advances in genetic engineering are now science fact not science fiction.  Fish though are the riskiest of all species currently being genetically engineered [159].  Unlike Dolly the Sheep who sits quietly in an enclosed field munching grass, farmed salmon are genetically programmed to swim thousands of miles across the open ocean.  A new report published in June by the Korea Maritime Institute warns of the dangers of GE seafood [160].  In Australia there does not appear to be any clear policy direction with regards to the current or future use of transgenic or GE seafood and aquaculture.  However, behind closed doors it is obvious that Australia is preparing to take the plunge.  The Australian Institute of Marine Science hosted ‘Genetics in Aquaculture 2000’ [161] and scientists such as Dr Peter Grewe at CSIRO Australia are “reducing the risk of transgenic fish or shellfish by using sterility techniques” [162].  At a seminar in Australia in 2001, Dr Grewe explained that:

 “The CSIRO’s Sterile Feral program has developed an alternative technique that uses a genetic construct to render aquaculture species (both fish and invertebrates) reproductively unviable unless they are dosed with a repressor compound at a critical life history stage to permit survival….This genetic construct consists of a temporality active promoter linked to a repressible element that drives a blocker gene sequence and function to cause early mortality of offspring produced by escapees unless they a given a specific repressor molecule” [163]

 CSIRO’s quest for sterility is driven by the concern that “fish genetically improved via selective breeding or transgenic modification can contaminate wild populations”.  According to Dr Grewe:

 “Work at CSIRO has focused on oysters, zebra fish and mice.  The objective is to achieve aquaculture production of non-native species with zero risk of uncontrolled reproduction in the wild” [164]

 Australian waters are certainly being coveted by GE fish companies.  In May this year AquaBounty’s Elliot Entis spoke at a conference in Australia [165].  ABC News reported (28th May) his visit claiming that “The world’s first transgenic Atlantic salmon could be dished up on dinner tables in as little as 12 months” [166].  AquaBounty has already conducted field trials of GE salmon in New Zealand.  The trials at New Zealand King Salmon are thought to have started in 1994 and are somewhat shrouded in secrecy.   Papers have been presented at a conference in Australia in 2000 and to Aquaculture Canada 2002 [167] but information is still not freely available.  Despite abandoning their trials in 2000 King Salmon said it would retain frozen GE salmon sperm “at a secure location” so it was available to continue the program in the future [168].  If the political and public climate warms to GE seafood, GE salmon in New Zealand may yet come in from the cold.  It may already be too late.  Jeanette Fitzsimons, Green Party MP,  revealed in June 2001 that: “The evidence shows it is highly likely that eggs from genetically engineered salmon escaped into the wild during the NZ King Salmon experiment at Kaituna” [169]. 

Closing the Net:

 To avoid environmental and food safety problems reaching crisis point, the cancerous growth of carnivorous sea cage fish farming must be stopped dead in its tracks.  In practical terms this includes ripping out cages in unsuitable locations, compulsory tagging of farmed fish, closed-containment systems and the promotion of environmentally benign shellfish and herbivorous finfish farming.   A ‘back to basics’ approach is required which returns the industry back to first principles and back onto a sustainable course.  For existing sea cage fish farms this may entail the ‘3Rs’; namely relocation, reduction and removal [170].  For new farms the process of Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment must be taken into account at all stages in the pre-application, public consultation and planning process.  Unless the net is closed, sea cage fish farming will be ‘the one that got away’. 

 One of the easiest ways to mitigate the environmental effects of sea cage fish farming would be through the introduction of closed-containment systems.  Such systems already exist but are dismissed out of hand by salmon and tuna farmers as too expensive.  Cost savings from closed containment systems have been demonstrated however.  The Future SEA Farms system, for example, out-performed conventional open netcages in tests in British Columbia reducing sea lice infestation 12-fold and decreasing mortality rates almost three-fold.  Mariculture System’s in-water system called SARGO is fitted with a filter that screens out bacteria and sea lice – it too increased farmed fish growth, decreased disease and decreased the use of feed [171].  Research in Canada clearly shows that waste treatment and closed containment systems are the sensible and sustainable way forward [172].  

 Nor do Australian tuna, barramundi or kingfish farmers have any excuse through lack of available technology.  Efficient closed containment systems are already being used on land-based fish farms.  Fish Protech, for example, have operated closed containment systems in Australia since 1990.  According to Fish Protech:

“The Fish Protech system is designed to produce no waste into the environment.  All water and output flows are recycled and reused in an environmental accepted way.  Fish Protech fish farms have received EPA approval to locate in watershed (drinking water collection) areas.  Other Fish Protech farms have received approval to sell the recycled water to local farmers or to recharge aquifers.  Over 12 years of operation there have been no fish escapes or damage to the environment.  This is impossible to achieve with ponds, cages or any other farming method….All waste is treated and never reaches the farm facility making the technology Australia’s most environmentally friendly aquaculture system” [173]

If this closed-containment technology does what Fish Protech claims then why do sea cage fish farmers not treat their waste and eliminate escapes in the same way?  Fish Protech says it already has 52 systems in operation across Australia with many more under construction.  Meanwhile, sea cage fish farmers seem content to discharge contaminated wastes untreated directly into the sea.  The Port Lincoln Times reported in May that ‘tuna barons’, Sam Sarin, with an estimated worth of $350 million, Tony Santic, $200 million and Hagen Stehr $160 million have all made it onto the elite list of Australia's richest people [174].  Pollution pays.  By not paying for the pollution they cause, sea cage fish farms are treating the marine environment and other coastal users with contempt.  As marine scientist Allan Berry explains:

“Cage farms are licensed to discharge untreated trade wastes directly to the sea, avoiding and externalizing the expense of waste treatment. This enables fish to be produced for less than a third of the cost, inclusive of waste treatment. This anomalous defect in environmental regulation (most other intensive livestock producers have to internalize such costs) has enabled an industry dominated by multinationals to become one of the world’s largest, wealthiest and most influential sources of licensed pollution.  Those who introduced, promoted and defended the industry, adopted the slogan: ‘Jobs come first, nothing must be allowed to come in the way of such a benefit to fragile rural economies. Any environmental damage is a small price to pay’. Unfortunately for all of us, most politicians do not understand that the economy is only a part of the environment” [175]

Closed-containment systems would go a long way to solving four out of the ‘five fundamental flaws of sea cage fish farming’ – they would offer waste-treatment, prevent escapees, minimise the spread of parasites and disease and would consequently reduce the reliance on chemicals.  It will be a bitter pill for sea cage fish farmers to swallow but the message is simple: closed-containment or close down.

 Notes:

 [1] “The five fundamental flaws of sea cage fish farming: an evaluation of environmental and public health aspects” (Paper presented by Don Staniford at the European Parliament’s public hearing ‘Aquaculture in the European Union: Present Situation and Future Prospects’ on 1st October 2002): download via: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/indreports.shtml

 “A big fish in a small pond: the global environmental and public health threat of sea cage fish farming” (Paper presented by Don Staniford at ‘Sustainability of the Salmon Farming Industry in Chile and the World’ in Puerto Montt, Chile: 5th June 2002): http://www.watershed-watch.org/ww/publications/sf/BigFishSmallPond(Chile).pdf

 “Cage Rage” (The Ecologist, November 2001): http://www.theecologist.org/archive_article.html?article=267&category=88). 

 “The one that got away: marine salmon farming in Scotland” (Friends of the Earth Scotland, June 2001: http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/nation/fish.htm)

[2] “Aquaculture rapidly growing” (FAO, 20th February 2003): http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/14203-en.html

Download the FAO’s “Review of the state of world aquaculture 2003” via: http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/21372-en.html

 Download the FAO’s “The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2002” via:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y7300e/y7300e00.htm

 [3] “Australia makes waves” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, July 2003):

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjuly2003.shtml#item5

 “Aquaculture Australia 2003” – Conference in Sydney from 3-5th December:

http://www.heighwayevents.com/australia_2003/

 [4] “Farmed yellowtail kingfish Australia's 'next big thing'” (Intrafish, 19th June 2003): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=35536

 [5] “New handbook reveals Australian seafood imports” (Fisheries Information Service, 11th March 2003): http://www.fis.com

 The ‘Australian Seafood Handbook’ is available from CSIRO publishing: http://www.publish.csiro.au/index.cfm?pid=2181

 [6] “New Zealand goes wild over farmed salmon” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, July 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjuly2003.shtml#item4

 “Australia versus New Zealand Aquaculture” (NIWA, May 2003): http://www.seafood.co.nz/doclibrary/conference2003/30may03/aquacultureworkshop_JeffNIWA.pdf

See also: “The importance of a helping hand: the growth of aquaculture in Australia and New Zealand” (NIWA, May 2002)

 “The status of aquaculture in New Zealand” (World Aquaculture, March 2000)

 [7] “Company to farm kingfish in Sounds - New Zealand’s first marine farm for kingfish will be sited in the Marlborough Sounds” (Venture Farms update, 20th May 2003): http://www.venturefarms.net/id75.htm

 “NZ firm to test water by farming prized gamefish: a New Zealand company is launching a venture to farm a highly prized gamefish, the yellowtail kingfish, in sea cages near Nelson in a trade targeting high-value exports” (Growfish News, 15th May 2003): http://www.growfish.com.au/Grow/Pages/News/2003/may2003/73503.htm

 More on NIWA’s plans to expand kingfish farming in New Zealand:

http://www.niwa.cri.nz/ncfa/aquaspecies/kingfish

 [8] “Doubts scare off fish farmers” (Stuff, 26th July 2003): http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2550280a13,00.html

 “Law deadline shaky says Government” (New Zealand Herald, 25th July 2003): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3514498&msg=emaillink

 “Aquaculture plans in muddy waters” (New Zealand Herald, 22nd July 2003): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3513868&msg=emaillink

 “Aquaculture stalls amid uncertainty” (New Zealand Herald, 15th July 2003): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3512667&msg=emaillink

“Consent surrender stops fish farm – we’ve won” (Protect Peach Cove, March 2003): http://www.protectpeachcove.com/index.htm

“Moana Pacific takes its kingfish farms out of New Zealand because of excessive regulatory opposition” (New Zealand Herald, 25th March 2003): http://www.seafood.com/news/current/91219.html

Also see the Ministry of Environment’s web-site: http://www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/resource/aquaculture/moratorium/

[9] “Fish and shellfish farming ‘incompatible’” (Intrafish, 21st June 2001): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=13493&s=

See also Scottish Natural Heritage’s “Maritime Aquaculture and the Natural Heritage” (2001): http://www.snh.org.uk/strategy/sr-frame.htm

[10] Crawford, C.M., Mitchell, I.M. and Macleod, C. (2001). The Effects of Shellfish Farming on the Benthic Environment. Draft Final Report to the Tasmanian Oyster Research Council: October 2001.

Crawford, C.M. (2001). Environmental risk assessment of shellfish farming in Tasmania. Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute, University of Tasmania: http://www.oceans.gov.au/impacts_aquaculture/page_006.jsp

[11] “What price farmed fish: a review of the environmental and social costs of farming carnivorous fish” (Seaweb, July 2003): http://www.seaweb.org/resources/sac/reports.html

 “Aquaculture: the ecological issues” (British Ecological Society, 2003): http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org

 “Impacts of salmon aquaculture on the coastal environment: a review” (Inka Milewski, Counservation Council for New Brunswick: 2001): http://www.conservationcouncil.ca/

 “The effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies” (Nature 2000): http://www.nature.com/nature/sustainabledevelopment/

 [12] “Cancer of the Coast: the environmental and public health disaster of sea cage fish farming” by Don Staniford (to be published in 2004).  For further details see:

 “Going wild over farmed salmon” (The New Zealand Herald, 22nd June 2003): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3508558&msg=emaillink

 “Farmed and dangerous” (The Observer Food Monthly, May 2003):

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,9950,951686,00.html

 “Toxic fish from Baltic make it to our shores - contaminated Baltic fish banned from sale to European Union countries are being dumped on the Australian market”: The Age, 2nd January 2003): http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/01/1041196690600.html

 “Last chance for Skye’s wild salmon” (The Sunday Herald, 18th August 2002): http://www.sundayherald.com/27049

 “Scots critic to probe salmon farming” (Sunday Business Post: 24th March 2002)

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2002/03/24/story316644.asp

 Salmon farms: ‘a licence to pollute’ - watchdog attacked for letting use of chemical use spiral (Scotland on Sunday, 24th February 2002)

http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/scotland.cfm?id=212062002 

[13] International publications on the environmental impact of aquaculture can be found at Seaweb’s Aquaculture Clearinghouse: http://www.seaweb.org/resources/sac/reports.html

 Also see The Salmon Farm Monitor’s media and document archive:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/archive.shtml

 [14] “Tuna farming: grab, cage, fatten, sell - tuna farming in the Mediterranean raising issues of common property resources and plundering of a stock” (Samudra July 2002): http://icsf.net/jsp/samudra/english/issue_32/art2.pdf

 “WWF, Greenpeace and ANSE protest against tuna farming in the Mediterranean” (WWF press release, 29th April 2002): http://www.panda.org/news/press/news.cfm?id=2889 

 “Tuna farming a major threat for already over-fished wild tuna in the Mediterranean, warns WWF” (WWF press release, 15th February 2002): http://www.panda.org/news/press/news.cfm?id=2726

See also: “Ecology body warns of dangers from fish farms” (Reuters, 12th August 2003): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21818/story.htm

[15] “Environmentalists fight plans to farm cod in Scotland” (National Geographic News, 22nd July 2003): http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/0722_030722_codfarming.html

 “Fish farming increase ‘a serious threat to Scotland's water system’” (The Scotsman, 23rd June 2003): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=686232003

 [16] “Kingfish escapes spark opposition to farms in South Australia” (The Australian, 9th April 2003): http://www.seafood.com/news/current/92549.html

 [17] See The Salmon Farm Monitor’s international news archive and latest international news: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/internationalmedia.shtml

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/news.shtml

 [18] “Probe launched into dune destruction” (ABC, 30th June 2003): http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/sa/port/regport-30jun2003-3.htmMon

 “Protests make waves down under” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, March 2003):

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmarch2003.shtml#item3 

 “Ceduna residents turn out to oppose kingfish farms” (ABC, 27th February 2003):

http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/sa/port/regport-27feb2003-4.htm

 “Fight over fish farms” (The Advertiser, 1st February 2003): http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/InNews/fishfarmfight2003.htm

 “Toxic fish from Baltic make it to our shores - contaminated Baltic fish banned from sale to European Union countries are being dumped on the Australian market”: The Age, 2nd January 2003): http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/01/1041196690600.html

 [19] “Protect Peach Cove”: http://www.protectpeachcove.com

 “Save the Bay: fish sea cage fish farms in Moreton Bay marine park” (Queensland Conservation Council): http://www.qccqld.org.au/savethebay/

 [20] “The theft of the countryside” (Marion Shoard, 1980): http://www.ecifm.rdg.ac.uk/agimage.htm

 [21] “What price farmed fish: a review of the environmental and social costs of farming carnivorous fish” (Seaweb, July 2003): http://www.seaweb.org/resources/sac/reports.html

 [22] “Now Monsanto is after our water”(The Ecologist, 1999): http://www.mindfully.org/Water/Monsanto-Indias-Water-ShivaSep99.htm

 Founding members of the Global Aquaculture Alliance:

http://www.gaalliance.org/offi.html#FOUNDING

 See also: “Monsanto fined $700 million for poisoning people with PCBs”(The Anniston Star, 21st August 2003): http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/monsanto_pcbs.cfm

  [23] “Flannery rattles cages on aquaculture industry” (ABC SA Country Hour, 27th March 2003): http://www.abc.net.au/rural/sa/today.htm

[24] “Heavy accounting losses for Nutreco after first six months of 2003”(Intrafish, 5th August 2003): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=36983

 “Nutreco feeling the pain of continuing low salmon prices” (Intrafish, 12th June 2003): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=35352

 “Black Tuesday for Nutreco: 19% loss in share value yesterday - The world’s number one salmon farming company, Nutreco Holding (which owns Marine Harvest), saw the value of its shares plummet by 18.94% yesterday after the publication of poor First Half 2002 results”: (Intrafish, 7th August 2002): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=25861

 “Nutreco tumbles on salmon dioxin fears” (Reuters, 5th January 2001): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9441

[25] “Largest Australian salmon producer in receivership with $30M in debt” (Intraish, 2nd July 2002): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=24806

[26] Gavine, F, and McKinnon, L (2001) Environmental monitoring of marine aquaculture in Victorian coastal water: a review of appropriate methods. Marine and Freshwater Resources Institute, Report No. 46 DRAFT.

NPI National Pollutant Inventory (2001) Emission estimation technique manual for aggregated emissions from temperate water finfish aquaculture. Environment Australia, June 2001.

Ritz, D A, and Lewis, M E (1989) Salmonid farms: good and bad news. Australian Fisheries, July.

Ritz, D A, Lewis, M E and Ma Shen (1989) Responses to organic enrichment of infaunal macrobenthic communities under salmonid cages. Marine Biology 103, 211-214: http://www.oceans.gov.au/impacts_aquaculture/page_006.jsp

Woodward, I (1989) Finfish farming and the environment – a review.  Tasmanian Department of Sea Fisheries Technical Report No 35, pp43

[27]  “Impacts of marine farming on wild fish populations” (Final Research Report for Ministry of Fisheries Research Project ENV2000/08: NIWA, June 2002):

http://www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/resource/aquaculture/environmental-info/

 [28] “Aquaculture maps Australia” (La Tene, 2001): http://www.latene.com/aqua_australia.html

 [29] “Huon estuary study” (CSIRO Marine Research, June 2000): http://www.dmr.csiro.au/ResProj/CoasEnvMarPol/huonest/index.html

 [30] “Tuna farming industry announces record earnings” (Growfish, 1st October 2002): http://www.growfish.com.au/Grow/Pages/News/2002/Oct2002/44402.htm

 [31] “Aquaculture giants sign deal for South Australia” (Growfish News, 29th October 2002): http://www.growfish.com.au/Grow/Pages/News/2002/Oct2002/46802.htm

 “Multinational strikes deal with aquaculture giant” (ABC, 29th October 2002): http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/sa/metsa-29oct2002-3.htm

 “Feedlots of the sea” (ABC, 14th September 2002):

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s677134.htm

 “Tuna pellet research successful” (Growfish, 27th August 2002): http://www.growfish.com.au/Grow/Pages/News/2002/Aug2002/39602.htm

“Nutreco gains foothold in Australia” (Seafood News, 20th Feb 2001: http://new.seafood.com/archives/0102/sfdpriv/news1/20010220NGFA.html

[32] “Tiwi barramundi” (ABC, 17th March 2001): http://www.abc.net.au/landline/stories/s258472.htm

See also “Tiwi Islands barramundi aquaculture project”

http://notes.nt.gov.au/dbird/majorproj.nsf/projects/tiwiislandsbarramundi?Open&rr

 “Fish farm at Tiwi Islands may be environmental disaster - Environment Centre demands public Environmental Impact Assessment” (Environment Centre for Northern Territory, 9th February 2000): http://www.ecnt.org/news_media_releases/media_02_00_barramundi.htm

 [33] “BBC film still making waves” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, May 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmay2003.shtml#item9

 “Nutreco tumbles on salmon dioxin fears” (Reuters, 5th January 2001): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9441

 [34]  “Nutreco used forbidden substances in Chile - poisonous salmon confiscated in Rotterdam” (Milieudefensie, 7th August 2003): http://www.milieudefensie.nl/persber/voedsel/030807.htm

 “Contaminated Chilean salmon impounded in Europe” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item1

 [35] “Friends of Earth slam Nutreco for Chile salmon” (Reuters, 22nd August 2002): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17401/story.htm

 “Good behaviour should not stop at the border - Friends of the Earth files complaint against salmon producer Nutreco” (Millieudefensie, 20th August 2002): http://www.milieudefensie.nl/persber/globalisering/020820english.htm

 [32] see note 12

 [33] “Scotland’s secret – aquaculture, nutrient pollution, eutrophication and toxic blooms” (WWF Scotland, 2000): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/indreports.shtml

[34] “Fish and foul” (Courier Mail, 1st June 2002): http://www.qccqld.org.au/Savethebay/news_outrage2.html

 Other press coverage on SunAqua’s application:

 “Fish farm in nuclear hazard zone” (The Advertiser, 11th August 2003): http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6918992%255E1702,00.html

 “Australian fish farms accused of spreading disease” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, August 2003)

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item4

 “Fish farm furore” (Quest News, 16th July 2003):

http://www.brisbane.indymedia.org.au/front.php3?article_id=6411&group=webcast

 [35] “Sea cage finfish aquaculture project in Moreton Bay: invitation for public comment” (Queensland Government State Department, 14th July 2003):
 http://www.sd.qld.gov.au/dsdweb/htdocs/global/content_2.cfm?id=7167

 SunAqua’s Environmental Statement can be viewed at: http://www.sunaqua.com

For more background see: http://www.qccqld.org.au/savethebay/

 [35] For a global review of toxic salmon wastes see:

 “A big fish in a small pond: the global environmental and public health threat of sea cage fish farming”: http://www.watershed-watch.org/ww/publications/sf/BigFishSmallPond(Chile).pdf

 See also:

 “Eutrophication assessment of aquaculture hotspots in Scottish coastal waters” (Paper presented to OSPAR by the Scottish Executive, May 2003): http://www.ospar.org

 “Application of the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model (ERSEM) to assessing the eutrophication status in the OSPAR Maritime Area, with particular reference to nutrient discharges from Scottish salmonid aquaculture” (Paper presented to OSPAR by the Scottish Executive, May 2003): http://www.ospar.org

 “The interaction between fish farming and algal communities of the Scottish waters – a review” (Paper written by Lars Rydberg, Bjorn Sjoberg and Anders Stigebrandt dated November 2002 presented to OSPAR by the Scottish Executive in May 2003): http://www.ospar.org

 “PE 96: petition submitted to the Scottish Parliament by Allan Berry” (February 2000): http://www.scottish.paraliament.uk

 Berry, A W (1999) Stochiometric perturbations and the production of nitrogenous biotoxins.  Paper presented at the ICES Symposium on the environmental effects on mariculture: http://www.ices.dk/symposia/eem/habsess1.htm
http://www.ices.dk/symposia/eem/eemoral.htm

 For more details on Allan Berry search Google (http://www.google.com) for “Allan Berry and algal blooms”

 [37] “Growout of Southern bluefin tuna” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: undated): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/91-056.htm

 [38] “Investigating the environmental effects of sea-cage tuna farming: the effect of sea cages” (A report to the FRDC and Tuna Boat Owners Association prepared by Anthony Cheshire, Grant Westphalen, Alastair Smart and Steven Clarke: 1996)

 [39] “A brief look at one of Australia’s most dynamic industry’s the Port Lincoln tuna industry: changing times, changing ways” (Il Pesce, December 2001): http://www.pubit.it/sunti/pes0106p.html

 [40] Munday, BL, Hallegraeff, GM (1996) Report on the mortality of captive southern bluefin tuna at Port Lincoln, South Australia.  MMI Insurance Group (Unpublished)

 Munday, BL, Hallegraeff, GM (1997) Mass Mortality of Captive, Southern, Bluefin Tuna(Thunnus Maccoyii) in April 1996 in Boston Bay, South Australia: A Complex Diagnostic Problem’, International Symposium on Diseases in Marine Aquaculture, Hiroshima, Japan, 54

Munday, BL, Hallegraeff, GM (1998) Mass Mortality of Captive Southern Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) in April/May 1996 in Boston Bay, South Australia: A Complex Diagnostic Problem   Fish Pathology, 33 (4) 343-350: http://www.utas.edu.au/docs/plant_science/research/1998.html

Hallegraeff, GM, Munday, BL, Baden, DG, Whitney, PL (1998) Chattonella marina raphidophyte bloom associated with mortality of cultured bluefin tuna (Thunnus Maccoyii) in South Australia’, Harmful Microalgae, Vigu, Spain, 1-5: http://ioc.unesco.org/hab/pub.htm

“Recent appearance of Gymnodinium catenatum at Port Lincoln, South Australia?” (A McMinn et al: 2000) http://www.utas.edu.au/docs/plant_science/HAB2000/abstracts/docs/McMinn1_A.html

[41] “Tuna aquaculture cages and phytoplankton chlorophyll biomass relationships : random or real?” (R Paxinos et al: 2000): http://www.utas.edu.au/docs/plant_science/HAB2000/poster_abstracts/docs/Paxinos_Rosemary.html

[42] “Cells from hell” (ABC News, 23rd March 2000): http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/stories/s112832.htm

[43] “Was an algal bloom responsible for the 1996 tuna farm kill? (Three D Radio, 11th April 2000): http://www.mccn.org.au/sa/default.asp?page=projectitem&projectid=18

[44] “Do toxic algal blooms represent threats to or from aquaculture?” (Hansard, 11th April 2000): http://sa.democrats.org.au/parlt/autumn2000/0411_a.htm

[45] “Red tides and blue farming don't mix” (MLSSA, May 1997): http://www.mlssa.asn.au/nletters/may_nl.htm

[46] “Coasts and oceans theme report: aquaculture” (Department of Environment and Heritage, 2001): http://ea.gov.au/soe/2001/coasts/coasts05-8.html

[47] Message posted by Andrew Melville on the Vegetarian and Vegan Society of Queensland Forum (8th July 2002): http://cwpp.slq.qld.gov.au/vvsq/forum_messages.asp?Thread_ID=19&Topic_ID=1

 [48] “Irish salmon farming dead in the water?” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item2

[49] Lumb, C M (1989) Self-pollution by Scottish salmon farms?  Marine Pollution Bulletin 20, 375-379

[50] “Mass fish farm mortalities and escapes threaten the survival of wild fish” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, 1st August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/pr010803.shtml

[51] “Aquaculture risk management” (Sunderland Marine Mutual Insurance Company): http://www.smmi.co.uk/aquanews2000.htm

[52] “Harmful algal blooms worry anglers, threaten fisheries” (The Canberra Times, 17th August 2000): http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/redtide/notedevents/foreign/Australia/Australia_8-17-00.html

[53] “Marine Harvest barramundi aquaculture facility Port Hurd, Bathurst Island environmental management plan” (Thompson & Brett Pty Ltd Consulting Engineers, April 2003)

[54] “The effect of fin-fish aquaculture on phytoplankton populations” (University of Tasmania): http://www.scieng.utas.edu.au/aqua/project.asp?lProjectId=343

[55] “Huon estuary study” (CSIRO Marine Research, June 2000): http://www.dmr.csiro.au/ResProj/CoasEnvMarPol/huonest/index.html

 [56] “Huon estuary Study – environmental research for integrated catchment management and aquaculture” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 1996): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/96-284.htm 

[57] Roper, D S, Rutherford, J C and Pridmore, R D (1989) The impact of salmon farming on Big Glory Bay, Stewart Island.  In AQUANZ ’88: a national conference on aquaculture.  Wellington, New Zealand.

 [58] “Impacts of marine farming on wild fish populations” (Final Research Report for Ministry of Fisheries Research Project ENV2000/08: NIWA, June 2002): http://www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/resource/aquaculture/environmental-info/

Chang, F H, Anderson, C and Boustead, N (1990)  First record of Heterosigma (Raphidophyceae) bloom with associated mortality of cage-reared salmon in Big Glory Bay, New Zealand.  New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 24, 461-469

MacKenzie, A L (1991) Toxic and noxious phytoplankton in Big Glory Bay, Stewart Island, New Zealand. Journal of Applied Phycology 3: 19-34

Pridmore, R D and Rutherford, J C (1992)  Modelling phytoplankton abundance in a small enclosed bay used for salmon farming.  Aquaculture and Fisheries Management 23, 525-542

[59] Royal Society of New Zealand (1993) Marine toxins and New Zealand shellfish: proceedings of a workshop on research issues.  Wellington, pp68

MacKenzie, L and N Berkett (1997) Cell morphology and PSP-toxin profiles of Alexandrium minutum in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of marine and Freshwater Research 31: 403-409: http://www.cawthron.org.nz/profiles_biosec_lmckenzie.htm

Rhodes, L. L., Mackenzie, A. L., Kaspar H. F. and Todd, K. E (2001) Harmful algae and mariculture in New Zealand. ICES Journal of Marine Science 58: 398-403: http://www.cawthron.org.nz/profiles_biosec_lrhodes.htm

[60]  HAB 2003 will take place in New Zealand in November: http://www.cawthron.org.nz/habtech03.htm

[61] “Escape of a million farmed fish threatens wild salmon” (The Independent on Sunday, 3rd August 2003): http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=430091

“Escaped farmed salmon threaten native species” (New Scientist, 3rd June 2003): http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993796

“Escaped of farmed salmon threatens wild stocks” (Reuters, 4th April 2002): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15307/newsDate/4-Apr-2002/story.htm

 [62] “Kingfish escape” (The Whyalla Times, 15th August 2003): http://www.whyalla.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&story_id=248148&category=general%20news&m=8&y=2003

 [63] “Kingfish escapes spark opposition to farms in South Australia” (The Australian, 9th April 2003): http://www.seafood.com/news/current/92549.html

 [64] “Frightening number of escapes” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, April 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsapril2003.shtml#item7

 “The great escape – over 2 million escapes in 2002” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, February 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsfeb2003.shtml#item3

 [65] List of kingfish escapes (PIRSA):  http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/pages/aquaculture/public_reg/public_register.htm

 [66] “$2 million study to tackle fish farm escapes” (The Advertiser, 5th February 2003): http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/InNews/fishfarmstudy2003.htm 

 [67] “Fishermen fear a king hit from farmed species” (The Australian, 7th March 2003): http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,6087672,00.html

 [68] “Sharks attack fish farms” (Port Lincoln Times, 10th April 2003):

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/InNews/farmattack2003.htm

 [69] Hutchings, JA (1991) The threat of extinction to native populations experiencing spawning intrusions by cultured Atlantic salmon. Aquaculture 98:119-132.

 [70] “Code of conduct for escapees being developed in Tasmania” (Intrafish, 1st July 2003): http://www.intrafish.com

 [71] “Escape of cultured barramundi into impoundments of the Ord River system, Western Australia” (Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 2002: 82, pp131-136): http://www.ecu.edu.au/pa/rswa/vol82.htm

 [72] “It’s a merry-go-round” (Fishing Monthly, October 2001): http://www.fishingmonthly.com.au

 [73] “Farmed fish with parasites: impact on wild fish stocks” (The Biologist, August 2003): http://www.iob.org/default.asp?edname=213.htm&cont_id=9&n=7

 “New report on sea lice, escapes and diseases from salmon farms” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, February 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsfeb2003.shtml#item13

 “Industrial disease: the risk of disease transfer from farmed to wild salmon” (Friends of Claoquot Sound, 2000): http://www.seaweb.org/resources/sac/reports/6.html

 [74] “In too deep: the welfare of farmed fish” (Compassion in World Farming, January 2002): http://www.ciwf.co.uk/Pubs/CIWF_reports.htm

[75] “Detection and abundance of Paramoeba species in the environment” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 1998): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/98-209.htm

 “Atlantic salmon aquaculture subprogram: efective treatments for the control of Amoebic Gill Disease” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 2000):

http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/2000-266.htm

 Munday, BL, Zilberg, D*, Findlay, V (2001) Gill disease of marine fish casued by infection with Neoparamoeba pemaquidensis.  Journal of Fish Diseases, 24 (1) 497-507: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2761.2001.00329.x/abs/

 [76] Hughes, DR (1992) Lower jaw deformity in farmed Tasmanian Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar (Salmoniformes, Teleosti). Final report. In Proceedings of the Saltas Research Review Seminar, 29th April, 1992. P. 17-64. Hobart: Salmon Enterprises of Tasmania.

 Lee, P and King, H (1994) Effects of reduced dietary energy on the incidence of jaw deformities in Tasmanian Atlantic salmon. In Reports from the Saltas 1993-94 Research and Development Programme. P. 61-69. Hobart: Salmon Enterprises of Tasmania.

 [77] Boustead, N C (1993) Detection and New Zealand distribution of Myxobolus cerebralis, the cause of whirling disease of salmonids.  New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 27, 431-436

 [78] “Disposal manual” (Aquatic Animal Health, 2002): http://www.affa.gov.au

“Destruction manual” (Aquatic Animal Health, 2002): http://www.affa.gov.au

 [79] Colquitt, SE, Munday, BL, Daintith, M (2001)  Pathological findings in southern bluefin tuna, Thunnus maccoyii (Castelnau), infected with Cardicola forsteri (Cribb, Daintith & Munday, 2000) (Digenea: Sanguinicolidae), a blood fluke.  Journal of Fish Diseases, 24 225-229 (2001)

 Huang, B, Tan, C, Chang, SF, Munday, BL, Mathew, JA, Ngoh, GH, Kwang, J (2001)  Detection of nodavirus in barramundi, Lates calcarifer (Bloch), using recombinant coat protein-based ELISA and RT-PCR’, Journal of Fish Diseases, 24 135-141: http://www.research.utas.edu.au/reports/2001/rr2001/d2001d130.htm

 [80] “Growout of Southern bluefin tuna” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 1991): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/91-056.htm

 [81] “Supermarkets boycott BC farmed salmon” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, February 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsfeb2003.shtml#item6

 “Kudoa a 'huge' issue for BC – despite industry silence: in recent years, the Kudoa thyrsites parasite has cost the BC salmon farming industry dozens of millions Canadian dollars annually” (Intrafish, 4th November 2002):

http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=28709

 “A 'well-known secret' that could tarnish the whole industry – Kudoa: US Importers, brokers and buyers of farmed Atlantic salmon from British Columbia have told IntraFish that the region’s problems with kudoa is a well-known “secret” within the seafood industry and that there is a price-differential offered to buyers of infected salmon” (Intrafish, 4th November 2002): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=28737

 [82] “Fatal encephalitis due to the scuticociliate Uronema nigricans in sea-caged, southern bluefin tuna Thunnus maccoyii” (Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, 1997): http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/dao/v30/n1/p17-25.html

 [83] “Diseases of tunas” (Journal of Fish Diseases, April 2003):

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2761.2003.00454.x/abs/;jsessionid=go1uvc1cvCr4

 [84] SunAqua’s Environmental Statement can be viewed at: http://www.sunaqua.com

 [85] Whittington, I, Ernst, I, Corneillie, S and Talbot, C (2001) Sushi, fish and parasites.  Australian Science, April

 Cited in: “Save the Bay: the facts” (Queensland Conservation Council, 2003): http://www.qccqld.org.au/savethebay/facts.html

 [86] “Australian fish farms accused of spreading disease” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item4

 “Attraction of wild fish to sea-cage fish farms in the south-western Mediterranean Sea: spatial and short-term temporal variability” (Marine Ecology Progress Series 2002: 42, pp 237-252): http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v242/p237-252.html

 [87] “The development of a model of the spread of the pilchard fish kill events in southern Australian waters” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 1999): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/99-225.htm

 [88] “A review of the southern bluefin tuna fishery: implications for ecologically sustainable management” (Report to CSIRO by E A Hayes, 1997)

 Cited in: “Impacts of marine farming on wild fish populations” (Final Research Report for Ministry of Fisheries Research Project ENV2000/08: NIWA, June 2002): http://www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/resource/aquaculture/environmental-info/

 Gaughan, D J, Mitchell, R W and Blight, S J (2000) Impact of mortality, possibly due to herpesvirus, on pilchard Sardinops sagax stocks along the south coast of Western Australia in 1998-99.  Marine and Freshwater Research 51, 601-612

 [89] “Mass pilchard kills – will we ever know?” (Marine and Coastal Community Network): http://www.mccn.org.au/sa/default.asp?page=projectitem&projectid=17

 [90] “The pilchard fishery” (Environment, Resources and Development Committee of the Parliament of South Australia, June 1999)

[91] “Dolphin mortalities in tuna feedlots near Port Lincoln, South Australia: an update” (Waves, Spring 2000): http://www.ccsa.asn.au/campaigns/marine/tuna.html

Kemper, C M and Gibbs, S E (1997) A study of life history parameters of dolphins and seals entangled in tuna farms near Port Lincoln, and comparisons with information from other South Australian dolphin carcasses. Unpublished report to Environment Australia

 [92] “Decision to stop fur seal transfers welcomed (Forest and Bird Network, 8th February 2001): http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/SC0102/S00025.htm

 “Habitat use by dusky dolphins in the Marlborough Sounds: implications for aquaculture and fisheries management” (A report to the New Zealand Department of Conservation b Tim M. Markowitz, April D. Harlin, and Bernd Würsig Dusky Dolphin Project, Kaikoura, New Zealand: undated)

 [93] “More companies choose the MarinMesh safety for their breedings” (CAPPMA News, 19th June 2003): http://en.cappma.com/news/readnews.asp?newsid=2712

 “Sharks attack fish farms” (Port Lincoln Times, 10th April 2003):

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/InNews/farmattack2003.htm

 

“Seal researcher says fish farm proposal unwise” (Marine and Coastal Community Network: 2002): http://www.mccn.org.au/sa/default.asp?page=projectitem&projectid=8

 “The fatal shores” (The Sydney Morning Herald, 3rd February 2001): http://darter.ocps.net/classroom/klenk/The%20fatal%20shores.htm

 “Development of a stock protection system for flexible oceanic pens containing finfish” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, 1998): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/99-361.htm

 Pemberton, D (1996)  Port Lincoln tuna farms; dolphins, seals, sharks and seabirds. Unpublished report, Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania, 8 pp: http://www.mccn.org.au/sa/default.asp?page=projectitem&projectid=8

 Pemberton, D and Shaughnessy, P D (1993)  Interaction between seals and marine fish-farms in Tasmania, and management of the problem. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, Vol 3:149-158:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/SC0102/S00025.htm

 [94] “Tiwi barramundi” (ABC, 17th March 2001): http://www.abc.net.au/landline/stories/s258472.htm

 [95] “Salmon farms: ‘a licence to pollute’ - watchdog attacked for letting use of chemical use spiral” (Scotland on Sunday, 24th February 2002)

http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/scotland.cfm?id=212062002

 “Scottish salmon farming revolution that has left the seas awash with toxic chemicals” (The Independent, 2nd October 2000): http://www.mindfully.org/Water/Salmon-Farming-Toxic.htm

 [96] “Nutreco used forbidden substances in Chile - poisonous salmon confiscated in Rotterdam” (Milieudefensie, 7th August 2003): http://www.milieudefensie.nl/persber/voedsel/030807.htm

 “Contaminated Chilean salmon impounded in Europe” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item1

 “Contaminated salmon on sale to public” (The Scotsman, 5th August 2003): http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=844672003&tid=15

 [97] “Farm raised salmon colouring” (Smith & Lowney):

http://www.smithandlowney.com/salmon/

 [98] SFPG response to the UK Food Standards Agency’s consultation on Canthaxanthin consultation (28th July, 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/sfpgreports.shtml

 [99] SunAqua’s Environmental Statement can be viewed at: http://www.sunaqua.com

 [100] “Effects of discharges of medicines and chemicals from aquaculture” (Scottish Executive, August 2002): http://www.scotland.gov.uk/cru/kd01/green/reia-04.asp

 [101] Morrisey, D J, Gibbs, M M, Pickmere, S E and Cole, R G (2000) Predicting impacts and recovery of marine farm sites in Stewart Island, New Zealand, from the Findlay-Watling model.  Aquaculture 185, 257-271

 [102] “Atlantic SALMON Aquaculture Subprogram: Effective treatments for the control of Amoebic Gill Disease” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 2000): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/2000-266.htm

[103] “Marine Harvest barramundi aquaculture facility Port Hurd, Bathurst Island environmental management plan” (Thompson & Brett Pty Ltd Consulting Engineers, April 2003)

 [104] “The five fundamental flaws of sea cage fish farming: an evaluation of environmental and public health aspects” (Paper presented by Don Staniford at the European Parliament’s public hearing ‘Aquaculture in the European Union: Present Situation and Future Prospects’ on 1st October 2002): download via: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/indreports.shtml

 [105] “What price farmed fish: a review of the environmental and social costs of farming carnivorous fish” (Seaweb, July 2003): http://www.seaweb.org/resources/sac/reports.html

 “Food for thought – the use of marine resources in fish feed” (WWF, February 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmarch2003.shtml#item1

 “The effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies” (Nature, 2000): http://www.nature.com/nature/sustainabledevelopment/

 For a recent review see the “SFPG response to Royal Commission Study on the Environmental Effects of Marine Fisheries” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, May 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/sfpgreports.shtml

 [106] “Seafeeds: workshop final proceedings” (Nautilus Consultants, 2003): http://www.seafeeds.net

 [107] “Researchers try fish feed krill experiment”(Fisheries Information Service, 23rd May 2002): http://www.phinz.com/dan/news.nsf/0/dccfe5231b5fe91880256bc2004b2e9c?OpenDocument

 “The value of krill meal in salmon starter diets”

http://www.uaf.edu/seagrant/Pubs_Videos/pubs/AN-14.html

 [108] “Towards sustainability in world fisheries” (Nature, 2002): download via: http://www.nature.com/nature/sustainabledevelopment/

 For other references to Dr Pauly’s work see:

http://www.fisheries.ubc.ca/members/dpauly/

http://fisheries.ubc.ca/publications/news/duurzaamlijst20feb2001.pdf

http://fisheries.ubc.ca/publications/news/environmentalnews19feb2001.pdf 

[109] “Fish Meal Replacement in Aquaculture Feeds for Atlantic Salmon” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 1993): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/93-120-05.htm

 

[110]  Carter, C.G. and Hauler (2000) Fish meal replacement by plant meals in extruded feeds for Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L.', Aquaculture, 185 pgs. 299-311: http://fcms.its.utas.edu.au/scieng/aqua/pagedetails.asp?lpersonId=542

 

[111] “Substitution could lead to 1:1 conversion ratio - Nutreco Aquaculture” (Intrafish, 28th February 2003): http://www.intrafish.com

 [112] “Fish Oil and Meal Replacement (FORM) research programme” (European Commission): http://www.formnetwork.net/side.asp?k=54

 [113] “Tuna pellet research successful” (Growfish, 27th August 2002):

http://www.growfish.com.au/Grow/Pages/News/2002/Aug2002/39602.htm

 [114]  “Farmed cod not like wild cod - Turid Mørkøre, researcher at Akvaforsk, found differences between the texture and taste of farmed and wild cod” (Fisheries Information Service, 7th August 2001): http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&id=19630

 [115] “UK scientists to turn fish vegetarian - dwindling wild fish stocks make farming unsustainable” (BBC News, 3rd November 2002): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2393053.stm

 [116] “Fish meal Replacement in Aquaculture Feeds for Barramundi” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 1993): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/93-120-04.htm

 [117] “Fishmeal Replacement in Aquaculture Feeds for Barramundi: (i) Nutritive value of crystalline amino acids; and (ii) Potential of meat meal to replace fishmeal:- Commercial Farm Studies” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 1995):

http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/95-069.htm

 [118] Williams, K C, Barlow, C, Rodgers, L J and Runscoe, I (2003) Potential of meat meal to replace fish meal in extruded diets for barramundi.  Aquaculture Research 34, 23-42

 [119] “Prions get fishy” (Nature, 2003):

http://www.nature.com/nsu/030127/030127-12.html

 [120] “Search for BSE type disease turns to fish farms (The Guardian, 15th March 2002): http://www.guardian.co.uk/bse/article/0,2763,667679,00.html

 [121] “Australian aquaculture” (ABARE: 2003): http://abareonlineshop.com/product.asp?prodid=12493

 [122] “Aquaculture feed development for Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)” (Fisheries Research and Development Corporation: 1998): http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/98-322.htm

 [123] “Aquaculture production trend analysis” (In the FAO’s “Review of the state of world aquaculture 2003): download via: http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/21372-en.html

 [123] “Responsible aquaculture: is this a special challenge for developing countries?” (World Aquaculture Society, 2003):

Download via: http://www.was.org/main/Welcome.asp

Or direct PDF link: http://www.was.org/Library/English/NewBrazil2003.pdf

[124] “Feeding the world through responsible aquaculture” (Global Aquaculture Alliance): http://www.gaalliance.org/resp.html

 [125] “Feed the world opportunity seen for GM salmon”(The Guardian, 22nd April 2000): http://www.thecampaign.org/newsupdates/aprilq.htm#Feed

 “Superfish to ease food shortage”(BBC News, 16th August 2001):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1494376.stm

 [126] “International barramundi conference”(ABC Country Hour, 24th July 2003): http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nt/stories/s909406.htm

 “Europe offers 'great potential' for Marine Harvest's farmed barramundi”(Intrafish, 8th May 2003): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=34187”

 [127] “Food safety issues associated with products from aquaculture” (World Health Organisation, 1999): http://www.sanicon.net/titles/title.php3?titleno=555

 [128] “Aquaculture and human consumers of aquatic foods” (In ‘Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality’: Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council and the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand: October 2000):

http://ea.gov.au/water/quality/nwqms/pubs/volume3-9-4.pdf

 [129] “Fish make up a quarter of all EC food alerts” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, April 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsapril2003.shtml

 [130] “Contaminated salmon on sale to public” (The Scotsman, 5th August 2003): http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=844672003&tid=15

 “Farmed salmon is said to contain high PCB levels” (The New York Times, 30th July 2003): http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1870

 “Nuclear waste found in UK salmon” (Reuters, 24th June 2003): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21270/story.htm

 “The hidden costs of farmed salmon: what lurks behind that farmed salmon steak?” (Section Z, 2003): http://www.sectionz.info/issue_1/

 “Europe threat to ban toxic salmon” (The Sunday Herald, 15th December 2002): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/keymedia.shtml

 “Is fish farming safe?” (Time, 25th November 2002): http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/article/0,9171,1101021125-391523,00.html

 “Farm salmon is now most contaminated food on shelf” (The Sunday Herald, 20th October 2002): http://www.sundayherald.com/28565

Other health impacts are dealt with in the CAAR’s “Farmed and Dangerous” report: http://www.farmedanddangerous.org

[131] “Opinion on the risk assessment of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs in food” (European Commission, November 2000): download via: http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scf/out78_en.pdf

“Opinion on dioxins in food” (European Commission, November 2000): download via: http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scan/out55_en.pdf

[132] “Farm salmon is now most contaminated food on shelf” (The Sunday Herald, 20th October 2002): http://www.sundayherald.com/28565

 [133] “Investigation on PCDDs/PCDFs and several PCBs in fish samples (salmon and trout)” (Food Safety Authority of Ireland, March 2002): http://www.fsai.ie  

 [134] “PCBs in farmed salmon: factory methods, unnatural results” (Environment Working Group, July 2003): http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/

 Other press coverage on the EWG report “PCBs in farmed salmon”: http://www.ewg.org/news/eclips.php?reportid=143

 [135] “Cancer-causing chemical found in Japanese fish” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, June 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item10

 [136]  “Toxic fish from Baltic make it to our shores - contaminated Baltic fish banned from sale to European Union countries are being dumped on the Australian market”: The Age, 2nd January 2003): http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/01/1041196690600.html

 [137] “Scientific and Technical Options Assessment paper on the impact of the Dioxin regulation on the fishery sector” (European Parliament, 2001)

See also: “Opinion on the risk assessment of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs in food” (European Commission, November 2000): download via: http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scf/out78_en.pdf

“Opinion on dioxins in food” (European Commission, November 2000): download via: http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scan/out55_en.pdf

[138] The National Residues Survey (NRS) tests for residues and contaminants in food – it publishes annual reports which can be downloaded via:

http://www.affa.gov.au/content/publications.cfm?&CATEGORY=National%20Residue%20Survey&OBJECTID=36889A54-6BFD-4F91-BF11BD8DA49B46D1

 [139] “Metal Contamination of Major NSW Fish Species available for human consumption” (New South Wales Health Department, 2001): http://www.health.nsw.gov.au

 [140] “Activist group warns of unsafe levels of mercury in tuna” (Reuters, 20th June 2003): http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21247/story.htm

 “Research of mercury contamination leaves huge gaps in knowledge” (ENN, 8th October 2002): http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/10/10082002/ap_48626.asp

 “Cut back on tuna, experts urge: mercury in fish poses health risk, especially for small children” (The Seattle Post Intelligencer, 13th April 2001): http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Tuna-Cut-Back.htm

 [141] “Fish farm at Tiwi Islands may be environmental disaster - Environment Centre demands public Environmental Impact Assessment” (Environment Centre for Northern Territory, 9th February 2000): http://www.ecnt.org/news_media_releases/media_02_00_barramundi.htm

 [142] “Marine Harvest barramundi aquaculture facility Port Hurd, Bathurst Island environmental management plan” (Thompson & Brett Pty Ltd Consulting Engineers, April 2003)

[143] “Is there a bottom line in the wild salmon – farmed salmon debate? – A technical opinion” (Bioline, Spring/Summer 2003): http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/Oceans/March03Ottotechnicalpaper.pdf 

 [144] “Submission on PIRSA’s environmental management policy and report for aquaculture” (Australian Marine Conservation Society, December 2002): http://www.amcs.org.au/amcs/index.asp

 [145] “Court rules Tassal salmon growers worked to restrict supply” (Intrafish, 5th August 2003): http://www.intrafish.com

 [146] “Nutreco used forbidden substances in Chile - poisonous salmon confiscated in Rotterdam” (Milieudefensie, 7th August 2003): http://www.milieudefensie.nl/persber/voedsel/030807.htm

 “Contaminated Chilean salmon impounded in Europe” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item1

 [147] “Maine salmon farmers in the dock” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, June 2003):

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item6

 [148] “Ireland flouting EU law” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, June 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item4

 [149] “Tuna feedlots at Louth Bay” (Environment, Resources and Development Committee of the Parliament of South Australia, March 2000)

 [150] “Aquaculture” (Environment, Resources and Development Committee of the Parliament of South Australia, June 1998) 

[151] “SFPG formal response to the Scottish Executive’s draft strategic framework for Scottish aquaculture” (January 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/sfpgreports.shtml

 [152] “Chile is a ‘Wild West’ without a sheriff” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item9

 [153] “Oil rigs for offshore aquaculture” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, August 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item6

 “Ocean aquaculture” (Newswise, 23rd July 2002):

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=TIPS0722.SGP

 [154] “Bill would require mercury testing around oil rigs” (Associated Press, 4th December 2002): http://www.nctimes.net/news/2002/20020412/61605.html

 [155] “Governing offshore aquaculture: issues and policies” (Offshore Marine Aquaculture Project, March 2002): http://darc.cms.udel.edu/sgeez/sgeez1.html

 [156] “Heat turns up in Hawaii” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, June 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item9

 [157] “Port Lincoln Farms move offshore” (Port Lincoln Times, 5th September 2002): http://www.mccn.org.au/sa/default.asp?page=newsitem&newsid=-12

 [158] “Offshore aquaculture: how fast will it grow?” (Intrafish, 21st August 2003):

http://www.intrafish.com/articlea.php?articleID=37475

 [159] “Future fish: issues in science and regulation of transgenic fish”(Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, January 2003): http://pewagbiotech.org/research/fish/

 “Genetically engineered fish: swimming against the tide of reason”(Greenpeace, January 2000): http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/media/publications/genetic_swimmingtext.htm

 [160] “GM seafoods more dangerous than farm products: Korean Inst” (Asia Pulse, 25th June 2003): http://www.gene.ch/genet/2003/Jul/msg00017.html

 [161] “Genetics in Aquaculture 2000” (Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, 2000): http://www.aims.gov.au/pages/conferences/genaqua/genaqua2000-i.html

[162] “FAO discussion group on biotechnology in aquaculture” (27th July 2000): 

http://www.fao.org/biotech/logs/C4/060900.htm

 [163] “Sterile ferals – a look at research in the CSIRO Sterile Ferals Program” (CSIRO, 27th April 2001): http://www.marine.csiro.au/seminars/sem-abs01/grewe.html

 [164] Notes of a meeting: http://www.lgu.umd.edu/attachments/402_Petition.pdf

 [165] Conference held in Australia in May 2003:

http://www.ozaccom.com.au/hl03/htm/programoverview.htm

 [166] “On the menu – transgenic salmon” (ABC News, 28th May 2003): http://www.lifesciencesnetwork.com/news-detail.asp?newsID=4027

 Further details about AquaBounty can be found at: http://www.aquabounty.com/

 [167] Symonds, J et al (2002) “Selective breeding and biotechnology to enhance salmonid performance: the New Zealand and PEI experience” Aquaculture Canada 2002, 19th September: http://www.aquacultureassociation.ca/ac02/abstracts/broodstock.htm#Symonds

Walker, S (2000) “Evaluation of transgenic chinook salmon with enhanced growth” Genetics in Aquaculture 2000, Australia: http://www.aims.gov.au/pages/conferences/genaqua/genaqua2000-i.html

 [168] “GM salmon research may resume in New Zealand - The Dominion newspaper reports that Blenheim based New Zealand King Salmon may restart its research project on transgenic salmon” (Intrafish, 12th March 2001): http://www.intrafish.com/article.php?articleID=10837

 “New Zealand salmon research halted” (The Associated Press, 26th February 2000): http://www.connectotel.com/gmfood/ap260200.txt

“New Zealand allows further GM salmon tests” (Seafood News, 24th February 2000): http://new.seafood.com/archives/0002/sfdpriv/news1/20000224NZAT.html

“Stricter controls still leave wild salmon at risk”: (NZ Green Party, 23rd February: 2000): http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR3094.html

 “New Zealand government too late over genetically engineered salmon” (Ecoglobe, 24th November 1999): http://www.ecoglobe.org.nz/news1999/n249news.htm

 “ERMA sidelining King Salmon issue” (NZ Green Party, 20th October 1999): http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR4077.html

 “New Zealand only country to back GE salmon” (Green Party press release, 21st October 1999): http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR4080.html

 “Genetically manipulated salmon exposed in New Zealand” (Agence France Presse, 6th April 1999): http://www.gene.ch/gentech/1999/Mar-Apr/msg00137.html

 [169] “Escape of GE salmon eggs highly likely” (NZ Green Party, 19th June 2001):

http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR4464.html

 [170] “Back to basics call for Scotland’s salmon farmers: FoE demands the 3Rs – relocation, reduction and removal” (Save the Bay News, 30th September 2001): http://www.qccqld.org.au/Savethebay/news_back_to_basics.html

 [171] “Environmental advantages to closed-containment salmon aquaculture” (Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, 2003): http://www.farmedanddangerous.org

 See also: SARGO: http://www.sargo.net

Future SEA: http://www.futuresea.com

Cimbria: http://www.cimbria.com

 [172] “Salmon aquaculture waste management review and update” (Prepared for the BC Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks: G3 Consulting, 2000):  

http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/epd/epdpa/industrial_waste/agriculture/salmon_aqu.pdf

 [173] Fish Protech web-site: http://www.users.bigpond.com/fishprotech/

 [174] “Big fish of SA” (Port Lincoln Times, 27th May 2003): http://portlincoln.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&story_id=230130&category=General+News&m=5&y=2003

 [175] “Aspects of the government's 'pro sea-cage fish farm' policies” (The Salmon Farm Monitor, April 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/guestberry.shtml

 27th August 2003

 Don Staniford, The Salmon Farm Protest Group (Scotland, United Kingdom)

 Email: don.staniford@virgin.net

 Web-site: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

1) How safe is salmon?: Time Magazine, 11th August

2) Farmed fish with parasites - impact on wild fish stocks: The Biologist, August

3) Contaminated salmon on sale to public: The Scotsman, 5th August

4) Farmed salmon contains high PCB levels: Supermarket Guru, 4th August

5) Escape of a million farmed fish threatens wild salmon: The Independent on Sunday, 3rd August

6) Contaminated Chilean salmon impounded in Europe: The Salmon Farm Monitor, August

7) EWG calls on farmed salmon industry to release test results on cancer-causing PCBs in farmed salmon: Environment Working Group, 31st July

8) Caution on fishy figures: The Daily Telegraph, 31st July

9) Farmed salmon is said to contain high PCB levels: The New York Times, 30th July

10) Farmed salmon heavy in chemicals, group says: Reuters, 30th July

11) High level of contamination in farmed salmon, researchers say: Scripps Howard News Service, 30th July

12) PCB test pits farmed salmon against wild – farm-raised salmon contains more cancer-causing PCBs than wild fish and other common foods: The Associated Press, 30th July

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Keep up to date with sea cage fish farming issues (including an ‘International News’ section and all the ‘Latest News) on The Salmon Farm Monitor:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

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Time Magazine, 11th August

 How safe is salmon?

 Alice Park

 Salmon steaks are great sources of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. But according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), salmon can also contain dangerous doses of cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), especially if the fish comes from your local grocery store.  EWG found that store-bought salmon, most of which is farmed, contained 16 times the PCB levels of salmon caught in the wild. The Environmental Protection Agency considers these levels a health hazard, and if they were found in wild salmon would recommend eating the fish no more than once a month. The Food and Drug Administration, the agency responsible for fish sold in stores, says these PCB levels are safe — for now. But it is investigating the primary source of the contaminant: the ground fish meal that farmed salmon eat. 

http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1899

 See also in Time Magazine: 

“Is fish farming safe?” (25th November 2002): http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/article/0,9171,1101021125-391523,00.html 

Dowload the EWG report at: "PCBs in Farmed Salmon: Factory Methods, Unnatural Results": http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/ 

Other press coverage on the EWG report “PCBs in Farmed Salmon”: http://www.ewg.org/news/eclips.php?reportid=143

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The Biologist, August 2003 

Farmed fish with parasites: impact on wild fish stocks

 ‘Fish farming is often proposed as a solution to diminishing stocks of wild fish. Sadly, many parasites are threatening the future of aquaculture’ [by depleting fish stocks], write Jo Cable and Phil Harris, of Cardiff and Nottingham Universities, in the August issue of Biologist. A wide range of invertebrates can live on, or in fish before they reach the marketplace. The global redistribution of farmed fish can spread their parasite infections to wild fish populations. This threatens the health and long-term survival of exposed wild fish.

Parasites, it seems, are successful because they have been around for so long. Many date back to the Cretaceous period (65 mya) and some to the Devonian period (350 mya). They have developed surprisingly diverse mechanisms for adaptation and survival in local fish communities. In the past, scientists have used the pattern of parasite distribution to provide valuable information on fish migration, population structure and diet. Man’s interference in fish distribution can reduce the value of such data, prevent containment of local parasites and endanger fish health globally.

 To view entire article - “Fish parasites: the fish farmers foe” - please click on: http://www.iob.org/default.asp?edname=213.htm&cont_id=9&n=7

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 The Scotsman, 5th August

 Contaminated salmon on sale to public

 James Reynolds (Environment correspondent)

Residues of an illegal, highly toxic fungicide formerly used to clean fish farm cages are still being detected in salmon on sale to the public in Scotland, according to tests carried out by a government agency.  Malachite green is a carcinogenic agent that was banned by the Scottish Executive in June last year following discussions between the UK and the European Commission.  The chemical is a synthetic fabric dye but was used by the industry because it kills parasites on the sea cage pens in which the fish are farmed. Suspected of causing genetic mutations that can lead to malignant tumours in humans, it has now been replaced by an alternative, pyceze, developed in the UK with the assistance of funding from the salmon and trout industries and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).  Analysis for malachite green, and the residual compound leuchomalachite green, in Scottish farmed salmon only began in 2001, and is carried out on a quarterly basis by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, an agency of DEFRA. Previously unpublished results obtained by The Scotsman show that detection of the harmful chemical has remained reasonably steady since the tests began despite the ban.   In 2001, six out of 30 samples of farmed Scottish salmon, about 20 per cent, were found to contain the fungicide. The following year, the detection rate fell slightly to eight out of 52 samples, about 15 per cent.  But in the first quarter of this year, 14 out of 74 samples analysed have tested positive for leuchomalachite green.

It is not clear which company is responsible for the production of the contaminated fish or from which retailer the samples were obtained, but the industry body Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents 65 per cent of the salmon produced in Scotland, maintains that none of its members has used the fungicide since it was banned. One expert at the directorate claimed that the statutory surveillance programme for farmed fish is targeted, to increase the chances of detecting the use of malachite green, and maintained that the figure 19 per cent is not therefore necessarily representative of the overall picture. He added that few in the salmon industry would be surprised if the next quarterly report, due any day now, revealed several more instances of detection. "Although the use of malachite green was banned in the UK last year, estimates indicate that we can expect to see residues up to around June 2006, and possibly for longer. "This would not prove or suggest that there has been any use of the product in the UK since the ban was introduced."  Early last month, a consignment of Chilean farmed salmon was impounded in Rotterdam by the Dutch authorities due to high levels of contamination with leuchomalachite green. Chile banned the use of the fungicide, which is 20 times cheaper than modern alternatives, in 1995 but environmental groups in the South American country suspect aquaculture companies are continuing to use it to cut down costs.

Marine Harvest Chile - a subsidiary of Nutreco, which is also the biggest farmed salmon producer in Scotland - has been implicated by Chilean environmental groups in continuing use of the chemical. There is no suggestion that it continues to use malachite green in the production of Scottish salmon. A spokesman for SQS said it is mandatory for member companies to produce salmon under its strict, quality assured, independently inspected product certification schemes.   He added that SQS acknowledged the concern about the historical use of malachite green and had made a massive financial investment to expand its residue-testing regime. This included a set of robust testing procedures it says are over and above the statutory surveillance undertaken by the directorate. Brian Simpson, the chief executive of SQS, added: "Consumers rightly expect exceptional quality, which is exactly what they get from members of Scottish Quality Salmon."   Dr Richard Dixon, the head of research at WWF Scotland, said the residues were likely from the chemical being used legally before it was banned.  However, he added: "It will rightly concern the consumer that a chemical that has been banned for human health reasons, even if the industry is 100 per cent observing that ban, is still in fish that they may buy. "It could have been avoided by the industry if they were much more forward thinking and enlightened in their attitude," Dr Dixon said. 

http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=844672003&tid=15

 See also “Europe threat to ban toxic salmon” (The Sunday Herald, 15th December 2002): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/keymedia.shtml 

Also in The Scotsman:

 “Smolt farm could threaten Tweed plan” (18th July): http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=844672003&tid=15 

“Tests reveal radioactive waste in Scottish salmon” (24th June): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=689372003 

“Fish farming increase a serious threat to Scotland’s water system” (23rd June):

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=686232003

 “10,000 years of salmon evolution endangered by farm escapes” (4th June): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=620492003

=================================================== 

Supermarket Guru, 4th August

Farmed salmon contains high PCB levels

 Phil Lempert

 A new study from the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit environmental research and advocacy organization, reports that samples of farmed salmon bought at markets on the East and West Coasts were found to be contaminated with PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls.  Salmon is now the third most popular fish in the US, after canned tuna and shrimp.   While the high levels are not in excess of Food and Drug administration (FDA) standards for commercially sold fish, they are above guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for recreationally caught fish. The salmon contained PCBs at an average level far higher than any other protein source, including all other seafood. PCBs, identified as a probable human carcinogen, were banned by the United States in 1976.  Bottom line: there are options for concerned consumers. First, look for wild salmon rather than farmed salmon. Second, check with your supermarket: Wild Oats will next week begin selling farmed organic salmon from the west coast of Ireland, which it says tests as low for PCBs as wild salmon. Whole Foods also is looking for a low-PCB alternative.

 http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1903

 See also: “Irish salmon farming dead in the water?” (The Salmon Farm Monitor: August 2003):

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item2

===================================================

 The Independent on Sunday, 3rd August

Escape of a million farmed fish threatens wild salmon

By Severin Carrell

More than a million fish have escaped from fish farms over the past six years, threatening the survival of Britain's declining wild salmon populations. The number of escapes - revealed by new government figures - has reinforced fears that farmed salmon are steadily killing off their wild counterparts by interbreeding, competing for food and by passing on infections. The statistics also show that since 1999 at least 4.4 million salmon and trout have been killed in incidents involving poisonous growths of algae in the sea and invasions by jellyfish, including 1.9 million fish last year alone. These figures, which exclude the millions of salmon and trout that die in cages each year from infectious diseases and parasites, have led to renewed criticisms about the treatment of farmed fish. At least seven mass escapes last year involved salmon from fish farms infected by a potentially fatal virus. Conservationists link these escapes, caused by storms, broken cages and seals cutting open cages, and the regular outbreak of disease to a steep decline in wild salmon and trout populations in the north Atlantic. Wild salmon numbers have plunged from 12,000 tonnes caught in the mid-1970s to about 2,500 tonnes in 2000.  New research by Irish marine biologists has shown that young salmon created by the interbreeding of wild and farmed fish are dying out in the Atlantic before they can mate. These hybrids are also producing fewer young, suggesting that if cross-breeding continues, pure wild salmon will die out.

 

David Henderson, the Scottish director of the Salmon and Trout Association, said: "This research indicates that cross-breeding creates a non-viable strain. "We totally deplore the fact that these escapes are allowed to happen. We think it's perfectly possible for the industry to avoid this by investing in cages that prevent escapes. We're tremendously worried that if these escapes continue, farmed fish might outnumber wild fish."  A spokesman for Scottish Quality Salmon, the main industry body in fish farming, admitted that escapes were the industry's "Achilles heel". He said: "They're not acceptable. We realise this is an issue." He said fish farmers were trying to stem the losses by improving cage design.  Bruce Sandison, chairman of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said: "These figures show the reality behind an industry that claims that its farmed fish come from clean, unpolluted waters. To prevent further damage to wild fish and the environment, this industry must be immediately brought ashore and conducted in land-based, closed-containment systems."

 

Scottish Quality Salmon insists that growing fish in land-based tanks would be economically disastrous, would take up large areas of land and be more polluting than doing it in the sea. But the protest group argues that fish farmers are more concerned with profits than the environment. The industry has successfully persuaded the Government to delay introducing a new European Commission regulation that requires all fish killed by disease, accidents or parasites to be buried in licensed landfills rather than being recycled as animal feed or for cosmetics. The new regulation could cost up to £100m to implement, the industry claims.

 

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=430091

 Also by Severin Carrell in The Independent:

 “Whitehall funds hush hush production of GM fish” (1st April 2001):

http://www.whale.to/m/cart.html

 “Scottish salmon farming revolution that has left the seas awash with toxic chemicals” (2nd October 2000):

 http://www.mindfully.org/Water/Salmon-Farming-Toxic.htm

===================================================

 The Salmon Farm Monitor, August

 Contaminated Chilean salmon impounded in Europe

 http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item1

 See also on The Salmon Farm Monitor (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org):

 “Botulism in Chilean farmed salmon”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsaugust2003.shtml#item8

 “Radioactive waste found in supermarket salmon”:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjuly2003.shtml#item3

 “French say ‘Non’ to ‘tasteless’ and ‘fatty’ farmed salmon”:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item8

 “I’d rather eat Spam than farmed salmon”:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsapril2003.shtml

===================================================

 Environment Working Group, 31st July

EWG calls on farmed salmon industry to release test results on cancer-causing PCBs in farmed salmon

WASHINGTON — Has the farmed salmon industry tested fish for cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contaminants? And if so, what have those tests found?

 

These are among the questions the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is asking the farmed salmon industry after reading criticism from industry lobbyists about test results EWG released July 29 that found high levels of PCBs in farmed salmon purchased in U.S. supermarkets. Report available online,

http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/

 

EWG President Ken Cook urged Mary Ellen Walling of British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association, Alex Trent of Salmon of the Americas and John P. Connelly of the National Fisheries Institute to release industry studies of PCB levels in farmed salmon. Industry representatives have been harshly critical of EWG’s research, as they have been of several prior studies that found elevated concentrations of carcinogenic PCBs and other toxic chemicals in farmed salmon.  EWG is particularly struck by a Vancouver Sun report noting that a “landmark” study of contaminants in farmed salmon is expected in 2004. The Sun reporter even criticizes EWG for exploiting a “gap in the industry’s research” and conducting tests that “cannot yet be refuted by more authoritative science.”  “It’s stunning that such an established industry, whose product is so widely eaten, has put forth no safety testing data yet,” said Cook. “Respectfully, we wonder why a journalist would be more concerned with EWG’s research than with a food industry that is lacking authoritative science on the safety of their product.”

 

"We have to wonder why no PCB test data have been released by the farmed salmon industry?” asked Cook. “Surely they have conducted tests of their own. If the farmed salmon industry has test results for PCBs in their product, why not make them public instead of just complaining about the work of independent researchers?” inquired Cook.  He added: "The questions are simple and consumers have a right to know the answers: Do you test your fish for PCBs using state-of-the-art methods? And if you do, what do you find?"  "The farmed salmon industry also tells reporters that they have been improving their feed in ways that reduce PCB levels," Cook said. "The only way to know that is to test the feed. We're calling on them to release those test results, too, if in fact they have them."

 

http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/release_20030731.php

 See also:  "First-Ever U.S. Tests of Farmed Salmon Show High Levels of Cancer-Causing PCBs" (Environment Working Group, 30th July)

http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/release_20030730.php

 "PCBs in Farmed Salmon: Factory Methods, Unnatural Results"

http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/

===================================================

 The Daily Telegraph, 31st July

 Caution on fishy figures

 Includes:

 “There have long been questions about fish farming. Now, there are some uncomfortable answers.  Farm-raised salmon contain higher than desirable levels of cancer-causing PCBs, according to a study by an environmental organisation to be released today. The study, by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, found 10 samples of store-purchased, farm-raised salmon had five times more PCBs than salmon caught in the wild. Based on those findings, the study's authors recommend that consumers limit their intake of farm-raised salmon to only one meal a month”

 “Salmon is now the third most popular seafood eaten in the US, behind prawns and tuna, the institute said. In its study, the Environmental Working Group said the PCBs in the fish reached a level that triggers a recommendation by the Environmental Protection Agency that salmon only be eaten once a month. The EPA does not directly regulate the amount of PCBs found in salmon, but issues guidelines so that states can consider adopting them for their own use. While acknowledging that the sample size was small, officials at the Environmental Working Group said they hoped to set off "alarm bells" that would prompt the Federal Government to take notice. While the impact of the study is unclear, it does refocus attention on the unusual disparity between the EPA and the FDA in defining acceptable levels of PCBs -- a chemical mixture used as a coolant and lubricant and which was banned in the 1970s. Exposure to PCBs may increase the risk of cancer and cause developmental problems in infants. Under the FDA guidelines, commercial fish can contain up to two parts per million of PCBs. The EPA guidelines, which some state environmental agencies have adopted, caution against eating any fish with more than .097 parts per million of PCBs. The Environmental Working Group's study found that the 10 salmon samples had an average level of PCBs of .027 parts per million -- five times more than the amounts found in wild salmon. While that is within the amount the EPA finds acceptable, the EPA recommends eating salmon with that PCB level only once a month”

 http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1887

 Also in The Daily Telegraph: 

“Fish farms may spell end for wild salmon” (4th June 2003):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/04/nsfish04.xml

 “Salmon farms criticised” (30th May 2003):

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/30/wsalm30.xml

===================================================

The New York Times, 30th July

Farmed salmon is said to contain high PCB levels

 http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1870

====================================================

 Reuters, 30th July

Farmed salmon heavy in chemicals, group says 

http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1885

 See also on Reuters: 

“Nuclear waste found in UK salmon” (24th June 2003):

 http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/21270/story.htm

 “Escaped of farmed salmon threatens wild stocks” (4th April 2002):

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15307/newsDate/4-Apr-2002/story.htm

 ===================================================

 Scripps Howard News Service, 30th July

 High level of contamination in farmed salmon, researchers say

 http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1879

=================================================== 

The Associated Press, 30th July

 PCB test pits farmed salmon against wild – farm-raised salmon contains more cancer-causing PCBs than wild fish and other common foods, according to a report released Wednesday by a public health advocacy group

 http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=1880

 Other media news articles on the EWG report including The Seattle Times, United Press International, The Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, St Petersburg Times, the Washington Post:

 http://www.ewg.org/news/eclips.php?reportid=143

 Download the EWG report: "PCBs in Farmed Salmon: Factory Methods, Unnatural Results":

http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/

 ==========================================================================================================================

 

For more background information on sea cage fish farming see The Salmon Farm Monitor:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

View the figures in full on The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

The Independent on Sunday, 3rd August 2003

Escape of a million farmed fish threatens wild salmon

By Severin Carrell

More than a million fish have escaped from fish farms over the past six years, threatening the survival of Britain's declining wild salmon populations.

The number of escapes - revealed by new government figures - has reinforced fears that farmed salmon are steadily killing off their wild counterparts by interbreeding, competing for food and by passing on infections.

The statistics also show that since 1999 at least 4.4 million salmon and trout have been killed in incidents involving poisonous growths of algae in the sea and invasions by jellyfish, including 1.9 million fish last year alone.

These figures, which exclude the millions of salmon and trout that die in cages each year from infectious diseases and parasites, have led to renewed criticisms about the treatment of farmed fish. At least seven mass escapes last year involved salmon from fish farms infected by a potentially fatal virus.

Conservationists link these escapes, caused by storms, broken cages and seals cutting open cages, and the regular outbreak of disease to a steep decline in wild salmon and trout populations in the north Atlantic. Wild salmon numbers have plunged from 12,000 tonnes caught in the mid-1970s to about 2,500 tonnes in 2000.

New research by Irish marine biologists has shown that young salmon created by the interbreeding of wild and farmed fish are dying out in the Atlantic before they can mate. These hybrids are also producing fewer young, suggesting that if cross-breeding continues, pure wild salmon will die out.

David Henderson, the Scottish director of the Salmon and Trout Association, said: "This research indicates that cross-breeding creates a non-viable strain.

"We totally deplore the fact that these escapes are allowed to happen. We think it's perfectly possible for the industry to avoid this by investing in cages that prevent escapes. We're tremendously worried that if these escapes continue, farmed fish might outnumber wild fish."

A spokesman for Scottish Quality Salmon, the main industry body in fish farming, admitted that escapes were the industry's "Achilles heel". He said: "They're not acceptable. We realise this is an issue." He said fish farmers were trying to stem the losses by improving cage design.

Bruce Sandison, chairman of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said: "These figures show the reality behind an industry that claims that its farmed fish come from clean, unpolluted waters. To prevent further damage to wild fish and the environment, this industry must be immediately brought ashore and conducted in land-based, closed-containment systems."

Scottish Quality Salmon insists that growing fish in land-based tanks would be economically disastrous, would take up large areas of land and be more polluting than doing it in the sea.

But the protest group argues that fish farmers are more concerned with profits than the environment. The industry has successfully persuaded the Government to delay introducing a new European Commission regulation that requires all fish killed by disease, accidents or parasites to be buried in licensed landfills rather than being recycled as animal feed or for cosmetics. The new regulation could cost up to £100m to implement, the industry claims.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=430091
New on the Salmon Farm Monitor (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org):
 
"Mass fish farm mortalities and escapes threatent the survival of wild salmon" (Immediate Release, 1st August)
 
  
Press Release from The Salmon Farm Protest Group, 1st August 2003
 

An rud bhios na do bhrôin, cha bhi e na do thimhnadh

That which you have wasted will not be there for future generations

  
Mass fish farm mortalities and escapes threatent the survival of wild salmon
  

Figures obtained by the Salmon Farm Protest Group from the Scottish Executive show that in the past five years over 4 million farm salmon have died in captivity, and that over 1 million farm salmon and trout have escaped from farms in Shetland, Orkney, Western Isles, Skye, Highland, Argyll, Strathclyde, Borders and Central Scotland.  

 

  • Since 1998 seventy-seven incidents have been reported involving the escape of more than one million farm salmon and trout from their cages.

 

  • Since 1999 more than 4.4 million farm salmon have died in their cages in ninety separate incidents, 48% of which occurred in the Shetland Isles. This figure includes 500,000 in Highland Region in 2001 and 750,000 in the Western Isles in 2002.

 

  • Since March 2002 more than 200,000 farm salmon and trout have escaped from cages.

 

  • In 2002, 88% of escapee salmon came from sites affected by Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis; a viral infection that escapee farm salmon can pass to healthy wild salmon, characterised by abdominal distension and a mucus-filled digestive tube empty of food.

 

  • In the period 1999/2000 to 2001/2002 mass mortality incidents increased more than six-fold (twelve to seventy-eight), whilst in the same period fish deaths increased eighteen-fold, from 244,680 to 4.16 million.

 

Neither is Scotland alone: in 2002 upwards of 2 million farm salmon escaped from cages in Chile, Norway, Faroe, Ireland, Canada, United States and Tasmania. Nearly 300,000 farm salmon and trout have escaped from Norwegian farms so far this year. In Ireland, in July, 400,000 farm salmon died in their cages. On the Pacific coast of North America scientists have found escaped farmed Atlantic salmon in a tributary of the Chehalis River, home to wild Coho salmon.

 

Bruce Sandison, Chairman of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said:

 

 

“These figures show the reality behind an industry that claims that its farmed fish come from clean, unpolluted waters. These are the figures that the salmon farmers would prefer to keep hidden from consumers. To prevent further damage to wild fish and to the environment from fish farm disease and pollution this industry must be immediately brought ashore and conducted in land based closed-containment systems.”

 

 

For further information contact Don Staniford on 00 44 7880 716082

 

 

See also: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

 

Hysbackie, Tongue, by Lairg, Sutherland 1V27 4XJ, Scotland</ぐ颵ᇏ芻ꨀ봀௎SCROLL>

Tel: 01847 611274; Fax: 01847 611262; email bruce@hysbackie.freeserve.co.uk

A company registered in Scotland No.240223

 

Notes to Editors:

  

[1] Mass escapes:

 

 Information provided by the Scottish Executive on 23rd June 2003 (Letter from the Paul Shave – Tel: 0131 244 6172)

 

Fish Escapes from March 2002 (categorised by region, numbers of fish, species and cause):

 

Western Isles: 3,000 – salmon (seal predation)

Orkney: 20,000 – salmon (snapped moorings) 

Highland: 2,400 – rainbow trout (vandalism to nets)

Western Isles: 12,000 – salmon (loose net)

Western Isles: 19,750 – salmon (damaged net)

Shetland: 35,335 – salmon (weather)

Highland: 8,147 – salmon (hole in net – caught on moorings) 

Central: unknown – trout (bird predation)

Western Isles: 2,659 – salmon (facility problem)

Highland: 36 – salmon (hole in net)

Highland: 58 – salmon (seal damage to net)

Shetland: 13,500 – salmon (torn net)

Borders: 80,000 – trout (weather)

 

Total: 196,885 (plus one “unknown” – two incidents involving 11,000 and 16,000 fish from Marine Harvest Scotland’s Loch Ewe sites in April 2003 do not appear on this list)

 

 

Previous information supplied by the Scottish Executive on escapes and disease:

 

In response to a PQ from Robin Harper MSP on 25th September 2002:

1998: 4 incidents (2 from IPN affected farms)

1999: 16 incidents (7 from IPN affected farms)

2000: 22 incidents (10 from IPN affected farms)

2001: 14 incidents (2 from IPN affected farms)

2002 (up to 25th September): 8 (7 from IPN affected farms)

 

In reply to questions from Don Staniford, 22nd May 2000:

 

1998: 95,000 salmon (6 incidents)
1999: 255,000 salmon (15 incidents)
2000 (up to 22nd May): 395,000 salmon (10 incidents)

In reply to questions from Don Staniford, 11th January 2000:

Between August 1997 and January 2000: 

Highland: 150,000 fish (9 incidents)
Argyll and Bute: 36,000 fish (2 incidents)
Western Isles: 31,000 fish (3 incidents)
Shetland: 120,000 fish (3 incidents)
Perth and Kinross: 16,500 fish (3 incidents)

 [2] Mass mortalities:

 

 

“Moving on to your questions about algal bloom and jellyfish incidences, there is no legislative requirement for the Executive to monitor fish mortalities from these causes and therefore the information we have is by no means comprehensive.  However, I am attaching the data we have for the period 1999-2002.  The ‘plankton’ which is listed as the cause was often not identified and in some cases ‘plankton’ indicates a combination of plankton and jellyfish” (Letter from the Scottish Executive’s Paul Shave – Tel: 0131 244 6172 – dated 23rd June 2003)

 

In summary:

 

Between 1999 and 2002:

4.4 million fish died in 90 incidents in Scotland

48% of incidents were in Shetland, 26% in the Western Isles, 14% in Highland, 7% in Orkney, 2% in Strathclyde, 2% in Argyll and 1% in Skye

50% of deaths were caused by “algal blooms”, 45% by “jellyfish” and 5% by “plankton”

The average size of incident rose from 1,170 in 2000 to 44,675 in 2001 to 69,956 dead fish in 2002

The largest fish kills were 750,000 in Western Isles in 2002, 500,000 in Highland in 2001 and 300,000 in Shetland in 2001

 

 

If you compare the period 1999-2000 and the period 2001-2002:

 

Mass mortality incidents increased over six-fold (12 to 78)

Deaths increased 18-fold (244,680 to 4.16 million)

 

Specific information:

 

[Information supplied by the Scottish Executive on 23rd June 2003 broken down via ‘Region’, ‘Numbers of Fish’ and ‘Cause’ – no information given as to specific date, specific location or the company concerned]

 

1999: 8 incidents involving 240,000 dead fish

 

Western Isles: 20,000 – Plankton

Western Isles: 39,000 - Plankton

Western Isles: 12,000 - Plankton

Western Isles: 40,000 - Plankton

Western Isles: 40,000 - Plankton

Shetland: 20,000 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 9,000 – Jellyfish

Highland: 60,000 – Jellyfish

 

2000: 4 incidents involving 4,680 dead fish

 

Orkney: 1,400 – Algal

Shetland: 1,700 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 1,250 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 330 – Jellyfish

 

  

2001: 51 incidents involving 2,278,400 dead fish

 

Shetland: 550 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 14,500 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 23,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 2,300 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 27,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 9,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 400 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 210,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 30,000 – Algal Bloom

Highland: 20,000 – Algal Bloom

Highland: 5,000 – Algal Bloom

Highland: 1,000 – Algal Bloom

Highland: 8,000 – Algal Bloom

Strathclyde: 300 – Algal Bloom

Strathclyde: 10,000 – Algal Bloom

Orkney: 600 – Algal Bloom

Orkney: 500 – Algal Bloom

Orkney: 250 – Algal Bloom

Orkney: 1,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 1,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 35,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 12,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 22,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 46,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 60,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 85,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 100,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 50,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 30,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 600 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 400 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 400 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 2,600 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 50,000 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 50,000 – Algal Bloom

Western Isles: 3,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 7,000 – Jellyfish

Highland: 100,000 – Algal Bloom

Highland: 100,000 – Jellyfish

Highland: 100,000 – Jellyfish

Highland: 100,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 4,000 – Jellyfish

Highland: 65,000 – Jellyfish

Highland: 500,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 1,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 12,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 60,000 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 400 – Algal Bloom

Shetland: 4,000 – Algal Bloom

Western Isles: 25,000 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 15,000 – Jellyfish

 

2002: 27 incidents involving 1,888,800 dead fish

 

Shetland: 25,000 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 25,000 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 176,000 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 67,000 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 260,000 – Jellyfish

Highland: 10,000 – Algal Bloom

Western Isles: 150,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 500 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 600 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 500 – Jellyfish

Argyll: 2,000 – Jellyfish

Argyll: 200 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 750,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 160,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 88,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 21,000 – Jellyfish

Highland: 55,000 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 2,000 – Jellyfish

Orkney: 500 – Jellyfish

Western Isles: 31,000 – Jellyfish

Shetland: 1,000 – Algal bloom

Shetland: 10,000 – Algal bloom

Shetland: 6,000 – Algal bloom

Shetland: 5,000 – Algal bloom

Shetland: 10,000 – Algal bloom

Western Isles: 31,000 – Jellyfish

Skye: 1,500 – Jellyfish 

Staniford's Salmon Farm Updates

1) Radioactive waste found in supermarket salmon: The Daily Telegraph, 23rd June

2) Fish farming increase 'a serious threat to Scotland's water system': The Scotsman, 23rd June

3) Going wild over farmed salmon: The New Zealand Herald, 22nd June

=============================================================

 

For press up-dates (including British and International news) and details of “Supermarket Salmon Watch” see The Salmon Farm Monitor:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/index.shtml

 

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The Daily Telegraph (front page), 23rd June

 

Radioactive waste found in supermarket salmon

 

Charles Clover (Environment Editor)


Traces of radioactive waste from Sellafield have been found in packets of farmed smoked salmon sold in the six leading supermarkets, including Sainsbury's, Tesco and Marks & Spencer.  The discovery has been made as the Government faces attack over Sellafield's emissions at a ministerial meeting in Germany today.  Levels of radioactivity from the traces of Technetium-99 (Tc-99) are extremely low and, according to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are not a health risk.  But the fact that Tc-99, a byproduct of Magnox fuel reprocessing, is present will cause concern.  The tests were carried out by Southampton University's oceanography centre on fresh and smoked salmon from leading retailers, including also Asda, Safeway and Waitrose. All showed levels of less than two becquerels of Tc-99 per kilogramme to more than 20.  Tc-99 has been found in lobsters, seaweed and cod off the British Nuclear Fuels reprocessing facility in Cumbria and has been washed as far as Norway.


The salmon farms on the west coast of Scotland feed their salmon on pellets made from fish caught off Chile or in the North Sea.  The tests were commissioned by Greenpeace without any expectation of what they would produce. Dr David Santillo, a scientist working for Greenpeace research laboratories at Exeter University, said: "Tc-99 should not be there at all. It is inexplicable yet significant. Scottish salmon is marketed as something that comes from a pristine environment."  The discovery will cause further concern in Norway, which has one of the largest salmon farming industries in the world.  John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, promised in 1998 that Sellafield's emissions would be reduced year by year but since then they have risen.  Defra said: "We are not aware that Tc-99 has got into salmon. We were only
aware of it getting into lobster and shellfish.  "There is no evidence that, at the current rate of discharge, Tc-99 poses any risk to the health of people or the environment."

 

See also:

 

“Britain to halt nuclear waste in surprise U-turn” (Independent on Sunday, 22nd June):

 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=417833

 

“Sellafield Conference to discuss the effects of Technetium-99”:

 http://www.bellona.no/en/energy/nuclear/sellafield/28926.html

 

“Technetium leaking from Sellafield site”: http://www.bellona.no/en/energy/nuclear/sellafield/24268.html

 

 

Also in The Daily Telegraph:

 

“Fish farms ‘may spell the end for wild salmon’” (4th June 2003):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/04/nsfish04.xml

 

“Salmon farms criticised” (30th May 2003):

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/30/wsalm30.xml

 

“Blindness risk in EU farmed fish colouring” (28th January 2003):

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/documents/intlnewsfeb2003.html#item4

 

“Salmon farms 'do harm sea trout'” (4th October 2002):

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/10/04/nfish04.xml

 

“Scotland’s sea lice crisis: parasite threatens fishing hotel’s future” (12th September 2000): http://s.o.w.tripod.com/salmonsctl.htm#Scotland's%20sea%20lice%20crisis

:%20parasites%20threaten%20fishing%20hotel's%20future

 

“Salmon escapes prompt calls for more farm curbs” (6th June 2000):

http://131.104.232.9/animalnet/2000/6-2000/an-06-07-00-01.txt

 

“GM superfish face ban in British waters” (9th August 1999):

http://www.tao.ca/~ban/899MSsuperfish.htm

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The Scotsman, 23rd June

 

Fish farming increase 'a serious threat to Scotland's water system'

James Reynolds (Environment Correspondent)

 

Plans for a massive expansion of the fish farming industry to include cod, halibut and haddock could lead to a serious increase in pollution of Scottish sea lochs and rivers, according to a new report. The Scotsman has learned that cod farming would bring about at least 50 per cent more discharge and waste than that generated by salmon farming per tonne of produce. Such waste is discharged directly into the surrounding waters of the sea lochs, and conservationists say it threatens the fragile marine ecosystems where the farms are located. With little prospect of a sustained recovery of north-east Atlantic and North Sea cod stocks, which has led to a 45 per cent European quota cut, cod farming has almost overnight become economically viable.
A previously unseen report produced for the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic reveals the true extent of the ecological impact that cod aquaculture would have.

Currently, for every tonne of salmon that is farmed, 48.2kg discharge of nutrient nitrogen in the form of faecal waste and uneaten feed pellets goes directly into the surrounding water. Cod farming, however, would produce 72.3kg of such discharge for every tonne farmed - a 50 per cent rise. According to the industry body Scottish Quality Salmon, 2002 was the biggest year for salmon farming in Scotland so far, with 150,000 tonnes produced. As a consequence, 7,230,000kg of waste was discharged into the waters surrounding the farms. That figure would leap to 10,845,000kg of waste if salmon production was switched to cod. Rich in nitrogen, nutrients in the waste have been blamed for causing harmful algal blooms in coastal waters. Under severe conditions, serious depletion of oxygen levels can occur, and be associated with killing fish and marine fauna. Major farmed fish producers have so far remained tight-lipped about planned growth, but sources predict the Scottish industry aims to produce 30,000 tonnes of cod and 10,000 tonnes of other fin fish annually within ten years. By 2030, farmed white fish production could be greater than the salmon aquaculture industry’s current yearly production.

The new partnership deal for government, agreed at the beginning of last month by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, promised to cut the number of agencies regulating the industry. The agreement said: "We will support the growth of an aquaculture industry in salmon, other fin fish and shellfish that is sustainable, diverse and competitive."  The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), has also said it supports the diversification of fish farming into species such as cod, haddock and halibut. But figures released last month showed the number of incidents in which fish farms polluted rivers and lochs have doubled in the past year - and campaigners say the switch from salmon farming to cod is no easy solution. Since 1996 there have been a total of 51 pollution incidents at fish farms. In every year until 2002, the number of incidents has been between five and seven. But in 2002 - 2003 it leaped to 13. Don Staniford, of the salmon farm protest group, and a leading critic of the fish farm industry, said: "Diversification into cod, halibut and haddock farming can only compound the current crisis. Cod farming, for example, represents a double whammy in terms of both increased discharges of sewage wastes into the marine environment and a bigger appetite for precious wild fisheries resources as feed. "Such a wasteful form of fish farming is inherently unsustainable and represents a threat not only to wild fisheries but also to the Scottish marine environment. Diversification is merely a euphemism for increasing pollution."

 

Duncan McLaren, chief executive with Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "Worryingly, this new research shows that plans to expand cod farming will make Scotland’s fish farming industry even more polluting and even less sustainable. "Combined with industry plans to expand cod farming, proposals by the Executive to reduce the regulation of fish farms will do absolutely nothing to protect Scotland’s environment or move the industry to a sustainable footing." A spokesman for SEPA said: "We work out what level of aquaculture activity the receiving environments can take, and then establish a limit which is based on a large number of factors. To say that cod farming would be 50 per cent more polluting would only be correct if you were talking about producing comparable biomasses. "That is not how SEPA arrives at decisions and we do not necessarily consent the same amount of fish production for each site. We do take into account the different environmental impact that farming different species might have."

 http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=686232003

 

See also in The Scotsman:

 

“10,000 years of salmon evolution endangered by farm escapees” (4th June 2003): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=620492003

 

“Wild salmon not in the pink” (30th May 2003): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/leaders.cfm?id=603172003

 

“Report blames government for tragedy” (30th May 2003): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/politics.cfm?id=602642003

 

“Doubts cast on executive plan for fish farming” (25th March 2003): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/politics.cfm?id=356552003

 

“Call for urgent action on moving fish farms” (20th March 2003): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/business.cfm?id=334652003

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New Zealand Herald, 22nd June

 

Going wild over farmed salmon

 

Geoff Cumming

Includes: “And as fish-farming proponents complain that New Zealand is missing the boat while the Government dithers, environmentalists are questioning whether it's an industry New Zealand should be encouraging at all. Overseas, a fish-farming backlash is in full swing with consumer boycotts persuading supermarkets on both sides of the Atlantic to stock only wild salmon, whose continued survival is said to be threatened by tank-reared, force-fed super salmon spreading parasites and disease. Farmed salmon has been labelled the most toxic food in British supermarkets after a survey by Government scientists. Their diet of fishmeal and fish oil pellets comes from "trash" fish which environmentalists say is contaminated with cancer-causing dioxins, PCBs and DDT.  Wild salmon get their pink flesh by dining on krill. Chemicals must be added to farmed salmon feed to produce the desired colour. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche has even produced the Salmofan, a handy colour chart allowing farmers to choose the colour of their fish in the same way we choose paint for our homes. A dye called canthaxanthin is the most popular for its vibrant colours, but a European Union study last year warned that it may harm human eyesight and ordered European salmon farmers to use less.

British marine scientist Don Staniford likens the intensive cage farming practised in Canada, Norway, Scotland and Chile to battery hen farming. In salmon hatcheries, artificial light is used to alter eating patterns to make fingerlings grow faster. Once big enough, they are transferred in their thousands to sea cages where overcrowding leaves them prone to diseases and parasite infestation. Antibiotics added to their feed to ward off infection enter the foodchain. Many fish escape, spreading disease to other species and interbreeding with wild salmon. The untreated waste discharged by tonnes of overfed salmon has a catastrophic effect on the marine environment, says Staniford, who won an environmental media award last year for his part in exposing illegal chemical use by Scottish salmon farmers. He says the health and environmental concerns associated with salmon apply to all finfish farming.

He is due in New Zealand this year to investigate New Zealand King Salmon's unfortunate 1999 experiments with genetically modified salmon and to look at the industry in general.

The emerging health concerns overseas have been seized on by locals who oppose marine farms for other reasons - because they are a visual blight on an otherwise empty bay or threaten access for recreational fishers, boaties and traditional shellfish gathering. Visual concerns counted for little last year when the Northland Regional Council gave resource consent to test a kingfish and snapper marine farm at Peach Cove, alongside a bush reserve at Whangarei Heads. The application was processed just ahead of the moratorium. But when locals organising an appeal began reciting Staniford's "five fundamental flaws of fish farming", the applicant, Maori-owned Moana Pacific, withdrew and is now threatening to take the venture overseas. "It was going to cost us an awful lot of money fighting the appeal," says chief executive Bruce Young. "They were asking questions we couldn't answer until the farm was in operation."  Fish-farming flagbearers in this country say the mistakes and environmental problems which have marked the industry's growth overseas can be avoided here as long as the scale remains small and dispersed. The parasites and diseases plaguing Scottish and Canadian salmon are not present here, so antibiotics are not needed. Nor is canthaxanthin used here, although a similar colourant which is, astaxanthin, is being investigated by the European Commission.

The location of our salmon farms in the Marlborough Sounds and Stewart Island rules out the risk of interbreeding with the "wild" chinook population, which was itself introduced.  In fact, say industry leaders, our clean, green image and disease-free waters could give New Zealand a marketing edge as concerns about overseas farmed salmon grow. "You only create a mess if you don't put them in the right place," says Graeme Coates, executive officer of the Marine Farming Association. "You need deep, fast flowing water - we can go to places where these things don't have an impact."  But Staniford says the industry's attempt to distance itself from international experience is "either naive or absurdly arrogant". Even if the environmental effects are minimised, he says, farming of carnivores like salmon, kingfish and snapper is unsustainable because of the enormous quantities of wild fish which must be killed to provide feed. "Sea cage fish farms are a cancer on the coast and weeping sores on the face of our blue planet," he says. "If you think you are missing this particular boat then maybe you are missing the Titanic. It's a can of worms - don't open it."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3508558&msg=emaillink

 

Staniford's Salmon Farm Updates

Press up-date on sea cage fish farming issues including National Geographic, The Observer, The New York Times, United Press International, The Chicago Tribune, The Grocer, Intrafish, Scotland on Sunday, The Sunday Herald and The British Ecological Society:

 

1) Everybody loves Atlantic salmon - here’s the catch: National Geographic, July

2) Ecologists warn of the dangers of GM fish: British Ecological Society, 17th June

3) Food agency caught out over salmon labelling delay: The Sunday Herald, 15th June

4) 'Fluorescent fish' give the green light to GM pets: The Observer, 15th June

5) Scottish salmon farmers angered by lack of labels: Scotland on Sunday, 15th June

6) Salmon lovers see red over rosy farmed fish: lawsuit alleges `color wheel': The Chicago Tribune, 15th June 

7) Salmon labelling row in UK set to escalate: Intrafish, 13th June

8) Sainsbury’s caught hookwinking customers: Salmon Farm Protest Group, 13th June

9) Eating wild salmon is healthier: United Press International, 11th June

10) Sex drive of farmed salmon threatens wild cousins: The Sunday Times, 8th June

11) Label failures spotted: The Grocer, 7th June

12) Escaped farm salmon threaten native species: New Scientist, 7th June

13) Farmed salmon looking less rosy: 28th May, New York Times

============================================================

 

For all the latest news up-dates (including British and International News) see The Salmon Farm Monitor:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

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National Geographic, July 2003

 

Everybody loves Atlantic salmon: here’s the catch…..

 

Farm-raised salmon now outnumber wild fish nearly 85 to one.  As wild stocks dwindle, this legendary sport fish has become the veritable chicken of the sea

 

By Fen Montaigne

 

Includes: “The truth is, however, that wild Atlantic salmon have been in steep decline for decades, and today the North Atlantic is dominated by a new kind of salmon. It can be found not far from Lord Marnoch's fishing hole on the Deveron, packed into sea cages in the lochs of western Scotland. There, about 50 million farmed Atlantic salmon swim round and round in pens as they are fed pellets to speed their growth, pigments to mimic the pink hue of wild salmon flesh, and pesticides to kill the lice that go hand-in-hand with an industrial feedlot. It is these salmon that you purchase at the market for five dollars a pound, and today in Scotland—as in many North Atlantic countries—farmed salmon outnumber wild salmon by 300 or 400 to one”

 

Get the full article including photos, references and field notes:

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0307/feature5/index.html

 

Subscriptions to National Geographic available at: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/

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British Ecological Society, 17th June

 

Ecologists warn of the dangers of GM fish

 

The aquaculture industry will do increasing ecological damage around the world unless urgent action is taken by national and international policy makers, a new report by the British Ecological Society has warned. The report - written by experts from University College Cork, the University of Glasgow, Germany and Sri Lanka - argues that while attention is being paid to the sustainability of capture fisheries in the North Sea, the Atlantic and elsewhere, the aquaculture industry is also becoming ecologically unsustainable.  According to the report, ‘Aquaculture: the ecological issues’: “Aquaculture was originally regarded as a benign activity. Three decades ago, images of ‘farming the seas’ were viewed as positive when set against the relentless overfishing already shown by many capture fisheries. However, as the industry has become increasingly competitive and intensive, concerns have arisen, many of ecological significance.”


The report cites a number of serious ecological problems caused by some parts of the aquaculture industry, and makes a number of practical recommendations. The authors are particularly concerned about the impact that aquaculture is having on: fragile habitats such as mangroves; the spread of disease and alien species; the impact of industrial fishing to produce so-called “aquafeed” for the farmed fish on fish stocks, birds and mammals; and the genetic impact that escaped fish have on native wild populations.  Industrial fishing for fishmeal production, for example, can have a catastrophic impact on sea birds and mammals. When capelin fish stocks in the Barents Sea collapsed in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, starving arctic seals invaded Norwegian coastal waters in search of food, and 90% of common guillemots starved to death in 1986-87 because they could not find alternative food. “There have to be serious reservations about the long-term ecological sustainability of aquaculture practices that are so dependent on industrial capture fishing,” the authors say. The authors are also concerned about the possible effects of feeding fishmeal to herbivorous fish. “There are possible comparisons with the BSE crisis in cattle, which was caused by an increased use of foodstuffs from higher up the trophic pyramid,” they say.  To illustrate habitat loss caused by aquaculture, the report reveals that, in the Philippines alone, 250,000 hectares of mangrove (more than half the area that existed 80 years ago) has been destroyed, and 60% of this loss is attributed to coastal culture of prawns and milkfish.


The report makes a number of recommendations that would reduce the ecological impact of aquaculture and make the industry more sustainable, including:
* Regulations to prevent the escape of farmed fish into the wild. This is particularly important as transgenic (genetically modified) fish - containing genes from other species to boost their growth - are beginning to appear on the market. Ecologists argue that these transgenic fish are likely to be less fit in the wild, so escapes of genetically modified fish could seriously damage wild populations.
* Stronger quarantine and inspection regulations to avoid transfer of alien species (a classic case of alien “hitchhikers” is the slipper limpet, which was introduced to Europe from the USA in the 1880s in consignments of oysters and which has since become a major pest of oyster beds),
* A switch in “aquafeed” production from industrial fisheries to soya proteins or discards and offal from human consumption fisheries. In 1995, the 3 million tonnes of fish and crustacea produced by the aquaculture industry required inputs of fishmeal and oil from more than 5 million tonnes of pelagic fish, yet 25 million tonnes of fish are discarded worldwide each year because the facilities to collect and convert these to fishmeal are rarely available.

- ends -

Notes for editors:
1. Aquaculture: the ecological issues, by Professor John Davenport et al, ISBN 1-4051-1241-7, is published by Blackwell Science for the British Ecological Society, price £9.99. More information is available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/book.asp?ref=1405112417.

2. For further information or a review copy, contact Becky Allen, British Ecological Society Press Officer, tel: 01223 570016, e-mail: beckyallen@ntlworld.com.

3. The British Ecological Society is a learned society, a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee.  Established in 1913 by academics to promote and foster the study of ecology in its widest sense, the Society has 5,000 members in the UK and abroad. Further information is available at: www.britishecologicalsociety.org.

 

 

BRITISH ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY BACKGROUND BRIEFING

 

The following briefing has been produced by Professor John Davenport of University College Cork. It is based on the newly-published booklet: Aquaculture: the ecological issues, by Professor John Davenport et al (2003), ISBN 1-4051-1241-7, published for the British Ecological Society by Blackwell Science.


Why the aquaculture industry is important?
Capture fisheries have reached or, more probably, exceeded their capacity. There is therefore no real possibility of getting increasing quantities of fish or shellfish by fishing. Aquaculture already contributes around one-third of the world’s supply of fish/shellfish food for people and is therefore a significant source of food protein, particularly in Asia. Aquaculture is important in maintaining food supplies at a time when human populations continue to increase. It is the only means of exploiting the aquatic environment to increase food supplies in the future.  Aquaculture is also a significant source of employment in rural areas, so is a factor in opposing the worldwide drift of populations to cities.


Why is the aquaculture industry currently unsustainable?
Aquaculture is a very diverse activity. Some types of low-intensity aquaculture of herbivorous fish and shellfish have relatively little environmental impact and are ecologically sustainable. However, a great deal of high-value aquaculture is for the luxury end of the market in developed countries. The species involved are fish such as salmon and sea bass, and crustaceans such as tiger prawns. These are cultured under highly intensive conditions and have been associated with the following problems that make them essentially unsustainable:
1. They are fed on pellets that still largely depend upon the capture of ‘industrial’ or so-called ‘trash fish’ for their composition. The industrial fish exploited in Europe include sandeels (important in the diet of seabirds) and capelin (important in the diet of larger fish such as cod). Although fishmeal is being increasingly replaced by soya products in these pellets, the global aquaculture demand for pellets rises so quickly that the overall requirement for industrial fishing continues to rise as well - with ecologically unsustainable consequences.
2. Genetic pollution is already a serious concern for salmon culture. Farmed salmon have been selected for rapid growth in captivity and are descended from a small number of parents. As it is currently practiced, salmon culture inevitably results in escapes to the wild. Although only a small percentage (1%) escapes, the industry is now so large that the quantity that escapes each year is larger than the commercial and sports catch. Interbreeding with wild salmon is therefore inevitable and results in reduced viability of salmon living in the wild. In principle, this risk applies to all culture systems where the cultured animals have little genetic variability and can escape to interbreed.
3. The spread of pests and diseases is a major problem with a long history. Wild shellfish such as oysters and crayfish have been decimated by the spread of diseases as brood stock has been moved around the world. Sealice are a particular problem in salmon culture, partly because of the release of treatment chemicals to the environment, and partly because salmon farms have been implicated in the spread of sealice to wild salmonids.
4. Habitat destruction is also of concern. Most freshwater aquaculture, like agriculture, involves replacement of ‘natural’ terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems with large-scale aquaculture ponds. In the case of tiger prawn culture, which requires seawater or brackish water, there has been much irreversible destruction of coastal mangrove systems, with consequent loss of coastal biodiversity and knock-on effects in terms of coastal flooding during storms (mangroves protect such areas against storm surges).


How can the industry be made sustainable?
Given present global commercial and governmental attitudes, it is difficult to see how the industry can be made ecologically sustainable. An increased reliance on the rearing of herbivorous species of fish and shellfish would be helpful, but the market demand is for carnivorous fish and tiger prawns. Even herbivorous fish such as tilapias and milkfish are now being fed fishmeal-based pelleted diets to boost growth. International control over industrial fishing for fishmeal will not be successful until the political community properly addresses the intractable world problem of overfishing.  Increased regulation of use of chemicals and quantities of waste discharge in aquaculture is becoming effective in addressing concerns over pollution and the transfer of antibiotics to the human food chain. Globalisation of retailing, plus consumer power, is likely to continue this trend. Although chemical use in aquaculture excites much public concern, it is not a strong threat to sustainability.
Only effective integrated resource management can solve the ecological problems caused by aquaculture. Such management must properly value the services provided by the environment to humankind.


For further information or a review copy, contact Becky Allen, British Ecological Society Press Officer, tel: 01223 570016, email: beckyallen@ntlworld.com

 

http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/

 

The Sunday Herald, 15th June

 

Food agency caught out over salmon labelling delay


Rob Edwards (Environment Editor)

 

Supermarkets have been getting away without labelling salmon as farmed because of a failure by the government's food safety watchdog to alert local authorities to a change in the law. Since March 28 this year labels on fresh and smoked salmon sold in shops must carry details of its origins -- whether it was reared in cages on a farm or caught in the wild.  The Food Standards Agency (FSA) should have informed councils of the change so they could check that salmon in supermarkets was being properly labelled. But the FSA admitted to the Sunday Herald that it had been 'later than usual' in informing councils of the new regulations. As a result, supermarkets have been able to carry on selling salmon without specifying whether it was farmed or wild. Safeway, Sainsbury's, the Co-op and Waitrose have all been accused of stocking salmon that should have been labelled as farmed (see table). Safeway says this is a 'glitch' that will soon be rectified; Sainsbury's points out that all its own brands are properly labelled; Waitrose says it has now changed its labels; and the Co-op is investigating.

The failings of the super markets and the FSA have been uncovered by the Salmon Farm Protest Group (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org), which campaigns against fish farming. It has lodged a series of complaints with environmental health and trading standards departments across the UK which are being investigated. 'Of the fresh salmon on sale in UK supermarkets, 99% is intensively farmed but supermarkets are concerned shoppers would stop buying salmon if this was exposed,' said the group's Don Staniford.  He accused the FSA of safeguarding the supermarkets and fish farmers rather than consumers and public health. 'Far from protecting the public from the inherent dangers associated with farmed salmon, the FSA seems intent on force-feeding us all artificially coloured GM farmed salmon marinaded in dioxins and PCBs,' Staniford added. Environmental health officers in Edinburgh said last week that they were unsure whether the fish-labelling regulations were in force because they had not heard from the FSA. On Friday afternoon, the city's environmental health manager Gordon Greenhill was still waiting for clarification from the agency.

When contacted by the Sunday Herald, the FSA in Scotland confirmed that the Fish Labelling (Scotland) Regulations had come into force on March 28. The agency pointed out that responsibility for enforcing the regulations in Scotland lay with local authority environmental health officers. 'As a matter of courtesy, it is common practice for the agency to write to interested parties, including local authorities, to update them about the introduction of new legislation. This is one of several avenues of information available to local authorities to keep up to date with changes in food law,' said an FSA spokeswoman. 'On this occasion we have been later than usual in preparing our information letter, but the agency is taking steps to ensure that local authorities are informed of the introduction of the Fish Labelling (Scotland) Regulations 2003, should they not be aware of these changes.'

The Salmon Farm Protest Group is gathering evidence for a formal complaint to the European Commission over Britain's failure to properly implement the labelling rules. They were first introduced in October 2001 by the EC, which now describes their implementation as 'patchy'. The EC fisheries directorate-general said on June 2 that five countries had failed to notify the commission of the measures they had taken taken to implement the regulations. The offending nations were the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg.

Safeway accepted that salmon in up to 30 of its stores in Scotland could still carry old labels which don't specify farmed or wild, but pledged this would be corrected within weeks. 'We comply with all labelling legislation and take labelling very seriously,' said a spokeswoman. ' A short delay can occur when updating all forms of labelling. At this time all Safeway pre-packed fresh and smoked salmon does identify that it is 'farmed in Scotland'.'  Sainsbury's said the John West mild oak-smoked Scottish salmon it sold without saying whether it was farmed or wild was 'a branded product which complies with UK legislation'. The regulations, however, say smoked salmon must be labelled as farmed or wild.  A spokeswomen added: ' In line with the regulations, all Sainsbury's fresh salmon labels include the origin and production method, for example, 'Scottish farmed salmon'.'

Waitrose, run by John Lewis plc, claimed supermarkets were informally allowed six months' grace to implement the new rules. 'From the end of March to mid-May our salmon packs did not carry the 'farmed/wild' indication,' said a spokeswoman. 'The revised packaging for Waitrose salmon was in use from mid-May. We indicate in the address line on the back of pack 'produced from Scottish farmed salmon in the UK for Waitrose' .'  The Co-op, regarded by the Salmon Farm Protest Group as one of the better retailers, was found selling Young's smoked Scottish salmon without a label saying whether it was farmed or wild. 'We indicate on all Co-op own-brand products whether fish are farmed or wild,' said a Co-op spokeswoman. 'As part of our honest labelling policy we will look into the allegation that this is not done on Young's salmon and, if necessary, contact the manufacturer.'

http://www.sundayherald.com/34586

Other articles in The Sunday Herald:

 

“Fish farming pollution is up by 100%” (18th May 2003): http://www.sundayherald.com/33928

 

“Europe threat to ban 'toxic salmon' - environmentalists are calling for shoppers to avoid farmed salmon, and claim an outright EU ban looms” (15th December 2002):
http://www.sundayherald.com/29991

”Farmed salmon is now the most contaminated food on shelf” (20th October 2002): http://www.sundayherald.com/28565

 

“Study proves cancer-link chemicals in farm salmon” (7th July 2002):
 http://www.sundayherald.com/26081

 

“Fish farmers 'blocked' vital safety study: salmon producers and scientists furious as leaked secret report reveals catalogue of problems in £4m pesticide probe" (28th April 2002): http://www.sundayherald.com/print24181

 

“Stores ignore EU laws on fish labelling - supermarkets 'mislead' public over seafood” (17th March 2002):

 http://www.sundayherald.com/23050

“Stores ignore EU laws on fish labelling - supermarkets 'mislead' public over seafood” (17th March 2002):

http://www.sundayherald.com/23050

 

“Time to clean up your act, M&S tells salmon farmers - food retailer imposes tough new rules designed to pressure fish industry into using fewer pesticides” (18th March 2001): http://s.o.w.tripod.com/september2001news.htm

 

“Salmon health scare 'gag' - Government scientists worried that the fish farming industry is wrecking populations of wild salmon and trout are being gagged by the Scottish Executive, the Sunday Herald can reveal” (7th January 2001):
 http://www.sundayherald.com/13005

 

“Salmon safety scare spawns fear and paranoia among scientists” (7th January 2001): http://www.sundayherald.com/12969

”Supermarkets criticised over 'organic' fish - supermarkets have been accused of cashing in on the organic food boom by misleading consumers over Scottish salmon” (January 2000): http://www.sundayherald.com/6189

 

“Shops in salmon boycott over virus - leading supermarkets have banned salmon suspected of harbouring an infectious virus which is spreading through fish stocks, despite government assurances that it is not dangerous to humans” (November 1999): http://www.sundayherald.com/5238 ============================================================

 

The Observer, 15th June

 

'Fluorescent fish' give the green light to GM pets

Robin McKie (Science Editor)

Scientists have created the ultimate pet: genetically modified fish that glow in the dark. In future, there will be no need for aquarium lights - fluorescent fish will provide their own illumination.  And that is just the start. Scientists believe Night Pearl bio-fish represent the shape of pets to come. Our household animals will come with extra genes that will stop them shedding fur or triggering allergic reactions. And when one dies, its owner will simply clone it.  But the prospect of GM pets has outraged pet dealers. The nation's aquarium industry last week said it had backballed the Night Pearl. 'This is the thin end of the wedge,' said Keith Davenport, chief executive of the Ornamental Aquatic Trade Association. 'You could put all sorts of different genes in animals and do all sorts of damage.'  

 

The Night Pearl began as a research tool created by HJ Tsai, a professor at National Taiwan University. He was looking for a way to make fish organs easier to see when studying them, and isolated a gene for a fluorescent protein that he had extracted from jellyfish and inserted it into the genome of a zebrafish. To his astonishment, the jellyfish gene made whole zebrafish glow.  Prof Tsai thought no more about it until he showed a slide at a conference - where it caught the eye of the Taikong Corporation. The fish produce company agreed to fund his experiments in exchange for the use of his techniques. Now the first fruits of this collaboration have gone on sale in Taiwan and will soon appear in the US. The Night Pearls glow in different red and green patterns thanks to genes from jellyfish and marine coral. Now the team is working on a glowing dragon fish, which many Asians believe is a lucky species.

Prof Tsai does not worry about his fish contaminating local populations of zebrafish, as more than 90 per cent have been sterilised. However, marine researchers say that this is not enough to prevent GM fish polluting natural populations.  And that is the scenario that worries British aquarium enthusiasts. 'One idea being explored is to add genes - taken from cold water fish - that will allow tropical fish to live in unheated aquarium,' said Derek Lambert, editor of Today's Fishkeeper. 'Just imagine what would happen if they got released. You could end up with strange coloured GM tropical fish in our waters.'  Scientists have not restricted their GM work to aquarium creatures. In other experiments, scientists have attempted to engineer cats that do not produce allergens.  Several US biotechnologists are working on cloning pets. However, customers could get a shock. Last year, scientists in Texas created Cc, for Copy Cat, but the resulting kitten looked nothing like its originator.

http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,977858,00.html

Also in The Observer:

“Farmed and dangerous: why the fish on your plate is caged, dyed, de-sexed and a threat to the planet” (Observer Food Monthly, May): http://www.observer.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,9950,951686,00.html

“Industrial-scale cod farming poses new threat to recovery of wild salmon” (2nd October 2002): http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,805555,00.html

“How the King of Fish is being farmed to death” (7th January 2001):

 http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,418954,00.html

“Illegal poison used on salmon – chemical treatment at fish farms is hazard to health and marine life, claims ex-employee” (30th April 2000): http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,215802,00.html

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Scotland on Sunday, 15th June

Scottish salmon farmers angered by lack of labels

Douglas Friedli

Scotland’s salmon farmers say they are being undermined by supermarket chains that fail to label their fish as Scottish.  Producers believe stores such as Tesco and Asda are in breach of new European regulations which say food labels should state a country of origin. Tesco, Scotland’s second biggest food retailer, sells salmon labelled as coming from "Scotland and Norway", while other stores print the information in tiny letters.  The issue last week provoked a question to the European Commission from Catherine Stihler, the Scottish Labour MEP. Speaking to Scotland on Sunday, she said: "As a consumer, I want to be able to buy a Scottish product. Customers looking quickly at a sign like that in Tesco may think they are getting a Scottish product when they are not. What got me was that Scotland was put together with Norway, but Norway is one of the countries which has been accused of dumping salmon. There are real issues about the way the Norwegian market is working."   Stihler said new European legislation may be required if the current rules did not force supermarkets to name just one country of origin.

Scottish Quality Salmon, the trade association, is leading the fight for more accurate and prominent labelling. SQS chief executive Brian Simpson said some retailers failed to meet the spirit and letter of labelling rules which came into force in March. "We saw the new legislation as a big step forward," he said. "We know consumers will pay more for food which is reasonably locally produced, but we have suffered from retailers not putting country of origin information on their packaging."   The association has contacted the Food Standards Agency which it hopes will pressure retailers to label fish correctly.

Scotland’s fish farming industry, which employs 6,500 people, has suffered from falling prices over the past three years following two decades of growth. Producers believe they can raise prices by labelling salmon as Scottish and drawing attention to the local industry’s production standards.  Competition comes chiefly from Norway, which has large, efficient fish farms, and Chile, where labour costs are lower.  Some producers believe supermarkets are obscuring country of origin information to keep wholesale prices low.  Tesco did not return calls on the subject last night. A spokeswoman for Asda said the Leeds-based chain was about to start labelling its Scottish salmon with a saltire. Safeway said its pre-packaged salmon labels mentioned Scotland prominently.  Graeme Dear, the managing director of Marine Harvest, Scotland?s biggest salmon producer, said: "I don?t mind if supermarkets sell fish from all over the place - I just believe the consumer should have a clear and transparent choice."

 http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/business.cfm?id=657922003

See also in Scotland on Sunday:

“Charles told minister of fish farm fears - Prince Charles held talks at Balmoral with a senior government minister to express his concerns that fish farms were devastating Scotland’s wild salmon population” (29th September 2002):

http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/index.cfm?id=1081492002

“Salmon farms – ‘a licence to pollute’: the government’s environmental watchdog in Scotland has been accused of ‘state-sponsored pollution’ after licensing a massive increase in the use of toxic chemicals in salmon farming” (24th February 2002):

http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/scotland.cfm?id=212062002

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Chicago Tribune, 15th June

 

Salmon lovers see red over rosy farmed fish: lawsuit alleges `color wheel'

 

Includes: “In the busiest fish market in the Pacific Northwest, Sol Amon has bought and sold millions of pounds of salmon. What Amon didn't know until a few months ago is that the bulk of fresh salmon consumed in the United States--that is, salmon raised on a fish farm --is not naturally pink.  Without two synthetic additives in their feed pellets, farmed salmon would be dishwater gray.  "What's going on?" Amon, owner of the Pure Food Fish Market in Seattle's Pike Place Market, remembers thinking when he learned of the colored fish.  What's going on is that artificially colored salmon have become front-page news in Seattle, where wild salmon are far more than a tasty choice for supper. They are a quasi-religion, widely seen as healthy to eat and symbols of the quality of life and environmental well-being of the entire Northwest.

 

To defend the sanctity of salmon and to stop what lawyers describe as "negligent misrepresentation" of farmed fish, four Seattle-area residents sued three national supermarket chains in April (http://www.smithandlowney.com/salmon/). They complained that the grocers had failed, despite requirements by the Food and Drug Administration, to label colorants on packages of farmed fish to sell more.  "There's no way I would have spent my money buying salmon that was colored with a chemical additive to give it the red or orange or pink color," said Lori Thomas, one of the plaintiffs, when the lawsuit was filed in state court.  The lawsuit further alleges that fish farmers use a SalmoFan, an "artist's color wheel" to select the preferred hue. Thomas' attorneys want the supermarkets to pay damages to millions of Americans who bought farmed salmon since 1999…..In January, European regulators told fish farmers to cut the use of one additive, canthaxanthin, to one-third the FDA-approved level because high doses had been linked to retina damage. The FDA is studying the European decision to see whether the U.S. should change its policy, the FDA official said”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/access-registered.intercept

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Intrafish, 13th June

 

Salmon labelling row in UK set to escalate - just days after anti-sea cage salmon farming campaigners the Salmon Farm Protest Group released details of labelling legislation contraventions by a leading UK supermarket chain, the group has issued a press statement accusing yet another supermarket of flouting the law

 

Includes: “In view of their failure to comply with the law I believe that supermarket customers may be well justified in questioning the validity of other assertions and claims made on supermarket product wrapping. Given the length of time that supermarkets have had to comply with the law in connection with the labelling of salmon products it is unforgivable that they still fail to do so," said SFPG Chairman Bruce Sandison” (Full SFPG press release: “Sainsbury’s caught hookwinking customers” is available at: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org)

 

To subscribe to Intrafish or for a free two week trial: http://www.intrafish.com =============================================================

 

The Salmon Farm Protest Group, 13th June

 

Sainsbury’s caught hoodwinking customers

 

Includes: “A week after The Salmon Farm Protest Group exposed the Queen’s grocer Waitrose as a law-breaker, we have now discovered that Sainsbury’s is also blatantly flouting new labelling laws that require supermarkets to identify on product packaging whether or not the salmon they sell is wild or farmed.  Nationwide, Sainsbury’s is selling John West ‘Mild Oak Smoked Salmon’ without saying whether it is wild or farmed, in breach of regulations that came into force on 28th March.  Grroup supporters have discovered the product on sale in Edinburgh, Lancaster, Liverpool, Swindon, Upton (Wirral), London, Selly Oak (Birmingham) and South Harrow”

Full press release is available at: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/pressreleases.shtml

Further details of “Supermarket Salmon Watch” can be found at:

 http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/supermarketwatch.shtml

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United Press International, 11th June

 

Eating wild salmon is healthier

 

By Charles Choi

 

Includes: “We believe wild-caught salmon from a well-regulated fishery is the most environmentally sound choice," fisheries research biologist Robert Mazurek of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California told United Press International.  "If you picture farmed salmon sitting in a pen their entire lives and pretty much just swimming around in circles, they're going to be a lot more fatty and a lot less lean than wild salmon that swim up to 100 miles a day,"……"There is no substitute for wild salmon in terms of taste, texture, health and natural goodness," said Don Staniford”

 

Full article available via: http://www.upi.com/index.cfm

 

See also “Farmed and Dangerous”: http://www.farmedanddangerous.org

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The Sunday Times, 8th June

 

Sex drive of farmed salmon threatens wild cousins

 

By Toby McDonald

Farmed salmon have an unusually high sex drive that is threatening the existence of wild species, new research has revealed.  A study by a team of biologists at Oxford University found that fish reared in intensive conditions have to battle harder for sex in cramped cages and are more aggressive when it comes to mating.  It is believed that increasing numbers of farmed salmon are escaping from Scotland’s 600 farms, mating with native species and effectively breeding them out of existence.  A report published last week by the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation in Edinburgh warned that 10,000 years of evolution was being put at risk by intensive rearing (http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=620492003).  In some areas up to 10% of farmed stocks are escaping, leading to cross-breeding and a weakening of the species.  The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is pressing for tougher international regulations under the 1994 Oslo Resolution to protect wild salmon. 

 

Dr Dany Garant, a biologist at Oxford who led the study, reveals that farmed salmon are bred to grow rapidly in crowded conditions and this makes them more aggressive than wild fish.  His findings will be published in Ecology Letters, a scientific journal.  He studied three strains of Norwegian salmon: farmed, wild and a hybrid of the two strains….The results revealed that farmed fish were three times as successful as wild salmon at reproducing.  The hybrids were twice as successful.  “This suggests that farmed fish have been able to displace the wild in most cases,” said Garant.  “The result of this is that farmed salmon can pass on traits to their offspring so, given their faster life cycles, these fish could very quickly spread their genes through wild populations”…..

 

“In Norway, some rivers are completely invaded by farmed fish.  Because Atlantic salmon are being farmed on the Pacific coasts of North America and Chile, stocks of wild Pacific salmon could be threatened as well,” said Garant.  Little action has been taken by the Scottish executive to restrict placing farms at the mouths of salmon rivers, where sea-lice infestations can transfer from farmed to wild salmon.  A policy on location of fish farms is not due until 2005, although limited statutory requirements have been imposed for fish husbandry and fish health management…..George Baxter of WWF Scotland said: “This new research highlights the dangers that we have tried to alert the government to for too long.  Something has to be done about the industry, urgently.  But whilst the government hovers indecisively fish farming continues to expand.  It is an untenable position.  We need stronger controls to ensure high standards of fish farming across the North Atlantic region – or else future generations will pay for our mistakes”….The WWF recommends mandatory monitoring and enforcement of the regulations, as well as creating ‘exclusive zones’ in every country to protect wild salmon stocks in certain rivers.  

 

The WWF/ASF report is available via:

http://www.asf.ca/Communications/2003/03-05/progressreport.html

 

Download the Ecology Letters paper referred to above via:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item7

 

See also in The Sunday Times:

 

“A little E161g with your salmon, madam?” (2nd February 2003):

 http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmarch2003.shtml#item10

“Wasting disease threat to fish farms - a wasting disease that attacks salmon is threatening to wipe out Scotland's fish farming industry (11th August 2002): http://216.43.125.72:83/index.cfm?mthd=msg&ID=55708

“Fish or foul?: Tuck into this: salmon's flesh is flushed with chemicals, not health, and its farming as cruel as that of any battery hen” (30th September 2001):

http://www.eurocbc.org/page227.html

 

“Stores sell dioxin contaminated fish” (27th June 1999): http://lists.essential.org/dioxin-l/msg00608.html

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The Grocer, 7th June

 

Label failures spotted

 

Safeway has admitted to campaigners against Scottish farmed salmon that it failed to label product properly.  As of 28 March, UK supermarkets are required by EU law to clearly identify whether or not the salmon products they sell are ‘wild’ or ‘farmed’, and to clearly state on the packaging the country of origin.  Safeway technical director Liz Kynoch admitted, in a letter to the Salmon Farm Protest Group, that Safeway smoked salmon pieces (150g) on sale in Kirkwall in April should have had an additional adhesive label detailing whether they were farmed or wild.  “The adhesive was of poor quality and the labels dropped off by the time they reached our counters,” she told the group.  At an Inverness store, the required fish counter labels were missing.  Protest group volunteers have an ongoing campaign to monitor compliance with the labelling regulations [http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/].  They claim to have discovered several examples of missing or unclear information, as well as frequent instances of the word ‘farmed’ in very small print, across several multiples.  But the group has praised the Co-operative Group for voluntarily and clearly stating both country of origin and whether the fish is farmed or wild for at least six years.

 

Read The Grocer this week for a special feature on Scottish salmon farming: http://www.grocertoday.co.uk/

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New Scientist, 7th June

Escaped farm salmon threaten native species

Anil Ananthaswamy

Young male salmon raised in fish farms mate more aggressively than their counterparts in the wild.  This means that fish escaping from farms are likely to pose a greater threat to native species than previously thought, by depleting wild fish populations and reducing their genetic diversity.  Farmed salmon are bred to grow rapidly in crowded conditions, and this makes them more aggressive than wild fish.  Environmentalists have been concerned that fish escaping from farms are displacing wild salmon from their natural habitats, but such fears have been tempered by findings that adult escapees are less successful than native fish at reproducing in the wild.  However, salmon have an alternative reproductive strategy, in which some male yearlings, known as parr, mature early and mate. These tiny fish can sneak past full-grown males up to 10 times their length and fertilise more than a third of the eggs in a female's nest.

To compare the reproductive prowess of farmed parr with those in the wild, Dany Garant of the University of Oxford and his colleagues studied three strains of Norwegian salmon: farmed, wild and hybrid strains created by crossing adult farmed fish from the country's national breeding programme with adult natives from a Norwegian river. The researchers released 10 parr from each group into an artificial circular stream, designed to simulate natural breeding conditions, along with 12 adult males and 12 adult females taken from another river. At the end of the breeding season they genetically analysed fertilised eggs from 30 nests to determine their parentage.  The results revealed that wild parr were only 25 per cent as successful as the farmed parr in fertilising eggs (Ecology Letters, vol 6, p 541). Even the hybrids were twice as good at it as the wild parr.  "This suggests that farmed fish have been able to displace the wile in most of the cases," says Garant.   Parr salmon can pass on traits to their offspring, so given their faster life cycles, these fish could very quickly spread their genes through wild populations.

"It's an incredibly important study," says William Muir, an expert on farmed and transgenic fish at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Although the lighting conditions on farms tend to reduce the numbers of parr in farms, researchers suspect that escapees could actually grow faster than wild parr in natural conditions. "They could swamp the gene pools with maladapted genes and quickly cause extinction of wild fish."  The conservation organisation WWF reported last week that over the past two decades, populations of wild Atlantic salmon have declined by about 45 per cent, while farmed salmon production in the North Atlantic has increased 55-fold.  Hundreds of thousands of farmed salmon escape from their pens each year. "In Norway, some rivers are completely invaded by farmed fish," says Garant.  And because Atlantic salmon are being farmed on the Pacific coasts of North America and Chile, stocks of wild Pacific salmon could be threatened as well.  In 1994, seven countries signed the Oslo Resolution, agreeing to guidelines designed to minimise the impact of salmon farming on wild fish in the north Atlantic.  However, the resolution does not enforce the regulations or hold member countries accountable for salmon escapes. The WWF recommends mandatory monitoring and enforcement of the regulations, as well as creating "exclusion zones" in every country to protect wild salmon stocks in certain rivers.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993796

See also in New Scientist:

“GM fish farming too risky” (3rd September 2002): http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992748

“Scottish salmon in extinction vortex” (16th July 2002): http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992548

“Big catch: fish farming is flourishing at the expense of other marine life” (27th April 2002):

http://www.fluorideaction.org/pesticides/teflubenzuron-page.htm

“Fish food” (20th February 2001): http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999446

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The New York Times, 28th May

Farmed salmon looking less rosy

http://www.ussalmonnetwork.org/newsroom.html

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Immediate Release from The Salmon Farm Protest Group, 4th June 2003:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

QUEEN’S GROCER CAUGHT HOODWINKING CUSTOMERS - Royal grocer Waitrose is flouting new labelling laws that, as from 28th March, require supermarket salmon products to clearly state if the fish on sale are wild or farmed:

 

Full release enclosed below or download via:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/pressreleases.shtml

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See also in the June issue of The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/

 

Canadian guest columnist, and salmon farm critic, Alexandra Morton, describes her fight to save wild Pacific salmon in the Broughton Archipelago

 

SFPG supermarket watch campaign, including ‘Queen’s Grocer Hoodwinking Customers’. Illegal salmon product labelling by Waitrose, Safeway, Asda and Lidl

 

WWF and ASF publish damning report on fish farms. SFPF to lodge formal complaint in Europe

 

SFPG respond to Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution consultation on the “Environmental Effects of Marine Fisheries”

 

News from around the fish farms, international news, and Rod McGill exposes secret agreement between fish farmers and government to allow unfettered fish farm expansion throughout Scotland’s West Highlands and Islands

 

International News includes (click on ‘Latest News’):

 

 

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/

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QUEEN’S GROCER CAUGHT HOODWINKING CUSTOMERS

 

Royal grocer Waitrose is flouting new labelling laws that, as from 28th March, require supermarket salmon products to clearly state if the fish on sale are wild or farmed

 

The Salmon Farm Protest Group (SFPG) has product wrapping for “Waitrose Scottish Smoked Salmon – Mild Oak Smoke” purchased in May from Waitrose at Church Hill Way West, Salisbury. It fails to say whether or not the fish is wild or farmed and this is in clear breach of the law. Instead, the Royal grocer prefers to tell customers that “These prime fish are harvested from salt water lochs around the Scottish coastline.”

 

Waitrose is not alone. The SFPG has discovered that supermarkets throughout UK  including Safeway, Asda and Lidl, are also ignoring the law by failing in some instances to tell customers that they are buying farm salmon, rather than wild fish.

 

SFPG chairman Bruce Sandison said, “Supermarkets have had seventeen months to get their act together and are still breaking the law. We have visited dozens of supermarkets where the manager hasn’t a clue that the salmon on sale are improperly labelled.

 

“The law dictates that this information should be clear and unequivocal. Safeway has the information on some products, pre-packed salmon steaks, but it is in tiny, almost unreadable print, on a stick-on-bar-chart underneath the pack. In an Asda store we found the information at the wet fish counter was “buried” amongst the fish and invisible.

 

The only supermarket group that complies with the law is the Co-op, who, for years, has stated on their salmon products whether or not the fish they sell are wild or farmed. Why can’t their colleagues follow suit? Why do they continue to break the law? Why are they so ashamed to tell customers that they are buying fake salmon? The SFPG has reported these matters to the appropriate Trading Standards officers.”

 

For more information contact Don Staniford on Tel: 00 44 7880 716082

 

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/pr040603.shtml

Staniford's Salmon Farms - Update (May 27 '03)

1) Collapse in Wild Salmon: the Legacy of a Decade of Government Neglect: WWF Scotland press release (Embargoed Until 00.01 GMT, 30 May)

2) Scotland flouts international law – Salmon Farm Protest Group to lodge complaint with Europe: Salmon Farm Protest Group press release (Embargoed Until 00.01 GMT, 30 May)

3) New Report Shows Governments Fail to Protect Wild Salmon: Efforts to Regulate Salmon Farming Fall Far Short: Atlantic Salmon Federation media advisory
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WWF Scotland Press Release Embargoed until: 00:01 GMT, 30 May 2003

Collapse in Wild Salmon: the Legacy of a Decade of Government Neglect   
 
WWF and the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) today released a report detailing the failure of the Scottish Executive and Westminster to tackle the alarming decline in stocks of wild Atlantic salmon world-wide by letting the aquaculture industry expand unchecked over the past decade. 
 
"Farmed fish now outnumber wild fish 48 to one in the North Atlantic. Scotland, which produces over 22% of all the farmed salmon in the Atlantic, has a big part to play in this unfolding tragedy," said Helen McLachlan, Marine Policy Officer for WWF Scotland.
 
The report, Protecting Wild Salmon from the Impacts of Aquaculture, shows how over a decade of poorly regulated expansion in fish farming in Scotland, together with Canada, the United States, Norway, Ireland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, has jeapordised the future of wild salmon.(1) The decline of wild salmon is being increasingly linked with sea lice infestations from farmed salmon sites and the mixing of escaped farmed salmon with wild populations.(2)
 
"While populations of wild Atlantic salmon have declined by 45 per cent from 1983 to 2001, farmed salmon production in the North Atlantic has been allowed to grow to over 700,000 tonnes in 2002, a 55 fold increase in 20 years. Government efforts are clearly lagging far behind this growing crisis," commented McLachlan.
 
The report outlines the Scottish Executive's failure, during its first four years in power, to regulate the industry.
 
¨ Little action has been taken to restrict placing farms at the mouth of salmon rivers, where sea lice infestations most affect wild salmon. 
¨ Establishment of a clear policy on location and relocation of fish farms is not due until 2005.
¨ Limited statutory requirements have been imposed for fish husbandry and fish health management.
¨ On-site monitoring of fish husbandry practices, organic wastes or procedures for preventing escapes is inadequate.

A number of these issues are being addressed by the Scottish Executives aquaculture strategy, published earlier this year. WWF Scotland welcomes the strategy(3), but will judge its success on the following criteria: 
 
¨ The establishment of fish farm free zones in areas of outstanding natural beauty and/or environmental sensitivity.
¨ A commitment to assess the limits to which existing and proposed sites can support aquaculture without being damaged (also known as carrying capacity).
¨ Effective, transparent and democratically accountable regulation to control the expansion of the industry. 
¨ An implementation team to ensure delivery of its recommendations.
 
"There are a lot of fine words in the strategy about ensuring a sustainable future for the aquaculture industry but it has to deliver results before it is going to convince anyone that this is really going to make a difference. Anything less is window dressing," concluded McLachlan.
 
The report is a wake up call for delegates of next week's  (1-6 June) meeting of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) in Edinburgh. Representatives from Canada, the EU, Denmark (representing Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Ireland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation and the USA will use the annual meeting to chart their progress on restoring wild salmon populations.
 

Editors Notes
 
(1) The report details a lack of progress in Scotland, together with the other countries around the Atlantic with big salmon aquaculture industries (Canada, the United States, Norway, Ireland, Iceland and the Faro Islands) to implement the articles of the 1994 Oslo Resolution. This accord recommended specific actions for nations to control the negative impacts of salmon farming.
 
(2) Concerns over aquaculture have been well documented in recent years. They include the introduction of disease and sea lice into river systems; escaped salmon competing and interbreeding with wild salmon; nutrient pollution from salmon waste and the chemicals used to control disease and pests.
 
(3) The strategy lays down 33 action points that aim to set rules for good practice and the location of new sites. These action points include a commitment to identify - within 12 months - sites that need to be relocated. They also limit any further expansion to areas that can support fin or shell fish farming and to companies that can guarantee high quality production with a minimum of impact on the environment.
 
For further information please contact:
Jamie Grant, WWF Scotland, 01887 820449 ,  07780 957 665, jgrant@wwfscotland.org.uk
 
===============================================================
 
Press Release from The Salmon Farm Protest Group: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org
 
Embargoed Until 00.01hrs Friday 30th May
 
Scotland flouts international law – Salmon Farm Protest Group to lodge complaint with Europe 

 

Responding to today’s damning report - "Protecting Wild Salmon from the Impacts of Aquaculture" - by WWF and the Atlantic Salmon Federation, Bruce Sandison, Chairman of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said:

 

“The Scottish Executive's failure to protect salmo salar, Scotland's King of Fish, is disgraceful. The SE are 'top of the class' only when it comes to licencing fish farm pollution. We propose to lodge a formal complaint with the European Commission and we call upon the Scottish Executive to act now to save Scotland's wild salmon from extinction. This requires the immediate relocation of fish farms away from wild salmon rivers, and the introduction of closed-containment systems to prevent the spread of fish farm parasites an d disease to wild fish."

For press queries please contact:  Don Staniford on 07880 716082

Further information can be found on The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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Atlantic Salmon Federation media advisory
 
New Report Shows Governments Fail to Protect Wild Salmon:
Efforts to Regulate Salmon Farming Fall Far Short


WHO:  Bill Taylor, President, Atlantic Salmon Federation (Canada)
Tom Grasso, Director, WWF Marine Conservation Program (USA)

WHAT:   ASF and WWF will release an independently-prepared analysis on the
progress seven North Atlantic countries, including Canada and the United
States, have made to protect wild Atlantic salmon from the impacts of
salmon aquaculture.

WHEN:           Thursday, 29 May 2003

WHERE:          WWF London offices
A media release will be issued to North American media and the full report
will be available.

WHY:    The report is being released prior to the NASCO (North Atlantic
Salmon Conservation Organization) conferen ce (Edinburgh June 2  6). In
1994, seven NASCO- member countries (Canada, Faroe Islands, Iceland,
Ireland, Norway, Scotland, and the United States) signed the Oslo
Resolution, an agreement promising to reduce the harmful impacts of salmon
farming on wild Atlantic salmon.  The Report evaluates their progress
toward achieving their conservation goals.

For further information please contact:

Muriel Ferguson  506 529-4581 or 529-1033 (in Canada)

Sue Scott       011 44 207 499 6321 (May 29  30 in London)); and
011 44  131 240 5500 (May 31 - June 6 in Edinburgh )
 
Orvis joins farmed salmon boycott to save wild salmon: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmay2003.shtml#item2
Organic standards for wild salmon: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmay2003.shtml#item3
Scotland's Natural Heritage in Mortal peril: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/guest.shtml
One site well worth you checking out is one at the UBC on "Salmon Conservation and Aquaculture" with good refs on escapes, wild fish impacts:  http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmay2003.shtml#item6 

Staniford's Salmon Farms - Update

The Observer Food Monthly (Cover story), May

 

Farmed and Dangerous

Special report: Why the fish on your plate is caged, dyed, de-sexed and a threat to the planet 

Includes details of farmed Atlantic salmon, Rainbow trout, Atlantic cod, Atlantic halibut, sea bass and sea bream, tilapia, tuna, turbot, shrimps and prawns

 

Features Aquascot, AquaBounty, Ardessie, Scottish Quality Salmon, M&S, Trafalgar, Compassion in World Farming, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, Cod Culture Norway, Sainsbury’s, Canthaxanthin (E161g), PCBs, dioxins, malachite green and DDT

 

http://www.observer.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,9950,951686,00.html

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1) Farmed and Dangerous - Why the fish on your plate is caged, dyed, de-sexed and a threat to the planet: The Observer Food Monthly, May

2) Fears as 16,000 salmon escape: The Sunday Mail, 11th May

3) Bite the dust - Joanna Blythman on the pesticides in a healthy eater's shopping basket: The Guardian, 10th May

4) Tide may be turning in….salmon wars: Anchorage Daily News, 7th May

5) Dying for you – get rid of that unattractive grey; red salmon have more fun!: Seattle Weekly, 6th May

6) Polluted fish reduce male birth rate: The Daily Telegraph, 5th May

7) Pesticide link with breast cancer: The Herald, 24th April

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Observer Food Monthly comment from Nigel Slater: "What are we to do about fish?  The doctors tell is to eat more of it, the environmentalists less. In theory fish farming seems to be the answer, yet in practice it comes at a cost to the health of the fish, the local communities and the planet.  All of which is bad news for fish-faces like myself for whom it is 'protein of choice'.  I don't want to give up eating my grilled prawns and roast sea bass but then neither do I want to play a part, however small, in an impending ecological disaster.  So what do I do?  OFM sent Andrew Purvis to examine the process of fish farming, and on page 18 he tells us what he found.  It looks like I might have to cut down on my sushi consumption after all"

http://www.observer.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,9950,951686,00.html

 

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The Observer Food Monthly (Cover story), May

 

Farmed and Dangerous

Special report: Why the fish on your plate is caged, dyed, de-sexed and a threat to the planet

 

Dyed, de-sexed and a threat to the planet: the fish on your plate is more likely than ever to be farmed.  Still think cod, sea bass and tuna are wild? 

 

By Andrew Purvis

Includes: “From this year, the VMD is extending its surveillance to farmed cod, haddock, turbot and tilapia. 'We're waiting for further intelligence from the border inspection posts,' says the VMD's Janet Rickard, 'because there may be other species coming in, too. Basically, we want to test anything that's farmed’. No wonder consumers are wary of the word; no wonder retailers have avoided it so fastidiously in their labelling. But the truth is, we have been consuming farmed fish unknowingly for years, because until 28 March this year - a few days after my trip to Sainsbury's - there was no legal requirement to indicate its provenance. Now, fish sold in EU countries must be labelled 'farmed', 'caught at sea' or 'caught in inland waters' and information given about the species' name and catch area”

“What’s in it for you?” section includes:

Tuna: “Fat - loads of it - plus the PCBs, mercury and dioxins associated with game fish living in polluted waters”

Cod: “Like salmon, the fishmeal fed to cod contains PCBs, dioxins and other pollutants”

Sea bass and bream: “Environmentalists claim that farmed sea bass is 17 times more fatty than its wild counterpart”

Trout: “The same E colourings are used for trout as for salmon. Antibiotics and vaccines are routinely given for diseases”

Salmon: “The colourings astaxanthin (E161j) and canthaxanthin (E161g) are used to dye flesh pink, though the permitted concentration of canthaxanthin was reduced by the EU in 2002 due to links with retina damage in humans. Fish are treated with antibiotics, some of which may remain as residues, and routinely injected with vaccines. The fungicide malachite green (a carcinogen) was banned last year, but traces have since been found in four samples of Scottish salmon and two from Norway. Because they are fed on fishmeal and oil extracted from 'trash fish' living in polluted waters, farmed salmon may contain cancer-causing PCBs, dioxins and mercury as well as pesticides. They contain more fat than wild fish”

http://www.observer.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,9950,951686,00.html

See also in The Observer (http://www.observer.co.uk) archive:

“Industrial-scale cod farming poses new threat to recovery of wild salmon” (2nd October 2002): http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,805555,00.html

“How the King of Fish is being farmed to death” (7th January 2001):

http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,418954,00.html

“Illegal poison used on salmon – chemical treatment at fish farms is hazard to health and marine life, claims ex-employee” (30th April 2000): http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,215802,00.html

 

For more information on the “Farmed and Dangerous” campaign see: http://www.farmedanddangerous.org

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The Sunday Mail, 11th May

Fears as 16,000 salmon escape

Exclusive by Russell Findlay

Green groups fear a mass escape of farmed salmon could threaten huge numbers of wild fish.  Around 16,000 fish escaped after a fire at a salmon farm.  Campaigners have warned for years how farmed fish can spread diseases to those in the wild.  Last night, Don Staniford, of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said: "These farms are a cancer around Scotland.

"In the past five years, there have been a million escaped fish but this is probably the biggest single incident this year.  "Salmon escapes are ecological timebombs that spread disease and parasites to wild fish.  They spread genetic pollution by breeding with the wild salmon population.  They are not as fit and by interbreeding they can reduce the fitness of the wild population."  A compressor at the Marine Harvest farm in Loch Ewe, Wester Ross, caught fire and burned through a 180ft plastic pen on April 27.  John Russell, of Marine Harvest, who have 15million farmed fish in Scottish waters, said: "The incident has been reported to the police.  "And we have asked a fire investigator to examine the compressor.  We have used compressors at our farms for many years without a problem."

http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/page.cfm?objectid=12944267&method=full&siteid=86024&headline=
FEARS%20AS%2016%2C000%20SALMON%20ESCAPE

For more information on Marine Harvest (Nutreco) and farmed salmon escapees see:

“SUSPECT SALMON ON THE RUN: FIRST CASE OF ISA CONFIRMED IN ESCAPEE”:

http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/press/pr20000401.html

“The Great Escape: the figures the Government don’t want you to see”:

http://www.naturvern.no/english/salmon.html

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The Guardian, 10th May

Bite the dust: Joanna Blythman on the pesticides in a healthy eater's shopping basket

Includes: “Oily fish: While it is a rich source of omega-three fatty acids and vitamin D, 97% of fresh salmon studied in 2001 contained residues of organochlorine residues such as lindane, a known hormone disrupter strongly linked to breast cancer, and DDT, which is banned in the UK. Both pesticides are known to have particularly long-persistence and bioaccumulate in fatty tissue. The pesticide residue committee says that residues in salmon are extremely low and "not of concern for human health".

In 2001, one in every five farmed salmon and trout also contained traces of malachite green, a synthetic fabric dye that kills parasites. Suspected of causing genetic mutations that can lead to malignant tumours in humans, it was banned on US fish farms in 1991. In 2002, it was banned in the UK following an inspection by EU vets who reported that, although it had no market authorisation in the UK, "it is commonly used in salmon and trout production, with the full knowledge of the competent authorities". Since then government scientists have detected it in four samples of Scottish salmon”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/focus/story/0,13296,951967,00.html

Read the Guardian’s special reports on “Food” (Parts 2 and 3 next week and the week after): http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/

Search the Guardian archive (http://www.guardian.co.uk) including:

“Salmon becomes a grey area for EU” (28th January 2003): http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,883617,00.html

“Scientists weigh up risks and benefits of eating fish: Britons do not get enough of the oily fish that staves off heart disease, but consuming more means ingesting dangerous contaminants” (12th August 2002): http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,772857,00.html

“Search for BSE type disease turns to fish farms” (15th March: 2002): http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,667599,00.html

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Anchorage Daily News, 7th May

Tide may be turning in….salmon wars

The marketing war between Alaska's wild salmon and farm-raised salmon has taken some interesting twists of late.  First, Alaska's Sens. Lisa Murkowksi and Ted Stevens co-authored and pushed through Congress a bill allowing Alaska salmon and other wild-caught marine products to be labeled as "organic" foods.  President Bush signed the bill last month, giving Alaska's most important seafood product access to a marketing tool previously available only to pen-raised fish.  Now, a Seattle law firm has announced it is suing the nation's three largest grocery chains in hopes of forcing them to disclose to shoppers that the pink color of farmed fish flesh comes from artificial coloring.  The lawsuit is being filed against against Kroger Co., Safeway and Albertsons. It notes that the flesh of farmed salmon is naturally grayish and the fish are given special feed to change the color to a more desirable shade.  "Pink sells salmon," said lawyer Paul Kampmeier. "To artificially color salmon without giving that information to consumers, we believe that's unfair and deceptive, and it's also against federal law."  Raising fish in pens may be one way to provide salmon to a larger market, but Alaska's wild salmon taste better and get their coloring the hard way - by eating natural foods. Those two facts are vitally important considerations and consumers need to understand them.  Alaska's wild-salmon industry has taken a painful beating from the farmed-salmon competition in recent years. But the tide of the marketing war may be changing.

http://www.adn.com/

More about the Seafood Choices Alliance’s “Wild About Salmon” campaign can be seen at:

http://www.seafoodchoices.com/wildsalmon.shtml

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmay2003.shtml#item4

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Seattle Weekly, 6th May

Food news: Dying for you – get rid of that unattractive grey; red salmon have more fun!

Includes: “Have you ever seen a label on supermarket fish?  I didn’t think so…..There are plenty of retailers out there who really, honestly, don’t know that there’s any controversy about dyestuffs in salmon; who don’t even know the stuff is dyed….A class action lawsuit?  Swell, if it gets the public’s attention, but the courts can’t do anything if the people who eat the stuff don’t care”

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0318/food-downey.php

For more on the Canthaxanthin (E161g) class lawsuit see: http://www.smithandlowney.com/salmon/

For more on “Supermarket Salmon Watch” see: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/supermarketwatch.shtml

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The Daily Telegraph, 5th May

Polluted fish reduce male birth rate

Roger Highfield (Science Editor)

Women who eat fish contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, are less likely to give birth to boys, scientists have found. A study of mothers from the Great Lakes region of North America who had been exposed to the chemicals via fish showed that those with the highest levels had about 50 per cent fewer boys, compared with women with the lowest levels.  The findings, published in the journal Environmental Health, add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that environmental pollution may be responsible for changes in the proportion of male births around the world, which fell between 1970 and 1990 by a small but statistically significant fraction of one per cent.  PCBs are man-made chemicals, used until the late 1970s as coolants and lubricants, which can mimic female sex hormones.

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The Herald, 24th April

 

Pesticide link with breast cancer

David Montgomery

 

Women with breast cancer are five times more likely to have pesticide residues such as DDT in their bloodstream than healthy women, according to research.  They are also nine times as likely to have detectable amounts of the pesticide hexachlorobenzene (HCB) in their blood, the study found. Scientists admitted controversy still surrounded the idea of a possible link between breast cancer and pesticide residues. However, in a report published yesterday in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, they added: "These results add to the growing evidence that certain persistent pollutants may occur in higher concentrations in blood samples from breast cancer patients than controls."  DDT, an organochlorine, was effectively banned as a pesticide in 1972 but can remain active in tissue for up to 50 years.  Some pesticides, such as DDT, are known to have oestrogenic properties, and research has shown hormones can promote animal and human cancers.  As well as the acute effects of poisoning, exposure to pesticides has in the past been linked to birth defects, miscarriage, impacts on fertility, and neurological disorders. 

 

The research team, which was led by Dr Charles Caulier at the Sart Tilman Hospital in Liege, Belgium, looked at 600 women referred to one hospital in the city for breast lumps between September 1999 and February 2000.  Of these, 159 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and subsequently admitted for the removal of the tumour or the whole breast.  The women, typically aged around 54, were tested for levels of DDT and HCB in their blood before surgery or drug treatment.  The researchers found those with breast cancer were five times as likely to have detectable levels of DDT above 0.5 parts per billion. They were more than nine times as likely to have detectable levels of HCB in their blood, with the highest levels detected as 20 parts per billion.  The authors stressed their research did not prove a definitive link between oestrogenic pesticide residues and breast cancers, but said the fact there was a
significant difference meant more research was needed.  Farmed salmon was found to be the most contaminated product sold by British supermarkets following research into pesticide contamination in food carried out last year by the government's committee on toxicity of chemicals in food, consumer products and the environment.

 http://www.theherald.co.uk/search_highlight.cgi?search_

terms=Pesticide%20link;page=%2Fnews%2Farchive%2F24-4-19103-0-41-34.html


See also: "Farm salmon is now most contaminated food on shelf":

http://www.sundayherald.com/28565

 

"Study proves cancer-link chemicals in farm salmon"

http://www.sundayherald.com/26081

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For regular news up-dates, including press articles and details of “Supermarket Salmon Watch” see The Salmon Farm Monitor:

 http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

Staniford's Salmon Farms - Update April26
 1) “Former Secretary of State for Scotland blames fish farm sea lice for catastrophic collapse of wild salmon and sea-trout stocks” (May issue of The Salmon Farm Monitor:

 www.salmonfarmmonitor.org)

2) “Nationwide class actions target major grocery store chains for concealing artificial colouring in farm-raised salmon” (Smith & Lowney: www.smithandlowney.com/salmon)

3) “BC First Nations sue fish farm companies, province and federal government: lawsuit asks for immediate court protection for BC’s imperilled wild salmon” (Sierra Legal Defense Fund: http://www.sierralegal.org/m_archive/pr03_04_22.html)

 4) “Colorant lawsuits: Are producers next? - With the announcement of the class-action suits against three major US retailers over colorant labeling in farmed salmon, questions are rising about the possibility of action against salmon producers” (Intrafish, 25th April: http://www.intrafish.com)

 5) “Shoppers should be told salmon is artificially dyed pink” (Just Food, 25th April: http://just-food.com/news_detail.asp?art=53901&dm=yes)

6) “Stores sued over farmed salmon’s fishy color” (The Seattle Times, 24th April: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134682108_pink24m.html)

 7) “Lawsuits seek labelling of farmed salmon” (The Guardian, 24th April: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2598340,00.html)

8) “Lawsuits seek to force markets to label artificially colored, farm-raised salmon” (The Oregonian, 24th April: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/105118556956740.xml)

 9) “Grocers sued over artificial color in farmed salmon” (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 24th April: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/118986_salmon24.html)

10) “Class action lawsuit statement” (The B.C. Salmon Farmers’ Association, 23rd April: http://www.salmonfarmers.org/media/04_23_03.htm)

11) “Farmageddon and the spin-doctors” (Dissident Voice, 29th March: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles3/Petersen_Farmageddon.htm)

12) “Pigmenting farmed salmon: are we colour blind?” (Aquaculture Centre, University of Guelph:  http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~aquacentre/aec/publications/pigment.html)

 

13) “Is something fishy going on?” (The World and I, May 2000: http://www.worldandi.com/public/2000/may/fishy.html)

15) “Consumers like their salmon flesh red – Roche studies confirm: the Roche colour card is widely used in the salmon farming industry” (Fish Farming International, January 1997)

16) “Marine Harvest farms use the approved carotenoid pigments - astaxanthin and canthaxanthin” (Nutreco: http://www.nutreco.com/html/annualresults/socialenvironmentalreport2001/SER2001Fish.html)

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For useful information on salmon farming see also:

The Salmon Farm Monitor:  Site contains “Latest News” including a British and International News archive, “The Problems with Salmon Farming”, a Guest Column, Rod McGill’s monthly ‘Northern Climes’ column and press releases from The Salmon Farm Protest Group: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Creative Resistance: Site contains lots of useful links and resources on salmon farming including information on Omega Salmon, Stolt Sea Farms, “Dumping Dead Fish”, pesticides, sea lice, escapes, disease, product safety and public relations: http://www.creativeresistance.ca/awareness-toc/awareness-salmon-farming.htm

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May issue of The Salmon Farm Monitor (www.salmonfarmmonitor.org):

“Former Secretary of State for Scotland blames fish farm sea lice for catastrophic collapse of wild salmon and sea-trout stocks”

Includes: “A leaping salmon is one of nature’s grandest sights, and the king of fish is a potent symbol of everything we value in Scotland’s natural heritage.  Yet this wonderful and mysterious creature is in mortal peril…..I once naively believed that farmed salmon would help save wild fish by providing food for the table at lower cost.  In fact, poorly managed farms have done enormous damage by allowing escapes, nearly 400,000 last year alone, which result in interbreeding and catastrophic damage to the gene pool.  Siting of cages at the mouths of rivers has meant that young smolts setting off to feeding grounds at sea are ruthlessly attacked by sea lice from farmed fish” (Michael Forsyth – for full article: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/guest.shtml)

Political Party Policies on Salmon Farming (features statements from the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP and the Green Party) including:

“We would remove fish farms from the routes of migratory fish…..We already have sufficient evidence to act in regard to moving fish farms from the migratory routes of salmonids” (Robin Harper MSP – for full responses see: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/election.shtml)

The Salmon Farm Monitor also includes all the “Latest News” from ‘Around the Fish Farms’ and ‘International News’:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/news.shtml

Media and Document archive: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/archive.shtml

Rod McGill’s ‘Northern Climes’ column: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/mcgill.shtml

Supermarket Salmon Watch: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/supermarketwatch.shtml

 

See also Canthaxanthin links on The Salmon Farm Monitor (www.salmonfarmmonitor.org):

“Colour-added” labels must appear on farmed salmon”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmay2003.shtml#item1

“A little E161g with your fish madam?”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsmarch2003.shtml#item10

“Canthaxanthin cuts in Europe”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsfeb2003.shtml#item4

“How do fish farmers make farm salmon flesh pink?”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/questions.shtml#question7

“Pink Poison” (The Daily Mail, 24th December 2002): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/britmedia.shtml

“Are you gonna to eat that?”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/internationalmedia.shtml

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“Nationwide class actions target major grocery store chains for concealing artificial colouring in farm-raised salmon” (Smith & Lowney: www.smithandlowney.com/salmon)

See press release: “Buyer Beware: Something Fishy about Farm Raised Salmon - Nationwide Class Action Suits Filed Today Claim Major Retailers Deceived Consumers”

Includes: “Class action lawsuits filed today claim that the nation's three largest grocery chains --Safeway, Albertsons and The Kroger Company -- illegally concealed the artificial coloring in their farm-raised salmon. Without this artificial coloring, farmed-salmon fillets would be an unappetizing gray -- something most fish lovers do not know. Salmon is one of the most popular fish in the country, second only to shrimp and canned tuna.

The lawsuits charge that the chains, which account for over 6,000 stores in more than 30 states across the U.S., deceived consumers by failing to comply with federal law requiring disclosure of artificial coloring in farm-raised salmon. Unlike wild salmon, farm-raised fish rely on chemicals to turn their flesh pink. Industry sponsored market research shows that "consumers will pay more for redder salmon" because consumers believe color is an indicator of salmon quality. Fish farmers use what's called a "Salmofan" --not unlike the chips found in paint stores -- to determine the volume of chemical needed to get the right flesh color”

“According to the suits' claims, lack of labeling also misleads the public into thinking they're buying wild salmon, avoiding the problems associated with farm-raised salmon including:

  • Contamination from antibiotics and exposure to pesticides and other chemicals
  • Risks to wild salmon and other aquatic species from disease and parasites which escape from fish farm pens
  • Misrepresentation of health benefits - according to the US Department of Agriculture, farmed Atlantic salmon is over 200 percent higher in saturated fat than wild pink or chum salmon
  • Impacts on marine ecosystems from fish farm pollution

The lawsuits are designed to protect millions of consumers who purchase farm-raised salmon from the three chains, and call for:

  • Damages for consumers, expected to exceed tens of millions of dollars for each chain
  • A court order requiring the chains to inform consumers that the salmon are artificially colored
  • Civil penalties for violation of various consumer protection statutes

Filed in the King County Superior Court in Seattle, Washington, the claims are being brought by Smith & Lowney, PLLC, a law firm that practices public interest consumer and environmental law”

http://www.smithandlowney.com/salmon/pressrelease/

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND DOCUMENTATION (including PDFs of the lawsuits) GO TO: www.smithandlowney.com/salmon

Background information on the Smith & Lowney “Farm-raised salmon coloring” website (http://www.smithandlowney.com/salmon/information/) includes:

Salmon pink becomes a grey area for EU: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,883617,00.html

Brighter eyesight or brighter salmon? Commission decides new rules on colouring feed additive:

 http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/123|0|RAPID&lg=EN

Pigmenting farmed fish – are we colour blind?: http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~aquacentre/aec/publications/pigment.html

The great salmon scam: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1571/22_16/62741745/print.jhtml

The hidden costs of farmed salmon: http://www.sectionz.info/issue_1/Hidden_costs.html

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“BC First Nations sue fish farm companies, province and federal government: lawsuit asks for immediate court protection for BC’s imperilled wild salmon” (Sierra Legal Defense Fund: http://www.sierralegal.org/m_archive/pr03_04_22.html)

 See “B.C. First Nations Sue Fish Farms, Province, Feds” (Environment News Service, 22nd April)

 Includes: “Our wild fish populations are in grave danger and the government continues to ignore First Nations people and our constitutionally protected rights.  We have no alternative but to turn to the courts to protect the wild salmon and our way of life”

“The lawsuit asks for an injunction to prevent the stocking of open net cage salmon aquaculture facilities in the Broughton Archipelago, and to require that infected sites remove infected fish from the marine environment.

The injunction application also seeks to prevent the use of SLICE, a pesticide that has been scientifically shown to have impacts on crustaceans and has not been generally approved for use in Canada.

The lawsuit also asks the government not to permit any further open net cage salmon aquaculture licenses until further analysis of impacts to wild fish has been done and until a full environmental assessment of impacts of open net cage salmon aquaculture is completed”

“We intend to argue that the crisis in the Broughton is a direct result of apparent negligence and seeming disregard for the laws that are in place to protect wild salmon, the environment and the rights of First Nations," said Sierra Legal Defence Fund senior counsel Angela McCue. "It is time for government and the aquaculture industry to respect the constitution and laws of Canada”

http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2003/2003-04-22-02.asp

 See also on the Sierral Legal Defense Fund web-site:  

Media Backgrounder: BC First Nations and open net cage salmon aquaculture

Includes: “On behalf of the MTTC First Nations and the Gwawaenuk Tribe, Sierra Legal lawyer, Angela McCue, is issuing a Writ of Summons in BC Supreme Court against Heritage Salmon Limited and Stolt Sea Farm Inc., as well as the Province of British Columbia and Government of Canada.

The First Nations are seeking interim injunctions preventing the companies from: (1) stocking or restocking open net cage salmon aquaculture facilities in the Broughton; and (2) using the pesticides emamectin benzoate (commonly known as SLICE) or Ivermectin.

The First Nations are seeking a mandatory injunction requiring the companies to immediately remove all sea lice-infected cultured salmon from their facilities in the Broughton and to empty and fallow all infected sites.

The First Nations are also seeking injunctions to prevent: (1) the Province from issuing any further licenses, authorizations or approvals for fish farm facilities without leave of the Court; and (2) the federal government from issuing any Navigable Waters Protection Act, Fisheries Act (s. 35(2)) authorizations, or Canadian Environmental Assessment Act approvals without leave of the Court.

The First Nations are seeking orders requiring: (1) immediate production of all sea lice and disease monitoring data and treatment records from the companies, province and federal government; (2) authorization of inspections to be made by or on behalf of the Plaintiffs of all open net cage salmon aquaculture facilities in the Broughton and access to all scientific testing being carried out by governments in the Broughton; (3) immediate production of all records (including environmental assessments) relating to pesticides proposed to be used in open net cage salmon aquaculture facilities from the companies, province and federal government”

http://www.sierralegal.org/m_archive/bk03_04_22.html

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Intrafish, 25th April: http://www.intrafish.com

Colorant lawsuits: Are producers next? - with the announcement of the class-action suits against three major US retailers over colorant labeling in farmed salmon, questions are rising about the possibility of action against salmon producers

Includes: “the level of compliance with this regulation appears to be inconsistent, as evinced by an ‘urgent alert’ the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) issued to its members, asking them to review the FDA guidelines “to ensure that your company is in compliance with federal regulations regarding the labeling of these colorants”

[For more on the NFI’s “urgent alert” see: http://www.nfi.org/]

“Is there liability?: The question of liability could become one of the key aspects of the case. If retailers feel that their employees weren’t aware that the farmed products contained colorants, they could argue that the producers may be partially to blame”

Search the Intrafish archive (http://www.intrafish.com) for Canthaxanthin and Astaxanthin:

Includes: “Lawsuit claims consumer fraud over farmed salmon colorants”

“Color-added’ signs required for farmed salmon at Oregan supermarkets”

“US Senator requests review of salmon colourant labelling laws”

http://www.intrafish.com

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Seattle Times, 24th April

Stores sued over farmed salmon's fishy color

Includes: “Seattleite Lori Thomas says she never would have purchased farmed salmon had she known it was fed a color additive to make its flesh pink, as experts say most farmed salmon are. Thomas said that's why she's joined a class-action lawsuit against Albertsons Inc., alleging the Boise-based grocery chain failed to label its farmed salmon as artificially colored……..."There's no way I would have spent my money buying salmon if I'd known that it wasn't really a red or orange color the way it looks in the store," Thomas said yesterday. "I had no way of knowing the salmon I buy is artificially colored."  The suits seek damages for all consumers who have purchased farmed salmon across the country in the last four years.  That could involve millions of consumers, said Paul Kampmeier, one of the Seattle lawyers representing the plaintiffs. Combined, the three companies have some 6,000 stores in 30 states. The suit also seeks civil penalties and a court order requiring the stores to label farmed salmon as artificially colored”

“Color is the No. 1 factor for the consumer who buys salmon," Kampmeier contended yesterday. "Pink sells salmon."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134682108_pink24m.html

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The Guardian, 24th April

Lawsuits seek labelling of farmed salmon

“Pink sells salmon”, he said.  “To artificially colour salmon without giving that information to consumers, we believe that’s unfair and deceptive, and it’s against federal law”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2598340,00.html

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The Oregonian, 24th April

Lawsuits seek to force markets to label artificially colored, farm-raised salmon
 
Includes: “Lawsuits filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle accuse Albertson's, Safeway and The Kroger Co. -- parent of Fred Meyer and Quality Food Centers -- of duping consumers into paying a premium for farmed salmon that, if left its natural gray color, would languish at lower prices.

"By concealing the artificial coloration of farm-raised salmon, (grocery chains) have become unjustly enriched as consumers have been and continue to be misled into purchasing farm-raised salmon and/or to purchasing such salmon at inflated prices," the lawsuits say.

The lawsuits seeks damages on behalf of a national class of shoppers that could reach into the tens of millions of dollars for each chain, said Knoll Lowney, the Seattle attorney who brought the case.

"This has the potential to represent everyone who has purchased salmon from these stores," he said…………A lack of labels "misleads consumers into believing that the unlabeled farm-raised salmon is a wild salmon," the lawsuit says. That disassociates it "from the real and/or perceived defects of farmed salmon."

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/105118556956740.xml

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 24th April

Grocers sued over artificial color in farmed salmon

Includes: “The case isn't expected to go to trial for 18 months, but it is believed to be unprecedented. The suit, if successful, could result in millions of dollars in damages being paid in a battle over two versions of Northwest salmon -- a regional icon and a popular seafood nationwide” 

“When you fail to label (products) the consumer doesn't have an opportunity to consider the controversy over the safety of these chemicals," said Knoll Lowney, the Seattle attorney representing the consumers. "It's unfair, it's deceptive and it's against the law”

“A worker at a QFC seafood counter, who didn't want his name used, said the store probably wouldn't sell a lot of salmon that wasn't pink or was colorless. He said it would probably make wild salmon prices go up if salmon wasn't colored. "Right now prices are comparable and people don't notice a difference," he said.  A customer, Bonnie Graham, said she would "probably not" buy fish if it were gray instead of pink. "Salmon is supposed to be pink. I don't think gray would be very appetizing," she said. She said she doesn't know whether the color additive is that bad if it's what makes regular salmon pink.  At a nearby Safeway store, customer Tanesha Love wondered aloud whether the gray tinges she's seen in some salmon was actually the natural color. She said she usually cuts it away. She thinks fish should be red, pink or white, and the gray would make it look spoiled. Said Love: "I wouldn't eat gray fish."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/118986_salmon24.html

 Other TV, radio, newspaper and online media coverage includes:

AMERICAN CITY BUSINESS JOURNALS

Safeway, Albertsons named in salmon suit
A Seattle law firm is suing the nation's three largest supermarket operators for not telling customers that the farm-raised salmon they sell has been dyed pink.
http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2003/04/21/daily32.html

EUREKA TIMES-STANDARD

Suit waged against sketchy salmon labeling
By John Driscoll The Times-Standard
Thursday, April 24, 2003 -
The fish-eating public has been deceived by three top grocery chains which don't reveal that their farmed salmon is artificially colored pink, claims a Seattle, Wash., law firm.
http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127%257E2896%257E1347341,00.html

SF CHRONICLE

Suits challenge labeling of farmed salmon Chemical pigments make fish pink
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer     
Thursday, April 24, 2003  
There's fishy business involving farmed salmon in the nation's three largest grocery chains, according to allegations in a new lawsuit.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/24/BA255874.DTL

VANCOUVER SUN

B.C. fish farms denounce U.S. class-action suit
Consumers misled by artificial colourant used to turn farm fish pink, suit alleges.
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, April 24, 2003
The SalmoFan, used by fish farmers to gauge how much dye must be added to feed to determine colour, is cited as evidence in the lawsuit.
http://www.canada.com/vancouver/news/story.asp?id=63C417EA-575E-4541-9474-A2ACDE396B1C


BROADCAST
-----------------------------------------------
CBC

Farmed salmon lawsuit in U.S.
WebPosted Apr 23 2003 01:44 PM PDT
SEATTLE - Three large U.S. grocery chains are being being sued over the lack of labelling about artificial colouring of farmed salmon they sell.
http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=bc_suit20030423

KCBS

Lawsuits seek labeling of farmed salmon
Source: Associated Press News
Publication date: 2003-04-23
(Yakima, Washington-AP) -- A lawsuit says farmed salmon is dyed pink, but that the country's three largest grocery chains don't tell shoppers.
http://www.kcbs.com/pages/kcbs/news/news_story.nsp?story_id=38294571&ID=kcbs&scategory=Computers

KOMO - Seattle

Lawsuit Filed Over Salmon Labeling
April 23, 2003
By Bryan Johnson, KOMO 4 NEWS
Suit alleges three grocery chains allegedly are failing to comply with a Federal regulation regarding coloring of salmon.
SEATTLE - A lawsuit filed in Seattle challenges the policy of three national grocery chains. Safeway, Kroger's (locally Fred Meyer and QFC) and Albertson's allegedly are failing to comply with a Federal regulation which requires farmed salmonids (primarily salmon)-fed coloring agents to be labeled as "colored".
http://www.komotv.com/stories/24444.htm

KING5 - Seattle

Lawsuit says farmed salmon illegally colored
04/24/2003
By JIM KLOCKOW / KING5.com
SEATTLE - People pay more for pink.
That's the gist of a lawsuit filed in King County, Wash. Wednesday alleging that three Northwest grocery store chains illegally fail to disclose that their farm-raised salmon is artificially colored.
http://www.king5.com/business/stories/NW_042303BUBsalmonsuit.12b08e86a.html

KTVB - Idaho

Lawsuit says farmed salmon illegally colored
04/23/2003
Jim Klockow, KING5.com
SEATTLE - People pay more for pink.
That's the gist of a lawsuit filed in King County, Wash. Wednesday alleging that three Northwest grocery store chains illegally fail to disclose that their farm-raised salmon is artificially colored.
http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/ktvbn-apr2303-salmonsuit.12b40b86c.html

KPVI - Idaho

ALBERTSONS BEING SUED FOR SELLING DYED SALMON
04/24/2003
An Idaho-based grocery store chain is being sued for selling salmon that is dyed pink.
http://www.kpvi.com/index.cfm?page=nbcheadlines.cfm&ID=13210

 ONLINE MEDIA
-----------------------------------------------
SEAFOOD.COM

Grocery Chains Sued to Force Color Added Labeling of Farmed Salmon
SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by Ken Coons - April 24, 2003 - The relentless battle by the opponents of farmed salmon in the Pacific Northwest to discredit the product continues.
http://www.seafood.com/news/current/95344.html

GREENWIRE

SALMON: GROCERY CHAINS SUED OVER COLOR LABELING
Nine consumers filed a class action lawsuit in King County
Superior Court in Seattle yesterday against three national
grocery chains, alleging the stores concealed the use of
artificial coloring in their salmon.


WIRES
-------------------------------------------------
AP (as it appeared in)

Los Angeles Times
Lawsuits seek labeling of farmed salmon
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-salmon24apr24,1,5532927.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Da%5Fsection

Salt Lake Tribune
Top Three U.S. Grocery Chains Sued Over Coloring in Salmon
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Apr/04242003/business/50598.asp

Salem Statesman Journal
Pink salmon dye prompts lawsuit
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=60467

Seattle P-I
Lawsuits seek labeling of farmed salmon
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Farmed%20Salmon%20Lawsuits

Juneau Empire
Grocery store chains sued over farmed salmon
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/042403/bus_salmon.shtml

Ohio News Network
Lawsuit Claims Kroger Doesn¹t Disclose Fish Coloring
http://www.onnnews.com/story.php?record=23730

High Plains Journal
Lawsuit Filed on Salmon Dyes
http://www.hpj.com/testnewstable.cfm?type=story&sid=8690

CBC News
Artificial salmon colour focus of U.S. lawsuits
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/04/24/Consumers/salmonlawsuit_030424

Anchorage Daily News
Suits seek labeling of farmed salmon
http://www.adn.com/business/story/3004609p-3028795c.html

Newsday
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-farmed-salmon-lawsuits,0,7117419.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

Miami Herald
Lawsuits seek labeling of farmed salmon as artificially dyed
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/5701212.htm

Kansas City Star
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/5701105.htm

Vancouver Sun
Grocery stores sued over fish colorants
Three U.S. grocery chains face class action suit over colouring farmed salmon
http://www.canada.com/vancouver/news/story.asp?id=54A15819-D6F7-4112-B40E-59419EC936FC

San Jose Mercury News
Lawsuits seek labeling of farmed salmon as artificially dyed
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/5701212.htm

Riverside Press Enterprise
Lawsuits against grocery chains seek labeling of farmed salmon
http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California/Farmed_Salmon_Lawsuits_103867C.shtml

Houston Chronicle
Grocery chains sued over dyed-in-flesh fish
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/1881306

Guradian - UK
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2598340,00.html

Ananova - UK
Grocers sued over colour of salmon
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_773825.html

Montana Forum
Lawsuits seek labeling of farmed salmon
http://www.montanaforum.com/rednews/2003/04/23/build/wildlife/farmed-salmon.php?nnn=5

Dayton Daily News
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/content/news/ap/ap_story.html/National/AP.V7315.AP-Farmed-Salmon-L.html

New Orleans Times Picayune
Lawsuits seek labeling of farmed salmon as artificially dyed
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_

story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0814_BC_FarmedSalmonLawsuits&&news&newsflash-national

Tuscaloosa News
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030423&Category=APA&ArtNo=304230966&Ref=AR&cachetime=5

Grand Forks Herald
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/5699423.htm

Lakeland Ledger
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030423&Category=APF&ArtNo=304230966&Ref=AR

Wyoming News
Lawsuits seek labeling of farmed salmon
http://www.trib.com/AP/wire_detail.php?wire_num=92337

Springfield News Sun
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/biz/content/business/ap_story.html/Financial/AP.V7336.AP-Farmed-Salmon-L.html

News Journal Texas
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/ap_story.html/National/AP.V7315.AP-Farmed-Salmon-L.html

Sarasota Herald Tribune
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030423&Category=APF&ArtNo=304230966&Ref=AR&cachetime=5

Times Daily
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030423&Category=APF&ArtNo=304230966&Ref=AR

Akron Beacon Journal
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/5701105.htm

Biloxi Sun Herald
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/breaking_news/5701105.htm

Wilkes Barre Weekender
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/5701105.htm

Macon Telegraph
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/5701105.htm

Duluth News Tribune
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/5701105.htm

Grand Forks Herald
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/5701105.htm

Wichita Eagle
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/5701105.htm

Aberdeen American News
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/5701105.htm

Columbus Ledger
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/5701105.htm

Centre Daily Times - PA
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/5701105.htm

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/5701105.htm

Belleville News Democrat Lawsuits Seek Labeling of Farmed Salmon http://www.belleville.com/mld/newsdemocrat/5701105.htm

============================================================   

The British Columbia Salmon Farmers’ Association, 23rd April  

Class action lawsuit statement 

“We are not able to comment on the specifics of the class action lawsuits at this time because we have not had adequate opportunity to review them," said Mary Ellen Walling, Executive Director, BC Salmon Farmers Association. "We firmly believe that farm-raised BC salmon is a safe and healthy food. We are proud of our product, and it is labelled as farm salmon for export to the United States. We believe that once the facts are examined, the allegations contained in the lawsuits will be proven false” 

“Farm salmon feed contains synthetically-produced astaxanthin and canthaxanthin -- not unlike taking a Vitamin C tablet instead of eating an orange. Global standards of feed pigments are changing. In British Columbia, astaxanthin and canthaxanthin are added at levels well below those recommended by the world's health authorities including the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Community” 

http://www.salmonfarmers.org/media/04_23_03.htm 

See also from Scottish Quality Salmon:  “It's appealing to the eye,” (Julie Edgar, the eagle-eyed communications director at Scottish Quality Salmon and promoter of the aptly named “Label Rouge” farmed salmon after the EC drastically reduced the levels of Canathaxanthin due to health fears that it affects the eye: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,883617,00.html)

 “Scottish Quality Salmon responds to latest decision in Europe regarding Canthaxanthin”: http://www.scottishsalmon.co.uk/mediacentre/index.html

 “Daily Mail scare story is wrong” (http://www.scottishsalmon.co.uk/mediareleases/250102.html)

 See also in The Daily Mail:

 “Pink Poison” (The Daily Mail, 24th December 2002: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/britmedia.shtml)

 Salmon dye can damage eyesight of consumers - watchdog warns that levels of chemical are "far too high" (The Daily Mail, 24th June, 2002:

http://216.43.125.72:83/index.cfm?mthd=msg&ID=52795)

 If your salmon looks off colour, consult the chart - health fears as chemical linked to eye defects is used to dye fish pink (The Daily Mail, 25th January 2002: http://www.earthisland.org/map/ltfrn_93.htm#aquaculture)

 ============================================================

 Farmageddon and the spin-doctors (Dissident Voice, 29th March)

 By Kim Petersen

 Includes: “Arnie Narcisse of the BC Aboriginal Fisheries Commission declared that the "DFO is complicit in the destruction of wild salmon stocks and is therefore infringing on aboriginal rights.” Greenpeace Canada's Catherine Stewart characterized the danger to wild stocks from farm salmon as a “Farmageddon” aided and abetted by the DFO. Executive Director of the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, Karen Wristen, railed against the DFO’s industry bias: "In adopting an unequivocal advocacy role for the aquaculture industry, the Department may well be found to have been negligent, perhaps even reckless, in the discharge of its duty to protect wild fish."

 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles3/Petersen_Farmageddon.htm

============================================================= 

Pigmenting farmed salmon: are we colour blind?

Richard D. Moccia (Aquaculture Centre, University of Guelph)

 Includes: “One easy way to significantly reduce feed costs would be to just get rid of that artificial pigment that many of us use in fish feed. I know I'll be called a heretic (again!) for such a statement, but think about it. Most trout and salmon feeds around the world have synthetic carotenoid pigments added for one purpose only - to colour-up the edible flesh. Make it look nice and pink or red so the consumer will think it's really pretty and pay more money for it. After all, lots of other foods are coloured for purely aesthetic purposes. What's the big deal?  Firstly, these pigments add an unbelievable 15% or more to the price of feed, and they do essentially nothing for the fish other than change the colour of the muscle and skin. Even bulk trout feed that runs around $900+ a tonne, usually has at least $150 of pigment in it. So it's really an expensive practice” 

http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~aquacentre/aec/publications/pigment.html

=============================================================

 “Is something fishy going on?” (The World and I, May 2000)

 Includes: “Responding to an ever-increasing demand for salmon--which must, however, be pink--several major chemical companies produce canthaxanthin and astaxanthin for color finishing. Swiss chemical giant Hoffman La Roche synthetically produces canthaxanthin and an astaxanthin called Carophyll Pink from petrochemicals and provides customers with its SalmoFan--much like an artist's color wheel but in various shades of pink--to help salmon farmers and buyers create and/or order a color that sells well….It's obvious that color finishing is big money and, sources say, one of the largest costs associated with salmon farming”

 http://www.worldandi.com/public/2000/may/fishy.html

============================================================= 

“Consumers like their salmon flesh red – Roche studies confirm: the Roche colour card is widely used in the salmon farming industry” (Fish Farming International, January 1997)

 Pigmentation products company Hoffman-La Roche says that recent studies conducted among fish buyers and consumers verify the significant role of flesh colour when salmon is purchased.  Two market research studies last year demonstrated the perceived relationship between the colour of the fresh salmon and its quality.  In the first study, fish buyers were asked about their views on salmon quality, with an emphasis on colour.  A follow-up among consumers who bought fresh salmon an average of once a month took a deeper look at the influence of colour in their decision.  Hoffman-La Roche says that the consumer study supports the buyers opinion that consumers view ‘redder’ flesh colour as a sign of higher quality fish….Just over half the buyers responding to the survey indicated a willingness to pay two to five US cents a lb more for salmon with a darker flesh.  When asked to put a value per lb on light versus dark fillets, they put higher price tags on the darker fish.  According to Dr Scot Williams, director of product marketing and technical marketing, Hoffman-La Roche did the studies to confirm the theory that colour is one of salmon’s key selling points”

 See also “Salmon colour and the consumer”

 Includes: "When the focus groups were shown pictures representing different levels of coloration, a 33 (on the Salmofan) was preferred...consumers felt that a salmon with a colour of 22-24 should be less expensive and a well colored salmon, 33-34, would be the most expensive"

http://www.orst.edu/Dept/IIFET/2000/papers/andersons.pdf

============================================================= 

Nutreco on pigmentation

 Includes: “Marine Harvest farms use the approved carotenoid pigments - astaxanthin and canthaxanthin”

http://www.nutreco.com/html/annualresults/socialenvironmentalreport2001/SER2001Fish.html

 See also Aquamedia (http://www.aquamedia.org):

 “Coloration in fish”: http://www.aquamedia.org/consumer/nutrition/coloration_en.asp?&printable

 “Visual appearance”: http://www.aquamedia.org/consumer/nutrition/pigments_en.asp

 “Carotenoids in aquaculture”: http://www.aquamedia.org/consumer/nutrition/carotenoids_en.asp

=============================================================

Staniford's Salmon Farm Update 

 Tuesday 1st April 2003

 

“Supermarket Salmon Watch campaign starts here – Farmed fish labeling laws now in force”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

  

Press Release from The Salmon Farm Protest Group (An rud bhios na do bhroin, cha bhi e na do thiomhnadh – “That which you have wasted will not be there for future generations”)

 

‘SUPERMARKET SALMON WATCH’ CAMPAIGN STARTS HERE

– Farmed fish labelling laws now in force

 

As of 28 March supermarkets in Scotland, England and Wales that fail to differentiate between ‘farm’ and ‘wild’ salmon and to clearly identify the country of origin of the product will be breaking the law. 

 

The Salmon Farm Protest Group today calls upon its supporters to check supermarket shelves and fish counters over the Easter period to note how salmon products are labelled. 

 

Supporters are being asked to send details of improper labelling to ‘The Salmon Farm Protest Group’, Hysbackie, Tongue, by Lairg, Sutherland, IV27 4XJ, Scotland, along with the product wrapping, date and place of purchase and a purchase receipt to make it easier for the Group to take action against the supermarket concerned. 

 

As an example of improper labelling, last Christmas Waitrose’s London Glouster Road branch sold salmon (smoked) they claimed was “caught from the famous River Tweed”.  The fish were in fact caught at sea in the North East drift net fishery.  Some of these fish may have been going to the River Tweed, but none came from that river.  The Salmon Farm Protest Group is pursuing this case. 

 

Bruce Sandison, Salmon Farm Protest Group Chairman, said:

 

“We have a right to know exactly what it is that we are eating.  Supermarkets and others who sell salmon products have a legal and moral obligation to tell us the whole truth about what they ask us to buy.  Let’s make sure that they do so”

 For more details see: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Staniford's Salmon Farm Update 

News up-date: Scottish Aquaculture Strategy Criticised by The Salmon Farm Protest Group (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org), the Green Party, Friends of the Earth Scotland……….  

 In response to the long awaited “Strategic Framework for Scottish Aquaculture” (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/environment/sfsa-00.asp) published today by the Scottish Executive, please find enclosed a press comment from The Salmon Farm Protest Group and press releases from the Green Party, FoE and the Scottish Executive.  See also BBC News’s “Fish Farming Policy Unveiled”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2878703.stm

 

1) Comment from Bruce Sandison, Chairman of The Salmon Farm Protest Group

2) Green Party: “Delay Means Wild Salmon Extinctions Set to Continue”

3) FoE: “Fish Farm Problems Force Executive to Change Law: No more expansion until decision taken on 'relocating' farms”

4) Scottish Executive: “Strategic Framework for Aquaculture”

=============================================================

 

Immediate release from The Salmon Farm Protest Group (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org):

 

Bruce Sandison, Salmon Farm Protest Group Chairman said: “This Aquaculture Strategy is nothing other than a re-working of the same sad, spurious promises that the Government have been making for the past decade. The Scottish Executive has no intention whatsoever of taking any action to stop fish farm sea lice from killing Scotland’s West Highlands and Islands wild salmon and sea-trout. I honestly believe that the Executive, through obfuscation and downright deceit about the filthy truth behind fish farming, has acted disgracefully. In doing so, they demean not only themselves, but also the people of Scotland”

 

Bruce Sandison can be contacted on 01847 611274

 

For further information and regular up-dates see The Salmon Farm Monitor:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

Includes: “Evict Fish Farms from Salmon Routes Now”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/documents/pr180303.html

 

“Secret Strategy Exposed”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/documents/pr220103.html

 

Bruce Sandison on the draft Aquaculture Strategy: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/documents/aquaresponse.html

 

SFPG formal response to the draft Aquaculture Strategy: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/documents/strategyresponse.doc

=============================================================

 

Green Party press release:

 

For immediate release Monday 24 March 2003

 

DELAY MEANS WILD SALMON EXTINCTIONS SET TO CONTINUE (EXECUTIVE UNVEIL FRAMEWORK FOR SCOTTISH AQUACULTURE)

 Robin Harper MSP, a key member of a Parliamentary Committee investigation

into the environmental impacts of fish farming [1] has slammed the Executive
over their Strategic Framework for Aquaculture, launched this morning [2].
The Green MSP is gravely concerned that the Strategy will do too little too
late.
 The Green MSP has welcomed some elements of the Strategy, which introduces
regulation for an industry that has been largely unregulated until now.
However the main concern is that the Strategy recommends the setting up of
working groups rather than taking urgent action, particularly over the
location of salmon farms.
 Robin Harper MSP and Member of the Parliament's Environment Committee said;
 "The failure of the Executive to urgently bring in revised locational
guidelines in order to get these fish farms moved from the mouths of salmon
rivers and other sensitive areas, means that sea lice will continue to
decimate wild salmon and trout for at least another three years.
 "Wild salmon are being driven to extinction in Scottish rivers and there is
clear evidence pointing to fish farms. We already know this, it's time to
stop talking and start acting.
 "I have repeatedly called for assistance to be provided to fish farmers to
enable the most poorly situated salmon farms to be moved immediately. The
Environment Committee also called for urgent relocation of fish farms
following their investigation. The Executive has clearly not grasped the
urgency of the situation.
 "There needs to be an urgent investment in salmon farming to save Scottish
rivers. The Executive has been prepared to spend £25 million on protecting
deep-sea stocks and is ready to spend more. But it is not prepared to make
an urgent investment to protect our wild salmon."
 CONTACT: Robin Harper MSP 0131 348 5927 or 07887 682 574  
Steve Burgess 07887 682 574

http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/

=============================================================

 

FoE press release (Immediate Release: Monday 24th March): “Fish Farm Problems Force Executive to Change Law: No more expansion until decision taken on ‘relocating’ farms – says FoE”

http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/press/press_index.html

 

See also: http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/nation/fish.html

=============================================================

 

Scottish Executive press release, 24th March

 

Strategic Framework for Aquaculture

 

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/pages/news/2003/03/SEEN402.aspx

=============================================================

 

For further information on sea cage fish farming including a monthly International News up-date see The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

=============================================================
 

ADVANCE NOTICE – Monday 24th March: Scottish Government Unveil New “Aquaculture Strategy” (a year late at £300-a-head private party sponsored by Scottish Quality Salmon)

Now on The Salmon Farm Monitor (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org): “Evict Fish Farms From Wild Salmon Routes Now”

The Salmon Farm Protest Group have issued a press release – “Evict Fish Farms From Wild Salmon Routes Now” - ahead of next Monday’s (24th March) “Sea Change – New Directions in Scottish Aquaculture” conference in Stirling.  According to the conference organisers, Fisheries Minister Allan Wilson will “unveil his long term strategic framework for aquaculture”.  The £300 a head private party is sponsored by Scottish Quality Salmon, The European Commission and the Scottish Executive: http://www.scottishsalmon.co.uk/whatsnow/index.html

The SFPG’s press release – “Evict Fish Farms From Wild Salmon Routes Now” – includes:

“Allan Wilson’s spurious aquaculture strategy is nothing other than a blank cheque for the fish farmers.  It allows them to pollute Scottish waters with impunity and to continue killing Scotland’s wild salmon and sea-trout.  Mr Wilson is signing a death warrant for our remaining wild fish…..If the Executive were serious about saving our west coast wild fish they would have introduced a ban on salmon farms at the mouths of rivers when it was first recommended in 1991.  Delaying the relocation process is just another example of this government’s determination to protect the salmon farmers from public scrutiny at all costs”: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 Scottish Natural Heritage and Scottish Parliament Urge the Government to Speed Up the Relocation Process: 

On the issue of relocation the Government’s “Aquaculture Strategy” seems set to propose to sign a “death warrant” for wild salmon and sea trout until 2005.  The draft document slipped out on 23rd December stated that: “SEERAD will publish in 2003 a paper setting out the criteria for appropriate aquaculture sites….with a view to concluding the process by December 2005” (p40).  By delaying the relocation process the Government look set to be on collision course with both SNH who have warned the Scottish Executive against possible legal action in the European Court (see below) and with the Scottish Parliament whose own aquaculture inquiry concluded in June 2002 that: “Our Committee is concerned at the potentially lengthy timescale for the relocation of inappropriately sited farms” (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/whats_happening/news-02/ctran02-010.htm).    

The Scottish Executive’s “Aquaculture Strategy” is already a year late - at the last “Aquaculture Strategy for Scotland” conference in December 2001, the Fisheries Minister claimed that: “The Executive aims to complete the development of the strategy by spring 2002” (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/pages/news/2001/12/SE4982.aspx).

Before it has even been published the Executive’s “Aquaculture Strategy” has been heavily criticised by both the SFPG and even it’s own nature conservation advisors, Scottish Natural Heritage, who have advised the Government that it could be taken to the European Court if it does not relocate sites now:

“We welcome the commitment of the Executive in paragraph 3.49 to publish a paper within the next 11 months setting out the criteria for appropriate aquaculture sites, and listing those developments which are considered to be inappropriately located.  We would like offer the Executive our scientific advice on this review. Any farms identified as causing deterioration of Natura sites, (as noted in paragraph 3.46) are likely to require urgent consideration for relocation; otherwise the Executive may be open to infraction proceedings under the relevant EC Directives” (SNH response to the consultation on the aquaculture strategy: February 2003 – full copies available from the Scottish Executive – all responses to public consultations are in the public domain - and Scottish Natural Heritage)

Maps of protected areas can be found on SNH’s web-site (http://www.snh.org.uk) at: http://213.121.208.4/strategy/sr-frame.htm

SNH is also highly critical of the Scottish Executive in other respects:

“We are extremely disappointed that the document makes no reference to the potential role of organic standards in reducing the environmental impacts of aquaculture”

“Continued reference to a ‘fish gap’ (paragraph 3.8) can be misleading. We do not believe that aquaculture, of itself, can ever close the ‘fish gap’, especially as long as finfish cultivation relies on wild-caught fish for food meal”

“At the very least, polyculture merits further evaluation as a potential means of balancing and minimising the various environmental impacts of aquaculture. The document could be more upbeat about this possibility than is the current paragraph 3.19”

“We do know now that sea lice from farmed salmon have a deleterious effect on wild salmonids. It may not therefore be true to state that the environmental footprint “is relatively small nationally”. Perhaps this sentence could be amended”

In 2001, SNH (whose ‘Aquaculture’ position paper identifies salmon farming and shellfish farming as “incompatible”: http://213.121.208.4/index/i-frame.htm) were also highly critical of the Government for not launching an inquiry into sea cage fish farming:

“Fears raised for the future of fish farming”: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/22-6-19101-0-46-49.html

“New fight erupts over salmon farming inquiry in Scotland”: http://new.seafood.com/news/current/51091.html

 

For further details of the SFPG’s response see: ‘Secret’ Strategy Exposed – Scottish Executive mislead both Parliament and public over aquaculture consultation: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/documents/pr220103.html

 

The SFPG response (download via The Salmon Farm Monitor site) includes:

 

“The relocation of fish farms is another potentially promising proposal fudged in this document.  Where relocation is referred to it is either in passing (“The industry might then be required to reconfigure, relocate or abandon farms considered too big for their surroundings” p37) or alluded to only cryptically (“Locational Guidelines for Marine Fish Farms will be kept under regular review and incrementally improved and strengthened as appropriate”p37).  And when the subject of relocation is tackled in the document further delay is again recommended:

 

“In due course, as more is known about the carrying capacity of the environment, there will be a need to assess whether some farms, particularly where consents were granted under earlier regimes, sited in poorly flushed or particularly sensitive areas, are now having a harmful cumulative impact on their environment.  This is of most concern where these sites have been designated for particular interests under the EC Habitats Directive.  Additionally, the siting of such farms in some cases may impact on wild Atlantic salmon and thus indirectly also on freshwater mussels, both of which are Species of Community Interest under the Habitats Directive.” (p39)

 

We need action now on relocation not more consultation:

 

“Criteria against which to assess whether or not any farm if poorly flushed will be developed by SEERAD, in consultation with the industry and other regulators.  The process of devising these criteria will be inclusive and wholly transparent….SEERAD will publish in 2003 a paper setting out the criteria for appropriate aquaculture sites, with an explanation of the underlying scientific rationale.  This will list those sites which are considered to be inappropriately located and explain why….Bilateral meetings with affected site owners and their representatives will commence thereafter, with a view to concluding the process by December 2005.” (p40)

 

By December 2005 all the wild salmon and sea trout on the West coast will be extinct – or has that been the Scottish Executive’s strategy all along? 

 

In any case, the document implicitly rules out relocation on land:

 

“It will consider whether alternative sites can be located near the shore-based facilities designed to support them; the proximity of sites to workforce; and the health and safety issues associated with sites being relocated to more exposed areas or further away from their support base” (p40)

 

Where closer to shore-based facilities and safer to both the workforce and wild salmon than on land?  To a large extent much of this information has already been presented to the Scottish Executive in the FoE report “The One That Got Away” (2001) which detailed a map of 18 “Priority Areas” for the relocation, reduction and removal of sea cage fish farming.  This listed criteria such as freshwater pearl mussels, wastes, chemicals, wild fish and escapes. And the Association of West Coast District Salmon Fishery Boards presented a list of salmon farms which urgently required relocation back in October 2001. The Scottish Executive’s refusal to relocate salmon farms is particularly alarming given the strong support for relocation advocated by the Scottish Parliament’s Transport and Environment Committee in their final report on the “Aquaculture Inquiry”:

 

“One of the most pressing issues is the location of fish farms in sites which have a negative impact on the environment. Our Committee is concerned at the potentially lengthy timescale for the relocation of inappropriately sited farms and at lengthy timescales for introducing regulation for the aquaculture industry. The Executive must address these issues with greater urgency and it should also publish a timeframe for the introduction and implementation of such measures.” (Labour MSP and T&E Convenor Bristow Muldoon, 27th June 2002)

 

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/documents/strategyresponse.doc

 

Both the Association of West Coast Fisheries Trusts (http://www.watershed-watch.org/ww/publications/SeaLice/AWCFT%20lice%20report.pdf) and Friends of the Earth Scotland have called for the urgent relocation of specific salmon farms (http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/press/pr20010914.html).

 

See The Salmon Farm Monitor for further details: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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