Norway became a global salmon behemoth. Now it's facing the consequences
abc.net.au
abc.net.au
2. A lot of the conditions for Salmon farming can be drastically improved or completely eliminated if they have done it further away in deep sea rather than coast. It just cost more.
3. China is rapidly improving their Salmon Farming so there isn't much to worry about for Norway. In 10 - 20 years time half of it will be gone.
On the contrary the eastern coast of Taiwan has access to very deep sea though.
(This is a well known geostrategic fact, as the small depths of Chinese water are a big weakness for their submarine fleet).
The effects of salmon fishing in Norway aren't limited to the local communities, it influences the whole area, back to the county government. Politicians lose a lot of support if they go against the money because despite driving our electric cars to our cabins and loving going to walks in nature, us living in Norway really, really like the good life and don't want anything to impact that. (To be fair, this also applies to the majority of the planet's population.)
https://www.science.org/content/article/cocaine-pollution-gi...
Hmm… that made me think of domestication, do you think we could ever have salmon as pets? What’s their character like? More like dogs or cats?
Similar approach works very well ie on tse-tse fly in parts of eastern Africa I've visited - introduce infertile/weak males into wilderness to effectively eliminate entire population in medium term.
Dumber here is a feature, not a bug. The dumber the farmed escaped salmons are, the better.
Imagine 10 wild salmons swimming up the river to reproduce, 8 of then are devoured by bears. Only Rick and Jenny survive.
Now imagine the same salmons swimming up the river to reproduce, but joined by 40 farmed sterile salmons. And 8 of them are devoured by bears.
The reproductive success of the wild ones have increased, because security is in the numbers. Being easier to catch, bigger, clueless and extra-dumb, farmed salmons will attract the predators and more wild ones will reach the end.
It works on screw worm flies. It will have a similar effect on wild salmon.
What I mean is that Biology is not simple. Things that you assume to be bad, may have also a positive side. You will never know until you do actual research and, unlike that five minutes read in a newspaper, finding the truth takes years of serious work.
Unless you spend many hours studying, you may never notice that 'kelp' forests are changing even in places without salmon farms. Without a single salmon farm, Spain lose 90% of their "kelp" (in fact Laminaria) forests in the 1990's. So maybe there are other hidden reasons for the change?
After years the ecologists understood that the problem with kelp was the sea temperature raising just one degree. This was enough to lose thousands of Km of submarine forests around all the North coast of Spain in just a decade. A good example of collapse of the entire ecosystem after minor changes.
Without spending hours studying, you may not realize that kelp war against green algae lasts for millions of years. Kelp evolved to be one of the fastest growing things alive and to build chemical defenses. If algae has the upper side suddenly, maybe there is more to see than the simple answer of "is contamination". What prevents kelp to use all this extra nutrients to grow instead?
Biodiversity is the biggest and more complex machine built in this planet, and tends to do unexpected things. Ideas like "monogamy: good", "cannibalism: bad" are useless in biology. Biology does not care about moral stances or tables of the law, and not always act as ideology would wish
Jurassic park vibes here. I know, I know...
Okay, say the damned phrase and shut up.
Hopefully international attention is what it takes for change to meaningfully happen beyond some R&D.
Not "sharks with lasers" but "Stingray Laser system"
https://www.kvaroyarctic.com/the-stingray-laser-system-the-s...
While in Japan a few years ago, I found no salmon on the menu in sushi places.
When inquiring why, we were told that salmon is not that good, and that is more a food for kids than adults. Did it change or are we just one data point?
Is it maybe a bit more like "comfort food", for kids, for less delicate palates, cheaper? Maybe. But truth is I haven't asked why I haven't seen it in the expensive places.
For reference, salmon was the most popular choice in conveyor belt sushi places 3 years ago. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01627/
Salmon is not a "traditional" sushi ingredient because, until the introduction of flash-freezing, it couldn't be eaten raw due to the risk of parasites. That changed in the 80s or so, I think.
It is important to be aware of this and dont abuse salmon eating since imho some kind of risk is there, beside the negativity of its farming!
There are many documentaries online that show the core farming problem, it is interesting to see based on the article that this problems are becoming bigger and bigger and beside the lobbying hopefully there will be investments to solve it.
I'm surprised that a country like Norway and Norwegian people allow such abuse of the fjords and of the animal... but yeah I guess always same story, work for people, business, lobbying etc. if its oil, fish pig or cow the game is the same.
awareness is the first step, change is what is needed!
At the moment a company is trying to start one of these close to me. Some local people are opposed, some are supportive, but most just want more objective study and information (i.e. not performed/paid for by the company itself).
The devil may be in the implementation, but it certainly has some big advantages over the coastal pens.
There are other places in the world that farm salmon at a much lower density which helps in terms of disease and bioload on the environment. There's a company in New Zealand attempting to build open ocean fish pens, they might already have a prototype out already can't remember. Different species of salmon though.
https://www.pref.nagano.lg.jp/suisan/jisseki/salmon/english....
There other arm, 4Corners, did a piece about a big government construction project and IIRC there was a different prime minister when it released vs when they started the investigation.
A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon. Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development. And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the feed, farmed salmon would be gray.
I could go on the whole day about this stuff. The whole thing is just sad.
And they use a lot of antibiotics.
And there is some accumulation of dioxins and PCBs in the fat due to the feed, but this has also been approved somewhat.
It is against the law in most if not all EU countries. It is also the dispute between US and EU agriculture trade.
If that is not your point, I apologize, but then I don’t see the connection (maybe you could elaborate?)
Would be antieconomic and is useless. But If you have recent data about this, please show the data. Take in mind that human growth hormones don't work in fishes if I remember correctly.
> And they use a lot of antibiotics.
Antibiotics like, for example?
Terrestrial farms are totally different than sea farms. I don't think that Norwegians use more antibiotics than Thailand Panga farmers. Crustacicides, I'm sure that they use it, but "lots of" antibiotics claim... I'm sceptical about this.
Comparing traditional aquaculture with Marine aquaculture is like saying that an ox chart and an electric vehicle are the same thing.
Here are some of the studies and debates from back then:
- Chronic Consumption of Farmed Salmon Containing Persistent Organic Pollutants Causes Insulin Resistance and Obesity in Mice (2011): https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- Are environmental pollutants in the Norwegian diet harmful to children?: https://tidsskriftet.no/en/2017/02/perspectives/are-environm...
https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/advice-about-eating-fish
It tells you why a pregnant woman should eat some fish, and which fish are safest.
The metal in fish is a concern, but can be mitigated fairly well.
Why is it fair? Wild salmon also consume astaxanthin.
It’s like complaining that the farmers are bad for trying to mimic the fish’s natural diet.
They don’t put the coloring in the food to emulate natural food sources. They do it because it looks more appealing to most consumers.
You had not seen a lot of wild salmon, apparently.
Is called salmon color for something. Sea trouts are the fishes with whitish meat normally. Both wild and cultured trouts can have "salmon" colored meat when feed on a diet rich in carotenes.
All of this looks like the typical smear campaign online when Chinese need more time to develop some product.
And then, suddenly, the plague of videos of "electric vehicles" burning on a garage vanished overnight. And now we can purchase Chinese electric vehicles.
A sensational statement that is utterly false.
Per 100g, Norwegian farmed salmon has 0.1x the sodium, 0.5x the saturated fat, 2x the protein, 20x the Omega-3 fatty acids and infinity-x the vitamin D of your hamburger.
Farmed salmon is a minimally processed single-ingredient protein, while your hamburger is ultra-processed and packed with refined carbs, added sugar and high-fructose corn syrup and chemicals synthesized in a lab.
> Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development.
Presumably you're talking about growth hormones?
Because that American fast-food hamburger has plenty of growth hormones.
Under Norwegian law and European Union/EEA regulations, the use of growth hormones in fish farming is strictly illegal.
Where in the
- Grass-fed beef
- Sourdough bun
- Lettuce
- Tomato
- Onion
Is all this stuff you cite? Any condiment in the known realm of terrestrial cuisine -- and even adult websites -- can be used on fish just as readily as a burger.
One has to wonder why anyone would want to make such a comment invisible, as if they could not see it was already generally suppressed. That is essentially flagging. For a comment that made no false claim or insult. So while I am embarrassed for those who might defend me, I am not deleting my ugly comment. That is the type of comment that might actually deserve flagging, and it was also sincere.
That makes “a hamburger is healthier than salmon” wildly incorrect as a generic statement.
"“a hamburger is healthier than salmon”"
to
“a hamburger is healthier than farm raised salmon”
That holds closer to the actual context.
I admit, the ultimate truth of whether a burger is technically healthier than farm raised salmon, is questionable. In my opinion, in either direction, but will concede that.
That said, had the parent stated that opting for a salad might be the healthier option, the argument of absent vitamin D would be a bit less compelling than it already is. One does not expect every conceivable nutrient from every meal. I do not support culinary dictatorship either, and for some, I remain convinced that a quality burger may, for some, be the healthier choice. But that was also not the premise of my argument. My argument was against the erroneous framing of "hamburger", to imply by decree of prejudice, that condiments and cheap bread define "hamburger". I have not been to a fastfood restaurant since the 1980s. I boycotted McDonald's as an 11 year-old. 'Billions Served' but not me.
For someone who wants to promote farm raised salmon, the argument against the parent could have been much more fair. And the fact that the parent was turning gray, compelled me to defend it with some measure of balance. And since I cannot upvote...
I will also address the anachronistic absurdity of ex post facto time-travel justice as indicated by the other comment -- I cannot be punished in the past for what I do in the future. By their own causal reasoning, maybe farm raised is not so healthy after all, as it appears to have potentially negative effects on one's reasoning capacity. It's 2026; we aren't time traveling quite yet... or, wait.. That really doesn't make sense. OK, I yield. It's time traveling. Burgers are bad. Farm raised salmon good.
Peace
When I can afford it, I will do a NASA Food Pill marathon. But they're not cheap.
Why would you think that? Ground beef typically has higher saturated fat than even farmed salmon and a lot less omega-3.
A hamburger adds a refined carbohydrate bun and sauces on top of that.
I think your political beliefs are overriding factual accuracy.
> And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the food, farmed salmon would be gray.
The color isn’t “fake”. It comes from Asataxanthin. Wild fish get it from food they eat. Farmed fish might get it from microalgae-derived sources. Why would it be “fake” if it’s the same chemical? They’re just feeding the farmed salmon the nutrients they need.
Astaxanthin is also sold separately as a supplement because people seek it out, too. It’s not some evil fake chemical dye. The wild salmon naturally eat it, too.
It's so narrow-minded to treat farmed fish as some moral failing.
When it comes to wild salmon (which are definitely under some threat) the far bigger issues are believed to be related to habitat. Dams blocking their transit and high water temperatures are two prominent issues.
Because it just doesn't scale! It can feed 50-100 million people at most.
Maybe we need to empty the oceans of wild fish before we make that transition for seafood, but I hope it can happen a bit more quickly.
Do farm raised fish still have elevated heavy metal levels? I figured that getting human controlled food would cut down on that.
Predators trying to eat you alive all the time, cannibalism, diseases making tunnels in your muscle, famine, acid water, contamination, environmental changes, noise levels that could make you crazy. If you have luck you reproduce once and then die of exhaustion and skin infections. If not, a bear eats you alive just when you were thinking in losing your virginity at 40 Yo, finally. Or a fishermen puts a hook in your eye, or in the mouth just for fun, pulls you out of the water and lets you suffocate slowly. Or you bang your head against a concrete wall. This is the normal journey of a wild salmon.
And this is NOT animal cruelty. This does not make you sad.
If you are on a crusade to remove animal cruelty, look at all this people living in Tokyo. They are packed like sardines in a can. But humans are gregarious animals, so it does not matter!. (They are happy!). Salmons on the other way are gregarious animals, so it is a big problem!. (They are sad!. They talk to me complaining!)
Is a problem, simply because it does not fit into our ideological vision of the world. An infantile paradise where salmons are nice little people with tiny hats that party with Pepa pig. They love bananas, football and to climb trees. (They must love it, because we do).
The idea that salmons are predatory fishes and would not mind to eat their siblings if they can catch them... don't like that. Protect me from the real world, pikachu.
English isn't my first language and even I know "palette" is wrong. Is it normal for official news outlets to write stuff like this?
The "and" in your comment implies that you think that being a native speaker should make someone more accurate with this. In fact it's the opposite. It makes sense that it sticks out to you as a non native speaker. Native speakers are less sensitive to the spelling of homophones (and this is true in many languages, not just English).
> Krister Hoaas from the industry lobby group says that Norway is pursuing sustainable growth.
>"We have to have growth within the limits that nature can cope with in a good way, and that would imply introduction of a lot of different production methods," Hoaas says.
I like to see how much more nuanced and reasonable the discussions between opposing parties are in the Nordic countries when compared to most of the rest of the world.
Corpo speak globally is a lot closer to the opposite of what you quoted. The US, Australia (gas, mining and energy companies are core examples) and for the larger part Europe (e.g., Volkswagen) effortless say everything and nothing at the same time.
Making a closed loop system possibly including IMTA either on land (why not right at the salmon processing facilities saving transport costs and assets like boats, its cheaper to have no vehicle to maintain) or in water like the "Eggs" described in the article sounds like a no-brainer for the industry, who cares about 10x capex when the bottleneck is not capex but bureaucracy to get expansion permits? Once you realize capex is not the bottleneck (you can reuse the new system), it allows a lot of other costs to be eliminated, like disease and parasites: commingling fish with expensive health monitoring and management at density ρ can be replaced with smaller cells, each cell their intake and exhaust tubing, and the reservoir contact rate falls precipitously for the same density ρ: is the switchover investment more expensive than the current system? yes, but growth isn't limited by capex. This switchover would be desirable (true damage like the harmful fish feces concentration is prevented; false damage like bioaccumulating harmful heavy metals inserted by other human activities becomes none of the fish farmer's problems at all). The taxation excuses will dry up.
What on earth are you going on about?
My first suspicion was when you started taking about metals. Bro salmon are euryhaline.
You have no idea if its viable and profitable to remove certain organs, and its based on the incorrect premise that the fish have the metals in them, the ONE type of fish that has the lowest concentration of metals in existence. You literally picked the worst possible , weakest possible argument that could have existed, somehow defying all odds, ( which tbh is an achievement in itself) before your apparent non coherent jargon laden word ramble.
I need my coffee now.
for everybody, euryhaline: "Euryhaline organisms are able to adapt to a wide range of salinities."
how is that related to the heavy metals? and what's the reason behind attacking the post topic based on that? osmoregulation anything to do with it or what?
I still find the post useful and interesting, and I took organ modification as a possible threat to hiding toxicity instead.
It would have been more useful to explain why and make it clear for us too if thats hyped, instead of just bro'ing around :)
However I take your point I could have taken more time to explain certain points.
People still eat junglefowl (ancestor of chickens) and wild boar (pig), but in the developed world domesticated animals are usually both cheaper and tastier.
Source: studied german enough to recognise that word root
Painting with salmon is a .. novel take on the art of food.
Insane, because this strait has always heavy current and nasty mælstrøms as half of Atlantic goes that way to east and back daily.
hell i would pay for that. high protein extra firm tofu is like 2.70/lb for me.
i get about 35g protein from 8oz of that tofu.
i eat salmon 2x a week but most of my diet is tofu and beans/lentils for protein.
i think it would be far ecologically and financially better to have tofu enhanced, so it meets nutritional needs at low cost.
and i personally find tofu a lot more flexible than any other food.
Most people (in western countries at least) don’t really optimize their food in take this way or want to maximize the amount of protein per $
animal ag is a huge climate factor there plus we destroy ecosystems to murder the ocean floor.
ultimately i don’t eat meat bc of the climat aspect (and it’s better for my health i want to live long) but since people don’t care i have zero problems with private jets or driving a F350 or sports car that gets 8mpg
if people won’t do what’s right they deserve to deal with the consequences, and i’m not gonna shed a single tear because it isn’t my problem. i’ll just move somewhere nicer (SF is amazing, and during a fire i’ll just fly somewhere else)
If can afford wild then get wild, otherwise farmed is cheaper.
No different to farmed animals or non organic crops. All three are maximised for growth rate and revenue
then you see this kind of language you know what this article gonna be is about
> the killing of animals for meat
So I guess "killed and slaughtered" would be redundant but not wrong.