There can be no doubt that a significant forage fish biomass is required to grow a wild salmon, but there is far less waste in wild fish consuming natural forage fish when compared to domesticated fish consuming "fish meal."

Every extractive industry is plagued by the human waste factor, and the wreckless mining of the ocean's forage fish to fuel the mass-production of farmed salmon is no exception. Each step in the harvest and processing of this "fish meal" incurs unavoidable waste. Once it has been produced, another element of waste is introduced at feeding time... much of the feed dispersed in the pens goes unconsumed. Such waste does not occur in the wild... fish only consume the amount of forage needed to fuel their metabolism and growth.

The problem with farmed salmon is that they have been reduced to nothing more than a marketable commodity.... they may as well be free-swimming dollar bills corralled into net pens. Every decision regarding their management revolves around maximizing profits out of what the farmer has invested. Funny, that's the same capitalistic worldview that historically got us into so much trouble with our wild salmon stocks.

Wild salmon were also "commodified" as free-swimming cash that returned year after year.... instant wealth virtually free for the taking to anyone willing to make a modest investment.

The key difference is that wild salmon continue to make an incredible contribution to the natural economy... yeah, the so-called eco-system. The nutrients they extract from the ocean's forage are naturally distributed far inland, to fertilize and fuel the coastal and inland ecosystems that we all depend on from California all the way to Alaska. You know, that whole big circle of life thing.

A farmed salmon can't do that... it was never designed to make a contribution to the natural PNW economy. It is merely the product of a purely extractive industry, artificially created to allow the fish-consuming public a year-round supply of "salmon." Is that worth the environmental and biologic hazards associated with the industry. I think not!

Actually, farmed salmon have been a godsend to the rest of the extractive industrial community as well. With the ability to mass produce salmon in the absence of healthy ecosystems (very reminiscent of Jim Lichatowich's Salmon without Rivers), they have free license to continue degrading and destroying what remains of the wild salmon's habitat.

A lot of you guys think that because salmon farming has made such inroads against the commercial fishing industry, that it's a good thing. Think again. Anyone who believes these mutants will somehow help to advance the cause of the angling public is woefully ill-informed.

JUST SAY NO TO FARMED SALMON!