Big Bird sums it up nicely here.....worldwide, most ocean fisheries are fully exploited or overfished and the fish have to come from somewhere to meet the world's huge demands for seafood. The US, due to the lack of farm raised fish, has about about an $8 billion/year "seafood trade deficit". We get most of our farmed fish from BC and Chile. The Bush Administration set out to rectify this situation by passing legislation allowing industrial scale aquaculture in ocean waters.

American Gold Seafoods is the only company in this state currently farm raising salmon, and they operate 8 marine net pens, so it is a concern locally.

I think I can speak for most of us here who are privileged enough to be able to eat "wild" salmon on a regular basis....farm raised Atlantic Salmon just plain sucks. It's soft and mushy and tastes like crap. Back when all my friends were getting married (bigamy is one wife too many; monogamy is more of the same) I attended a lot of rehearsal dinners and weddings; they almost always had farm raised Atlantic on the menu....."I'll have the chicken please".

Ike