It is still hard for me to believe that some on this board still support fish farms. And this is way down on my reasons to dislike them.

Here is the link: http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4309047.html


Farm-raised salmon higher in contaminants than wild salmon, study finds
Eric Pianin, Washington Post

Published January 9, 2004

Farm-raised salmon, a growing staple of U.S. diets, contains significantly higher concentrations of PCBs, dioxin and other cancer-causing contaminants than salmon caught in the wild and should be eaten infrequently, according to a study of commercial fish sold in North America, South America and Europe.

The study, using Environmental Protection Agency health guidelines, concluded that while consumers could safely eat four to eight meals of wild salmon a month, consumption of more than one 8-ounce portion of farmed salmon a month in most cases poses an "unacceptable cancer risk." People in Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle should not eat farmed salmon more than once or twice a month, the study advises.

The two-year study was paid for by the Pew Charitable Trust and published Thursday in the journal Science.

Officials of the Food and Drug Administration and the fishing industry took issue with the findings. They said the contaminant levels in salmon have declined by 90 percent since the 1970s and the remaining "trace levels" do not warrant consumers denying themselves the high protein and cardiovascular benefits of eating salmon.

"We've looked at the levels found . . . and they do not represent a health concern," said Terry Troxell, director of the FDA's Office of Plant and Dairy Food and Beverages. "In the end our advice is not to alter consumption of farmed or wild salmon."

The salmon farming industry points out that all the pollutant levels are well within the FDA's legal limits and says other foods eaten more often, such as beef, are bigger sources of exposure.

On average, farmed salmon has concentrations of health-threatening contaminants 10 times greater than those found in wild salmon, according to the study.

Farmed fish contain higher concentrations of contaminants than wild fish largely because they are fed a meal that consists of ground-up fish tainted with the contaminants, while wild salmon feed on smaller fish and tiny aquatic organisms.

Removing the skin and grilling salmon removes a significant amount of stored PCBs, dioxins and other pollutants, the FDA noted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The problem is the news stations spin on it made it sound like we should be eating wild salmon instead.... thats not too good either.

Wild salmon are one of natures finest foods.

Wild springers and sockeye are even better eating
than wild steelhead. YUM!

if you're gonna eat salmon you should eat wild salmon.

i'm sure there'll be some disagreement, but here's a start for non-fishermen in finding quality fish to eat.

http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp

chris

cool link topwater. I was implying that I would think a public outcry for more commercial fishing targeting wild fish would be a bad thing..... what are you doing for the off season?

Officials of the Food and Drug Administration and the fishing industry took issue with the findings. They said the contaminant levels in salmon have declined by 90 percent since the 1970s and the remaining "trace levels" do not warrant consumers denying themselves the high protein and cardiovascular benefits of eating salmon.

I wonder who funded such a study????

It couldn't have been the "commercial boys"… now could it!

Golden Rule: the one who pays for the studies always controls what the outcome of the study is

Cowlitzfisherman

The term "Wild" in the above article includes hatchery fish.

Probably a no brainer to most, but I had to double check that.

I agree with CFM and Grandpa (Not sure if that has ever happened before?)

Someone, gee I wonder who, has been pulling out all the stops to dowhatever thay can to kill fish farms or at least to slow their growth.

Our government says farmed fish is safe to eat. If you beleive that cows are safe why would you not beleive them on fish?

Something stinks here and it not just the dead fish!

I just spotted the article in the Seattle PI. It covers almost the whole front page and two full pages inside the paper. Looks like half their reporters jumped on the bandwagon. I will read more to get the full drift but initially it bothers me as I fear it will place more pressure on native and hatchery stocks. I tend to agree with CFM, Grandpa and Dave, this smells.

Do not underestimate the power of the well established commercial fishing political lobby machine.

They do all they can to make sure that every little issue negative to farmed fish is reported like it was the start to World War III.

Maybe someday the RFA will have similar power and we will get to see a little balance.

Eating farmed salmon is still WAY healthier than most of the meat the average American consumes.

Another reason to not believe what you read. Funny how the Seattle papers spin things toward commercial interests. Looking at the "science" in the study, you see that the results were based on uncooked fish. Other than some sushi eating part time friends of mine, this should cause no problems as most of the contaminants ( PCB's , dioxin, etc ) are removed when cooked. There is no getting around the fact that these contaminants are part of the food chain, and when fish are measured against other things we eat, they fall well below levels that warrant concern.

The reason the fish farms have higher carcinogens is because of the feed given to the farmed salmon. It is largely made of trash fish, that is boiled down and concentrated. This is basically the "fatty" part of the fish that has a higher concentration of the carcinogens...from the oceans. The study also noted that it varies depending on where the fish were farmed. The ones from the UK, had much higher levels of dioxins, etc, than BC. What I was wondering is whether the samples of the fish were taken consistently from the belly or from the meat of the fish? I think the fish farms could go a long way to helping their cause by using better feed....

The last farmed fish "issue" was "artificial" coloring of the flesh. The hysterical spin made it sound as if the fish were sprayed with red dye #2 after they were filleted.

Turns out the color was from ground up shrimp shells added to the feed - which occurs naturally as well. We all know how much the color of wild fish flesh varies within a specie due to diet.

Over the past 10 years, there are more and more "new releases" about the negative side of "salmon fish farming". Many of those articles are done from "faulty reseach" done by "pro-commerical" fishing interests. As the price of salmon continues to drop, fish farming will be targeted as the main cause of of problems in the commerical fishing industry, not the greed of the industry itself to continue to fish when the market is "jammed full" and the price is so low.

Very interesting to note, also, that of the farm raised fish, it is alway salmon that is talked/written about. Costco has not only farm raised salmon, but catfish and other white fish.

Just makes ya wonder?????????

"Worse day "sport" fishing, still better than the best day working"

CFM,

The study was funded by the Pew Charitable Trust, an organization that has no axe to grind, but tends toward the conservative, not as in political conservative, but more conservative as in their scientists are likely to be more conservative than the FDA regarding "safe" levels of PCBs and Dioxin in food. My oldest daughter worked for Pew until last year, researching global climate change, as in global warming.

Grandpa,

I don't trust the FDA to decide what safe levels of toxins are in my diet. FDA standards are very much influenced by politics, particularly by well-financed purveyors of contaminated food. Take for example the recent case of Mad Cow Disease. A couple weeks ago our government was doing all it could to assure us our beef supply was safe to eat. It's factually impossible for the government to know whether our beef supply is or is not contaminated. Your Republican Reagan reduced the number of USDA beef inspectors from about 15,000 to 7,500. Only 1 in 7,000 beef carcasses is inspected in the U.S., and a far lower percentage is even tested. After the E. coli illnesses and deaths of the last few years, the meat-packing industry pulled out all stops to influence the Republican Congress to limit USDA inspection and testing of meat. When the USDA pulls inspectors out of meat-packing plants producing contaminated meat, the packers sue USDA to force them back in under Republican-passed laws that favor profit-driven rights to market contaminated meat over consumer safety. When it comes to the nation's meat supply, Republicans have a lot to be proud of: a large, economical supply of meat of predominately unknown quality and safety. Funny thing is, Jack-in-the-Box, the fast food chain that nearly went out of business because they were associated with the first E. coli death, now requires both inspection and testing of its ground beef supply, probably offering one of the safest sources of ground beef in the nation. Conversely, the USDA, under what I presume to be your favored Republican-passed laws, purchases uninspected and untested ground beef for distribution to public school food service programs and the U.S. armed forces. Way to show appreciation to our men and women at arms, eh? Feed 'em beef with the highest likelihood of contamination. Oh, and records do show that USDA purchased tons and tons of beef from packers who sold contaminated beef for these destinations. There were some convictions, resulting in nice, Republican slaps on the wrist, for knowingly selling poisoned food. It's an ironic twist that liberals are portrayed as "weak on crime", but conservatives are just as weak when it comes to doling out consequences to their friends in business, whether it's the nation's meat supply, or contaminants in animal feed, or the pollution that also contributes to contaminated feed. Guess you can get run over standing on either side of the street, politically speaking. Hence my distrust of the FDA to tell me how much PCBs or Dioxin is OK for me to eat.
(References and citations available if really needed.)


It looks to me like where farmed salmon are raised, and where the farmed salmon diet comes from are important indicators of contamination levels. Also important to note is that "hatchery" origin salmon are the equivalent of "wild" salmon in the food marketplace, since they both grow on wild food sources found in the ocean. What bothers me about this is the fact that toxic heavy metals are so widely distributed in the ocean food chain, and there is no avoiding it if I choose to eat fish. Compared to "factory" reared beef, pork, and poultry, however, I think ocean-reared salmon continues to be one of the safer foods to eat.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Salmo....I am disappointed again. I looked forward to your take on this sensationalistic story until I read your post. I'm sorry but I call major poo poo on your Reagan/Republican rantings.....come on! And where did I say I trusted the FDA or even gave a sheet what they think about anything? I simply pulled out a very small contrarian view from a very one sided story. The PI today treated this story like the attacks on 9/11. I was quite taken by the huge front page splash given to this new revelation that there is unwanted crap in our food chain.....DUH!!! Hellllloooooo. Oh and they did say that the worst of it is in Europe both in the contamination of the fish and the feed. Even though our standards are lower than some would like they are strict by comparison the the rest of the world.

And your Pew group is a "green" group that has a definite agenda. Somehow you and they are looking at the big bad wolf in this which is BIG GREEDY BUSINESSES...arrrrghhh..those slime bags making us eat poisen so they can make the almighty dollar.... Killing our children for a buck...Come on all you whiners.....get off of it already. The FDA I think is politically biased in the sense that it tries to balance all the studies so as not to put every one out of business with regulations trying to make everything pristine. Even if you go live in the deep woods of Alaska on nothing but natural food you will die of something....might even be cancer.

Wasn't there a study once that said Coke had poisens in it and that you would die of cancer from drinking it?...the study turned out to be on mice and the sick mice had to drink what would be like an oil super tanker full of Coke to a human before getting cancer?

There is absolutely no question in my mind that the BIG BUSINESS of commercial fishing is behind the incredible negative attention fish farming has gotten...Then of course Seattle's answer to Pravda, the PI, jumps all over it because the Bush administration was earlier bashed for looking at expanding fish farming...So if fish farming is bad then ...Bush BAD.....good logic huh?

By the way...Pew DOES have an axe to grind...I beg your pardon.

Also the fish farming industry who does not get equal time you notice says that they know how to make the feed lower in contaminates and that the government watch dogs need to give them a number and that they will hit that number. Most of the contamination is being blamed on the feed so I'll bet if they clean up the feed it will something else...always is with the environmentalists. Nothing will ever be pristine enough.

I'm going outside to sand bag my house becuase Pew says that the polar ice packs are melting and I don;t want my basement to flood. Must be true the had a study saying so..right?

Here is a quote from today's Oregonian:

Two meals of Oregon wild chinook salmon a month would prompt the advisories, designed for people such as recreational fishermen who regularly eat salmon.

If that tells you anything....

Here is the link:
Oregonian

and Grandpa...you aint got no basement, uhmm, all right then...

While I don't agree with fish farms and their introduction of foreign species and the ghost towns that are below them on the sea floor, I don't agree with taking them out either.

Society consumes "X" amount of salmon. You do away with the farmed salmon and where is society going to get their "X" amount of salmon from?

Hey....what's the surprise here? We have all bounced this topic around before, and will continue to do so in the future as fish farms become more and more viable.
Don't even think for a minute that they won't proliferate, as they ARE the most realistic way to supply the most fish to consumers ...... money making potential will determine fish farming futures, not quibbling about fish food.
So to me, the only question is, "Can we do it safely?" And the answer is, "OF COURSE!" Are there going to be stumbling blocks along the way? ..... "OF COURSE!" So what's all the huff about? Newspapers and News Stations are all about "Whatever sells", so the crap we get is super sensationalized to make it interesting. And we're buying it.....joke's on us.

I'm not buying the garbage the PI prints but it is interesting to see how this story exploded all over everywhere overnight. I just had a glass of fresh squeezed apple juice....I'll bet I get SARS or ringworm or something eventually from the worm crap in the juice....AAAAAAAAAAAA

Time to get out the aluminum foil....wrap yourself in it and whatever you do don't go outside....

OH almost forgot...Let's check some of the fish outside of Victoria...with 3 or 4 million gallons of raw sewage pumping out into the straits every day I wonder what kind of carcinogens are in those WILD fish? Hi levels of toilet paper found in their gills perhaps?

As someone who is around the commercial industry add who was in it for years, you’re darn right, the commercials are pumping in a lot of money into this. The state of Alaska has put up about five million last year, for this cause. I am sure that this will be funded again this year, at the same level.
I could go on for a long time about how dirty most of the fishing is, As for example, Seining in Puget sound ( Kingston ) in the fall for Coho's and Chums, We would kill about 100 small black mouth every set and toss them over.( They were to small to keep). We made about 6 to 12 sets on an average day. Then you times that by fifty or so ( Boats ),Gee I wonder why the black mouth fishing went in the craper in the ninety’s.
Now let's look at the Bering Sea and bottom fishing. We use to catch about 250,000 metric tons of Pollock in Kodiak alone. During January, Feb, March in the early eighties and by the late eighty's there was barely a fishery, Why?, ( NO FISH ) Why?, Because for every fifty ton tow, we would have fifty ton of discard (DUMPED, WASTED, DEAD, GONE, TOSSEWD OVER). When I started in that fishery, it took only at times, about a ten-minute tow. By the late eighty's, I made tows as long as eight hours and for about twenty tons. ( GEE, I WONDER WHERE ALL THE FISH WENT )
I also thought you might like to know why there are no stellar sea lions, ( THEIR USE TO BE A LOT ), We shot the living #@&% out of them, to the point, that they are having a little trouble right now. (GEE, I WONDER WHY THERE'S NOT MANY )
I could go on and on about this, I have done them all. I have owned and or operated, crab boats, draggers, halibut, gill-netters, seiners and have fished from the Bering sea to Southeast for over twenty years.
I look back and I feel sad about all that and the sad thing is, that it is still happening at some level today.
I kid you not, the money that was made, was enormous and money talks.
Most people don't even have a clue about all this and about the amount of waste. It's sad.
I quit commercial fishing in the early ninety’s and have been in the sportfishing business since then.
The commercials do have money and they spend it in the right places and the states help them out as well AND THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT.
I can guarantee you this, If the price of salmon goes up, There will be less fish for everybody else. Then throw in El Nino and it's hello 90's all over again.
Sorry, I just had to lay it on the line, in black and white.

Grandpa, I believe that your underlying purpose here is to pump up your massive holdings in (wait for it) the aluminum foil industry.

I've stayed out of this discussion until now. I believe that it is inevitable for farm raised salmon to continue to grow market share and surpass the commercial catch of "free range" salmon. I also believe that it is probably a good thing for the fate of the "free range" salmon, however, this is a double edge sword. If the Commercial fishery collapses, can WDFW still pump millions of salmon into the eco-system? Somehow, I doubt it. And if that happens, we will have to confront the threats to our wild fish or kiss them goodbye.

Do we have the will? Are we willing to battle the inevitable political arguements that will ensue? Hell, we can't even agree on a simple thing like Wild SH release. Some think that the Growth Management Act is a Communist conspiracy, others think the opponents must be stinking capitalist pigs. Ramon hates hatcheries, Grandpa loves them. Some believe that we can't live without the Hydropower, others believe that hydro is killing us bit by bit. We have big issues!! Sometime we must confront them or our fish will be gone.

To B Gray.......Thanks!

Being an ex-dragger I can attest to b-gray attempt at letting all you guys know just how powerfull the comercial lobby is.You have no clue.It is not a bunch of know it alls on a bboard that is for sure.You are talking the entire world and one of the oldest proffesions

Eat lots of carrots they are good for you.

6 months later if you eat too many carrots your more likely to get bujuweebbeeba.

Without reeding any of these articles because I realy do not care,How much is eight times the amount found in wild salmon and how does this compare to the amount found in our beef?

Maybe, but they would still have their Volvos' and Range rovers to drive back and forth to their cave wouldnt they??? They would have plenty of fuel for them as it just "appears" out of thin air...... And doesnt Tofu grow on some kind of tree outside of caves in the Pacific NW?

I agree that the Gov't for the most part could give two rat's-asses for what happens to people in general.... BUT..... Dead people do nothing for the economy and cannot vote.... Think about that....

On another note, they are full of BS when it comes to the mad-cow thing.... I used to run the Health Services Department for IBP (Beef Processor) and I can tell you from my own experience that spinal cord matter does in fact get on the meat all the time.... When they split the carcass, they go right through the backbone with a saw, the saw goes through the spine and the vertebra are after all your T-bones etc..... NO MORE FEEDING ANIMALS TO ANIMALS..... At least the ones that die of disease and then are ground up by greedy people who DO only care about a buck....

MC

So are you sad and regretful enough to do anything about it? Are you only speaking up now because you made your fortune on it and now are retired?
It is nice to hear about the sad facts of raping the resource from someone that used to do it (and regrets it), I used to be involved low-level in the logging industry that loved to take down the 6-8 foot old growth trees like no tomorrow..... But I would say that if forgiveness from the Fish-God is what you desire, maybe you need to start taking your confessilnal to the WDFW meetings when they have the open discussion on commercial rule changes..... Then you may just do some redeaming.... otherwise, it is no more than wind........

Respectfully,

MasterCaster

Yay there definately is alot of wind on this board that is for sure.All you have to do is step back for awhile and it becomes quite aperant how stupid a bunch of banter on bb really is.

Cleo,

With the exception of some unwarranted and unrelated personal attacks, I find this thread to be very germane to the purpose of this BB.

To clairfy my earlier post, it says that if you subscribe to the PEW guidelines that say one should only eat farmed salmon once a month, then you can only eat "wild" salmon twice a month in order to conform to the guidelines.

Personally, I will continue to eat cooked, skinless salmon that I have caught about twice a week.

Master caster,

You bet I use this and I do get involved. I have used my own money and been to a lot of meetings in Alaska and Washington to fight for sportfishing related issues and I use these past issues all the time. Flying and hotels for a week are not cheap, not to menten the usual week at a time thease meetings take of your time. I have also lobbyed both states. I enjoy that and I belive it helps.
Do I feel bad about making a lot of money back then, not even. you should try it. You really find out what you penuts are made of.
The point is, nothing is going to change unless you get involved. There are times, I feel like I am alone when I am at these things and when you do get some changes, people complain because you did'nt get it changed the way they wanted. I think to myself, he could have helped and then I just smile and realize he is just ignorent and probly did'nt mean to come off that way.
The other problem is our elected officials. When they are running for office, nobody brings up these issues and get people in that can make a difference. Money can't get them in, if they don't have the votes. Most people just wait for someone else to take care of the problem and complain when nothing happens.
We can make a difference and have, we just have to keep chipping away and if we had a lot more people, we could make things happen a lot faster.

B Gray

I hear you LOUD AND CLEAR!!!

Cowlitzfisherman

Grandpa, Aunty M,

First, I apologize for over-reacting. I began some thread-drift because of some recent reading I was doing after the Mad Cow incident two weeks or so ago. There is a connection, tho, and the connection is the federal government’s caving in to business interests at the risk and expense of the public consumer.

Second, yes, I recognize there is journalistic sensationalism in all this, but I wasn’t responding to that, as I didn’t read the newspaper articles. I saw the story on Canadian Public Broadcasting, which related the same facts, however.

Third, believe it or not, I’m not anti-business. I’m not anti-fish farming, altho I personally choose not to eat much farmed fish primarily because of the feed additives, secondly because it isn't the best fish. I’m not anti-commercial fishing. I am anti-blind greed, wherein a business interest pursues profit up to, and including, knowingly purveying contaminated food to unsuspecting consumers - who are unsuspecting for the very reason that they collectively fund FDA and USDA to protect their consumer interest, not the fish farms or meat-packing business interest. These consumers, including me until two weeks ago, thought meat products were inspected and tested at a rate to ensure at least statistical confidence in their safety, but they aren’t. So when the government makes a statement that meat or fish is safe, when they know damn well they don’t have the information to support the contention, I’m p!ssed, cuz lying ain’t cool. I’m anti that same greed that motivates meat-packers to operate unsafe plants because they can regard their largely Hispanic work force as expendable. I’m pro-business that operates on a level playing field, legally and ethically.

Fourth, I was deliberately taking a friendly poke at Grandpa’s conservative politics. Grandpa seldom passed up an opportunity, indeed has created his own opportunities, to denigrate anything potentially liberal or Democrat. Since the anti-public safety conditions at FDA and USDA are the product of conservative Republican legislation, it seems fair to take a jab and point that out. I still don’t think I’m a bleeding-heart liberal (I work with one, and we are miles apart on so many things), and I could vote for conservatives who don’t care about me and even disdain me, but I cannot vote for those who knowingly create by their legislation, contamination of the air I breathe, the water I drink, and the food I eat. Hence our political differences.

Fifth, yes, Grandpa, you could acquire cancer in Alaska’s pristine wilderness. However, we both know that the likelihood is exponentially greater living downwind from a polluting power plant or similar facility, or obtaining our drinking water that’s been contaminated by industrial waste, or by consuming contaminated food that our bought-off government assures us is safe.

Lastly, I’m not totally naive nor idealistic. I don’t expect my world to be pristine, and I don’t advocate the extreme positions of some of the leading environmental groups, just as I don’t advocate the extreme anti-environmental and anti-public safety positions of many contemporary Republican officials. I agree that a lot of the opposition to fish farming is coming from the commercial fishing industry. I also believe that environmental groups opposed to fish farming would serve the public better by focusing on basics like air and water pollution, wilderness protection, and improving logging practices, etc. And in the interests of a balanced perspective, I’m wide open to reading title suggestions that portray the food industry as concerned about worker and consumer safety, if there is such a thing.

Lastly, lastly, you think PEW has an axe to grind; I’m not so sure. They report that global warming exists only because most credible scientists in the field, regardless of who they work for, believe the evidence points to that conclusion. Scientists in the field who believe otherwise tend to be employed by those who profit by contributing to greenhouse gases. I’m not surprised. Kind of reminds me of the division within science about the health hazards of tobacco. All those who think tobacco isn’t a health hazard work for the industry.

Lastly, lastly, lastly (oh sure!), we have to meet some time. I’m gonna’ disappoint you by not being a wild-eyed radical anything. Well, I did used to be a radical fly fisherman, but I’ve mellowed a lot.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Salmo....thanks for the logical come back..that is what I am more used to..You may find me to be more in the center than the PP Grandpa...I'm kind of a smart alec as you know but am more of an environmentalist than a Republican. I think a balance is what I am for. Not too far one way or the other. As Slab said about the relative danger in eating farmed fish versus wild...it is a matter of degrees..both types of fish are probably essentially good for you. Neither one is really harmful but one is found to be twice as harmful as the other....Something along those lines. I don't even buy fish in the market let alone farmed fish so my "beef" is with the over exaggerations made to promote a cause which , in this case, I think is commercially caught salmon. Some of the arguments I have heard in the last couple of days supporting a commercial fishing bias in the Columbia River spring Chinook allocation smack of big business more than anything....as does the fish farm debate. Not health of humans or health of a fish run but big business and lobbying.

As far as the government erring on the side of business being a Republican idea I disagree. Politicians from all states err on the side of business to gain votes and campaign money. To impose standards for PCBs and Dioxins and such that are punitive to business would not sit well with many constituencies so we have the FDA...not the Republican FDA or the Democrat's FDA but just the plain old FDA with their mandate to be moderate when it comes to standards. Not hysterical. The commercial fishing industry wants to kill the fish farming industry if they can because fish farming is a huge competitor of theirs. If I could put out a smear campaign to eliminate some of my biggest competitors I might consider it. That would make my life alot easier.

Don't believe him grandpa! I know him, and he gets "wild eyed" a lot these days!

I have even seen him on the water (once or twice) and . . . he's really is wild eyed there too!

Cowlitzfisherman