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