Salmon Farming in British Colombia
You are at a midsummer barbeque, you are about to take a bite of a mouth watering salmon burger, but have you considered the consequences the salmon you are about to eat has? Salmon farming is damaging to local wildlife and for this reason it is crucial that it must be halted. Salmon farming is damaging to British Colombia’s economy and must be terminated. Salmon farming must stop as it poses a health risk to its consumers. Salmon farming in British Colombia must be brought to a complete stop immediately.
Salmon farming must be halted in order to prevent further harm of local wildlife. Fish are farmed in open net enclosures, this means any disease that the farmed fish have is easily transferable to the wild salmon living in close proximity. In 2005 a disease called furunculosis spread throughout farmed Atlantic salmon on Vancouver Island. The disease killed 1.8 million farmed fish in a single hatchery; it is unknown how many wild salmon were affected by this outbreak. (www.farmedanddangerous.org) Farmed Salmon live in tightly packed groups, a perfect feeding ground for sea lice (Jansen, 2331). Sea lice attach themselves directly to salmon and feed off the blood and mucus found in the salmons skin. (Jansen, 2331) It is estimated that lea lice have put wild pink salmon “on a trajectory towards rapid local extinction and that a 99% collapse in pink salmon population abundance is expected in four salmon generations.” (qtd. in Ridell, 1790b) Salmon farms used a wide array of chemicals including antibiotics and fungicides. The fungicides are used on the nets to keep aquatic organisms such as algae from growing on them, these fungicides spill over into the local marine environment harming NY othe...
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Adams, Cecil. "What's better, farm-raised salmon or wild? Are upscale restaurants serving ugly fish?." The Straight Dope:. N.p., 25 Dec. 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. .
"Harvest of Fears: Farm-Raised Fish May Not Be Free of Mercury and Other Pollutants: Scientific American." Harvest of Fears: Farm-Raised Fish May Not Be Free of Mercury and Other Pollutants: Scientific American. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. .
"Think Twice About Eating Farmed Salmon." www.davidsuzuki.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. .
In the past, because the glaciers disappeared slowly can make people have a low temperature, clean water during the summer, but at the same time the salmon begin and end their lives. With temperature getting warmer and our glaciers melting, every stage of salmon’s life cycle is getting hurt.
Policies are often put in place without regards for the effect it will have on other areas, people, or wildlife. Several examples of these unintended consequences are shown in the documentary Salmon: Running the Gauntlet, which explains the effects that human activity, dams, and attempts to repopulate the salmon species have been implemented and failed. With proper evaluation at the onset of a major project, these severe consequences may be avoided.
Rosenau, Marvin Leslie, and Mark Angelo. Conflicts Between Agriculture And Salmon In The Eastern Fraser Valley / Prepared By Marvin L. Rosenau And Mark Angelo. n.p.: Vancouver : Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, c2005., 2005. UFV Library Catalogue
The salmon are all sterile females which are grown in contained land-based systems, therefore they will not be able to breed among themselves or with other fish. So it is unlikely that the fish will have an impact on wild populations.
Larabee, John, and Richard Price. "Tide of Troubles has Fish Industry Reeling/ Crisis Caused by Pollution, Development, Over-Fishing." USA Today 10 Mar. 1994: 9A
...s to remove the selfish entertainment from nature and focus instead on its intrinsic value. This in situ approach to conservation of cod, although seemingly surface level transcends the boundaries of economic, cultural, or any of such approximations and places the value on the existence of the species. Another projected solution for the crisis of the overexploitation of fish is the institution of moratoria, which establish that a certain species can no longer be hunted or fished in this context. This in situ attempt at regulating the consumption of cod allows the cod for time to replenish themselves and their populations. Yet, this type of regulation suggests that all humankind must do is step back and let for the problem to take care of itself, and as has been proven several times before stepping back and letting things resolve themselves do not end accordingly
As early as 1914, the Government was receiving reports from the U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries on the potential impact to unregulated fishing. By 1931, serious questions were being asked about the ability of the fish to be able to continue to meet the demands and ever-increasing fishing that was occurring in the area. By the 1980s, the fishing in the George’s Banks has almost become unprofitable. (www.nefc.noaa.gov, 2004)
In 2010, there was a huge oil spill near the Gulf of Mexico that we now know as the BP Oil Spill today. The Spill sent about 170 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill killed 11 men aboard the deep-water Horizon. The BP Oil Spill impacted the environment very negatively. There were different types of environmental impact as a result of the Oil Spill, but the two that grabbed my attention the most are the Polluted Air and the Contaminated Food Chain. The first impact that grabbed my attention was the Polluted Air. Because of the Oil Spill, the air around the surroundings neighborhoods was polluted. All the lightest chemicals in the oil that had spill evaporated within hours of the incidence forming air pollution particles. These particles that are in the air poses significant threats to the human health from being inhaled. The chemical found in the particles that was formed is known as Volatile, which has been known to cause respiratory irritation and central nervous system depression (Solomon & Janssen, 2010). The second impact that grabbed my attention was the contamination of the food chain, specifically the food chain of sea animals that lives near the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists found traces of oil in zooplanktons; this could only mean that the sea creature has had contact with the spilled oil. According to the Staff at Houston Business Journal (2012), “Baby fish and shrimp feed on the tiny, drifting zooplankton, and then introduce contamination and pollution to the larger sea creatures in the food web.” With these findings, it isn’t going to take long before the baby fishes become grown and caught by fishermen and before we know it, it’s on our dinner plate. And here we are eating fishes w...
Terrell (2015) states that the three inch delta smelt was decided to be in danger of going extinct a little more than twenty years ago. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has claimed that systems used by farmers to retrieve water from the delta have added to the dropping number of delta smelt. Conservationists think it is necessary for people and farmers to take their water from sources other than the delta in order to preserve the characteristics of the delta (Terrell, 2015). Dr. Peter Moyle of UC Davis stated in an interview,“We have 80 fish species in California, like the delta smelt, that are in trouble” (Cited in Terrell, 2015, p.12). Moyle insists that it is more than just the three inch delta smelt that is in danger, it is at least seventy-nine other species that need protecting as well. As interviewed by Siegler (2015), senior water rights farmer, Rudy Mussi knows the importance of the delta and preserving it, not just so he can use its water on his fields, but also to keep it alive for the future. It has been suggested that water be taken out of the delta and moved to farmers in the lower portion of California who have junior water rights (Siegler, 2015). The delta cannot be overused because it is important that the ratio of saltwater to freshwater stays the same in order to preserve the fish population. In 2014 the excess water that came from the delta, the environment in which the fish live, added up to almost two hundred fifty billion gallons of water or enough for over six and a half million people each year (“Water wars”, 2015) While these people cannot easily access this water source, some farmers are able to use limited amounts of water if they farm on the delta, creating an issue between the junior water rights farmers
American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous could apply to many different things though. Our food is dangerous to the consumer, the workers and farmers, the animals and the environment. Walsh gives examples of each of these in his article that leads back to the main point of how dangerous the food we are consuming every day really is. He goes into detail on each of them but focuses his information on the consumer.
There are many impacts that fishing and land animal farming have on the ocean, which are detrimental to ocean ecosystems as well as many other aspects of the environment. Overfishing, killing fish at a much quicker rate than the fish can repopulate, is one major problem. Three-fourths of the world’s fisheries are either fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted (Cowspiracy). Researchers have estimated an end of all viable fisheries by 2018 if the current trends of fishing continue (Mason). According to the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch, hundreds of thousands of animals die every year as bycatch, with one of the worst offenders being shrimp fisheries, catching up to six pounds of bycatch per pound of shrimp. Endangered species are also caught, including predators which are important in keeping the balance in ocean ecosystems (Smith). While many organizations such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch recommend consumers to eat more “sustainable” fish, this will not stop the massive environmental impacts. Sustainable fishing for one does not account for the natural flux in the population of species of fish; what is considered a sustainable amount of fish to harvest one year may deplete the fishery in another year (Smith). Sustainable fish also are becoming even less sustainable as companies that label sustainable fish must find more For example, after Wal-Mart pledged to selling Marine Stewardship
With a coastline of over 202 000 km and over a fourth of the world’s freshwater resources, it is no wonder why Canada’s fishing industry is a huge part of its economy.1 Canada exports more than 75% of its fish to over 130 countries worldwide. Many of the 7 million people who reside on the coast depend on the ocean’s resources. In total, Canada’s entire fishing industry is worth around 5$ billion dollars a year, being one of the world’s most valuable. However, the coasts have not been treated by respect; overfishing, over consumption, and wasteful practices has deteriorated, not only the industry, but the ecosystems and fish populations. This is a huge global issue; the worldwide collapse of fisheries has been project for 2048. Slowly, as the trends continue, we will inevitably see many fish species start to disappear. In fact, the ill-treatment of species on the Canadian border has already devastated a large specie, the cod.
U.S. Food And Drug Administration (2013, July 23). An overview of Atlantic salmon, its natural history, aquaculture, and genetic engineering. Retrieved May 1, 2014, from http://www.fda.gov/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/VeterinaryMedicineAdvisoryCommittee/ucm222635.htm
"A Sustainable Harvest." Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, 10 May 2011. Web. 25 Mar. 2012. .
Although it is morally incorrect to fabricate such an a wide-spread epidemic, it is the only way to significantly reduce overfishing of bluefin tuna and save the essential species from extinction which could lead to ecosystem devastation. Additional implications include asking the question; what will happen to the thousands of people employed in the fishing industry that will be affected by this. In all reality, if this trend of fishing continues, the species will soon be extinct anyway, but in other terms of convincing the government that this is a feasible idea, demand in substitute fish will increase, and this will keep the fishers busy.