I would like to know who the other unions are that are working with Sierra Club on the issue of ocean "farming" of salmon. Here in Hawaii we are told that sea farming will be a good economic engine for our depleted stocks of fish ---- and create more jobs. Our legislators in the state do not appear to be interested in hearing about any negatives either - when it came to ocean liners and dumping of waste around the islands it took years for any action on their trash practices. We have 4 major Wal-Marts on the island of Oahu - with another one being built. The Wal-Mart effect is here - and yet no word from our local press, and just some local union voices over the mega-stores. The issue of what is in the Wal-Mart - and how it remains so cheap - is a question that is VERY rarely asked by anyone who steps into the store. It should be the first question of a conscious person.

Eds:

Good article on salmon; informative and better than what you've been running lately. Let's have more such reporting, and less (a) hot air from writers with the same opinions as can be found in any number of other places on the web and in print, and (b) celebrity/personality obsession masquerading as journalism/criticism. Thanks.

Other readers have expressed feelings similar to mine: farm-raised salmon tastes terrible compared to the wild Alaskan variety and the "farmed product" ptobably is nutritionally bankrupt. Once I learned several years ago that, in salmon-speak, "Atlantic" is synonimous with "raised on a farm and fed dyed corn-meal," I stopped purchasing it and have only bought Alaskan wild salmon since.

One down-side not mentioned in the article or by reader comments is that Chile's salmon boom has contributed to the near-demise of Alaska's salmon industry. Since 1985, revenues from Alaskan salmon have declined *70%*!

I have seen the evidence first-hand. On our most recent trip to Alaska in 2002, my wife and I flew over many of Kodiak Island's salmon processing plants. All were shuttered.

Not to sound protectionist, but isn't it time to start being concerned about *American* workers?

Of course, once Americans get over their faddish desire for cheap, tasteless Chilean "imitation fish food product," the South American workers will be forced back into subsistance farming. I doubt that Alaska's salmon industry will recover, however.

As a British Columbian I am all too familiar with the damage being done to pacific wild salmon stocks by the introduction of their farmed atlantic cousins.

Sea lice are crustacean parasites that can also affect fish. Both wild and farmed salmon are at risk. Scientists here studied 5,500 young wild pink and chum salmon over 37 miles of their migration route along the BC coastline. Juvenile salmon carried almost no sea lice prior to the farm but became heavily infected as they approached it. Infection levels reach over 70 times higher than normal.

The impact of a single farm is far-reaching. Sea lice production is four orders of magnitude - 30,000 times - higher than natural. These lice then spread out around the farm.

Sea lice can lower the fitness of salmon - and in some cases be lethal - as they create open lesions on the surface of the fish that compromises its ability to maintain its salt-water balance.

When infection rates are high enough, the parasites feed on the fish at rates greater than the fish can feed itself, literally eating the fish alive. Young salmon are much more vulnerable due to their small size.

In Alaska, where fish farms are banned, sea lice are not found to prey on juvenile pink salmon.

The aquaculture problems in Canada’s Broughton Archipelago echo those in Norway, Ireland, and Scotland, where the environmental impacts of fish farming have led to large scale collapses of wild salmon populations.

Some European countries use chemicals to control the parasites and dye to turn farmed salmon flesh pink. The use of those chemicals has led some environmentalists to hold demonstrations run ads urging consumers to boycott farmed salmon. Some grocery stores carry labels saying farmed fish contain dye. And a major study in the journal Science last year found more cancer-causing PCBs in farmed fish over wild fish.

Please read FARMED SALMON - A DREAM TURNED NIGHTMARE by by Dr. Roderick O’Sullivan for more on how contaminated farmed salmon is.

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/osullivan.shtml

Why are we even talking about eating salmon? As stated in the article, salmon used to be a delicacy and rarely served in the lower 48 states.

We are not eating salmon because of the master minds and marketing geniuses at Walmart -- we are eating salmon because various health pundits over the last decade or so have told us to do so. It's supposed to be full of various health benefits, Omega 3 acids and so on. It's also supposed to be good for our hearts and arteries, and let's not forget the most important part -- eating fish is low calorie (vs. eating red meat) and is supposed to make us thin. Eating meat, fish and especially salmon is part and parcel of every low carb diet.

Maybe it will turn out that eating salmon is bad for us. I don't know. I have been told so many different things over the last 25 years, that I have no idea what is OK to eat at all. Oat bran is a life saver...oh, no oops, it's not that good after all. Eat lots of carbs, pasta, veggies...ooops, no I guess that makes you fat. Eat only protein....oops, no that gives you heart disease. Eat only vegetables....oops, no, those are coated with pesticides.

Basically, it's apparently that NOTHING is good enough for our precious bodies to consume as fuel. Oh, unless it's something rare and wild and caught with a special net, and sold only at some primo, uber-pricey store called Whole Foods, which doesn't even do business in the state I live in.

Most American families, including mine, cannot feed themselves on any substance -- whether wild caught salmon, Beluga caviar, Kobe beef, etc. -- that costs $19.99 a pound or more. This is the kind of precious eating that can only be done by maybe ONE or two high income yuppies who are eating teeny tiny portions anyhow so that they can stay super slim. If I even attempted this, it would cost $100 a day to feed my family! GET REAL!!!!

A more productive conversation would be why Americans are so nutty and obessive about what they eat, how much they weigh, and what kind of status can be achieved by eating precious, fancy, expensive foods that other people can't afford.

I am not defending Walmart -- I object to the way they treat employees and the lack of health insurance, etc. I act on this to some degree by writing them with my concerns, by writing my state and federal representatives and by choosing, mostly, to shop elsewhere.

However, we are deluding ourselves if we don't think that other grocery megacenters (SuperTarget, Costco, Bjs and so on) are not doing pretty much the same darned thing. Do you think THEIR salmon is wild caught in Alaska? Please! And what about your neighborhood grocer -- what are the chances that he is buying the same exact Chilean farmed salmon and just charging you more, then pocking the difference?????