Wild caught Salmon could reach $30 lb.

[progressoid]

Grocery shoppers who want to buy wild salmon this year are going to have pay some wild prices. The California and Oregon seasons have been suspended, leaving only a trickle of fish in Alaska to be eaten.

Listen to story on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89114999

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Salmon Virus Indicts Chile’s Fishing Methods

A virus called infectious salmon anemia, or I.S.A., is killing millions of salmon destined for export to Japan, Europe and the United States. The spreading plague has sent shivers through Chile’s third-largest export industry, which has left local people embittered by laying off more than 1,000 workers.

It has also opened the companies to fresh charges from biologists and environmentalists who say that the breeding of salmon in crowded underwater pens is contaminating once-pristine waters and producing potentially unhealthy fish.

...

Environmentalists say the salmon are being farmed for export at the expense of almost everything else around. The equivalent of 7 to 11 pounds of fresh fish are required to produce 2 pounds of farmed salmon, according to estimates.

Salmon feces and food pellets are stripping the water of oxygen, killing other marine life and spreading disease, biologists and environmentalists say. Escaped salmon are eating other fish species and have begun invading rivers and lakes as far away as neighboring Argentina, researchers say.

...

Meanwhile, neighboring fishermen who have been affected by the fish-farming industry can only hope for better days. Mr. Guttierrez, 33, said that just six years ago he and his fishing partner would haul in 1,100 pounds of robalo on a typical day. On a recent day he pointed to that morning’s catch of only 88 pounds in a cooler in the bed of a pickup truck.

He lamented the changes he had observed in the fish: they are rosier than before, and their skin is flabbier. He said he suspected that the wild fish were eating the same food pellets that the salmon were being fed, which he said were falling to the sea floor.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/world/americas/27salmon.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

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Pine beetle infestation impacting salmon runs

VANCOUVER - If the heat of climate change weren't enough of a danger to Pacific salmon, scientists are cataloging how the effects of the global-warming-aided mountain pine beetle infestation are adding to salmon's woes.

The grain-of-rice-sized beetles have chewed through interior pine forests covering an area four-times the size of Vancouver Island, a report released Tuesday by the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council notes.

Some 60 per cent of the Fraser River watershed is affected, with loss of forest cover over salmon streams that has led to numerous impacts that "significantly alter the watershed's ecology, threatening already stressed salmon runs."

More: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=7c22a715-f210-4ee0-92c2-a6282428ebbf&k=48776

[Taverner]

1. No regulation for Salmon Farming caused this

[progressoid]

2. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

if it ever gets better.

[Taverner]

3. Salmon farming needs to be regulated so that it has less impact

Fish Farms don't have to be destructive to the environment - look at abalone farms. They're all self contained and have no impact other than power use.

[dysfunctional press]

4. i'm headed to costco to stock up the freezer...

we eat at least a couple full-sized fillets just about every week.

[progressoid]

6. Oookay....

From the NYT article:

“All these problems are related to an underlying lack of sanitary controls,” said Dr. Felipe C. Cabello, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at New York Medical College in Valhalla that has studied Chile’s fishing industry. “Parasitic infections, viral infections, fungal infections are all disseminated when the fish are stressed and the centers are too close together.”

But the latest outbreak has occurred after a rash of nonviral illnesses in recent years that the companies acknowledge have led them to use high levels of antibiotics. Some of those antibiotics, they say, are prohibited for use on animals in the United States.

Many of those salmon still end up in American grocery stores, where about 29 percent of Chilean exports are destined. While fish from China have come under special scrutiny in recent months, here in Chile regulators have yet to form a registry that even tracks the use of the drugs, researchers said.

The new virus is spreading, but it has primarily affected the fish of Marine Harvest, a Norwegian company that is the world’s biggest producer of farm-raised salmon and exports about 20 percent of the salmon that come from Chile. Salmon produced in Chile by Marine Harvest are sold in Costco and Safeway stores, among other major grocery retailers, said Torben Petersen, the managing director of Marine Harvest here.

[dysfunctional press]

9. maybe not, then.

maybe i'll switch to fish oil capsules.

[Winterblues]

5. What BS

There are five species of salmon and only the Chinook salmon will be so high priced. Silver salmon fetches about $4.50 a pound and pink salmon about $1.00 a pound. Red salmon may reach $10.00 a pound but only because the Japanese value it so highly. Chum salmon is about 60 cents a pound.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. They're predicting very good runs up here this year,

aren't they? Wild Alaska salmon is the best -- I wouldn't touch that farmed stuff.

[progressoid]

8. Chum may be the only affordable one.

Clearly the NPR headline was intended to be an eyegrabber and applies to the best fresh fillets. But it's not too exagerated. Here in the midwest, it's hard to even find fresh wild salmon. In fact, our local stores often only sell farm raised because the price of wild is too high (I saw farm raised last week for $7.99 in one store and 9.95 in another).

You may be able to buy silver for 4.50, but by the time it gets down to us schmucks in the lower 48 it's going to be a bit more expensive if we can even find it. I can get it online for $7.95 (plus 29.95 shipping and a minimum 5 lb order):
http://www.alaskasmokedfish.com/alaska-salmon.html

Chum here for only $3.99/lb (plus shipping):
http://wildsalmonseafood.com/main.php3?primNavIndex=3&mainURL=%2Fpages%2F40015

Or 5 lbs of Keta from these guys for only 69.96 (plus $29.95 shipping).
http://www.wildpacificsalmon.com/site/680079/page/45031
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Salmon prices around Southeast hit new records at the end of January. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the regional average for winter kings is $9.77 per pound, with some processors in Sitka and elsewhere reportedly paying as much as $10.25.

http://aprn.org/2008/02/04/southeast-salmon-prices-at-record-highs/

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