[altasnob]

I didn't know about the fish farming on the Columbia River. Looks like it is steelhead trout, not salmon though. But today, there is no fish farming in any salt water in Washington, Oregon, and California, correct? I read that 70% of salmon produced worldwide is farm raised salmon. Norway (55.3%) and Chile (25.4%) are the major producers. Canada is the only country in North America and has 6% of the world market.

[Ski]

^ That sounds about right. Its a huge industry now. When the price of a piece of Atlantic Salmon filet in Paris is three times what you are paying for the same product at Safeway, they opt for farm-raised Tilapia. All kinds of videos on YouTube on this subject, many of which are rife with half-truths, untruths, and flat-out damn lies. The viewer will need to fact-check most every point raised. That said, if you watch enough of them - say 20 or 30 or 40 hours or so - you start to get a pretty good picture of what's going on globally. It's all about the money - not one of the people involved in the Aquaculture industry gives a damn about the wild resources. Probably the most outrageous - out of all of it - are the shrimp farms in southeast Asia. They've turned their rivers into cesspools in some areas so you can buy shrimp at Safeway for $8.99 a pound. (That also tastes like muddy cardboard.) It also had the effect of significant economic problems for the people there at the bottom end of the socio-economic scale when the rice paddies were converted to shrimp farming. We'll run out of fresh drinking water in about 30 years, according to an internal executive memo that was leaked from the offices of Nestle', so why worry about fish, right?

[Malachai Constant]

You are right about the farmed shrimp in Southeast Asia. We recentently came back from a trip there and since Lynda is pescatarian we often have shrimp for a protein source. I have prior experience there and always avoided the Vietnamese shrimp from Costco. I also avoid farm raised fish in general and Basa in particular. The shrimp in Vietnam and Cambodia are often huge and in our opinion inedible. We saw where th shrimp are raised on the Mekong Delta and bays in Northern Vietnam. The water in all cases is grossly polluted and the shrimp taste like dirt. Back in the day there were great shrimp in hood canal but they are gone now. Surprisingly wild caught Gulf shrimp are not bad, but unavailable in the west. Usually we resort to the “wild caught” frozen shrimp from Patagonia. Atlantic Salmon is not salmon but a type of char but makes good lox when smoked. I have friends from Alaska and do not like farmed salmon of any type.

[altasnob]

Why rip on farmed shrimp in Asia when here in Washington we have nearly eliminated our native oyster population and replaced it with non-native varieties and spray neurotoxins in Willapia bay, which kills all the native sand burrowing shrimp.

[IanB]

[altasnob]

I think it's mostly a Willapa Bay issue because the Hood Canal and other inland waters don't have the sand to support the native sand shrimp. Oysters are not native to Willapa bay. The sand shrimp are. But just like people in Norway who feel the need to eradicate their native salmon in favor of farmed aquaculture, we do the same here in Washington when it comes to oysters. https://www.opb.org/news/article/washington-willapa-bay-oysters-ghost-shrimp/

[IanB]

[Ski]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fish-farm-threatens-wreak-havoc-190000265.html