“Wild caught” salmon. Interesting choice of words. Why is the word “caught” just kinda thrown in there willy nilly?
In our last blog, we defined what a real wild salmon is (spawned naturally in a river). We’ve also defined what a ranched salmon is (raised in a hatchery and net pen and released into the ocean to compete for food with wild salmon). Because ranched salmon are not at all wild, they can’t be sold as such. And when fishing boats catch salmon in Alaska, it’s hard to identify which is wild and which is ranched – although there’s a 1 in 3 chance of it being ranched. So, brilliant marketers figured that if you call them wild “caught”, meaning the process of catching the salmon was in a traditionally wild manner (caught with a boat and hook or net), then they’ve got it covered.
Truth in marketing?
One shining example of using the term “wild caught” to maximum benefit would be the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program. They give a ‘green light’ to eating wild “caught” salmon from Alaska. They make no mention whatsoever of the salmon ranching program that has produced those fish. Nada. Why is this important you may ask?
Well, this Seafood Watch program purports to base its green/yellow/red listings on science. It uses this science to grade each fish on sustainability and health. By ignoring the fact that 1 in 3 salmon from Alaska are artificially propogated (farmed) for up to half its life cycle, means the staff at Monterey Bay don’t have to worry about looking into the potential environmental impacts of ranching salmon. Why is this important you may ask…again?
Well, the Seafood Watch program is quite hard on many types of farmed seafood, it seems especially nasty toward farmed salmon. Whether or not that tough ranking is fair is very debatable. To the point: if farm-raised salmon is graded based on the culturing technique applied, then why shouldn’t Alaskan salmon be graded on this same criteria?
That would be fair, wouldn’t it?
