Finally, some “Intelligence” about Alaska ranched salmon

The Truth About Alaska Salmon is pleased to see that Seafood Intelligence dot com is providing it’s readers some insight into Alaska’s ranching program. As described below, we find the unwillingness for promoters of Alaskan salmon to even discuss its salmon ranching program astonishing. Thankfully, there are journalists within Seafood Intelligence that will keep asking the questions until someone provides answers! 

Posted March 6, 2009, by Seafood Intelligence dot com.

We publish today the third part (out of 6) of a Seafood Intelligence investigation on issues relating to the sustainability and traceability of fish feeds used in Alaska’s ‘wild’ salmon hatchery programmes. Our interest for this issue was prompted by three events: 1) the 2007 melamine-in-feed food safety crisis (the largest in the FDA’s history), 2) the June 2007 ruling by a US federal court judge in Washington that “a healthy hatchery [salmon] population is not necessarily an indication of a healthy natural population.” [Thus that hatchery salmon cannot “necessarily” be considered as ‘wild’ when it comes to seeking protection for the species under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA)]; and 3) the WWF-initiated ‘Stinky Fish’ campaign, which was scaled-down only days following its launch after creating a huge ’stink’ and being criticised for its bias. Our questions are all the more relevant that the Alaska fisheries authorities are at odds with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) as they strenuously argue that MSC certification for AK salmon should be “either for the entire state, or not at all.” Even Wal-Mart (which will soon only sell MSC-labelled seafood in its stores) has been pulled in on the topic… It is noteworthy that many fishermen’s organisations failed to answer our questions; so did many of the staunch critics of salmon farming in the Pacific Northwest, as we challenged the very notion of (some) Pacific salmon’s wilderness and redefined arguments in a debate too often simplified into a counter-productive wild-vs.-farmed opposition… “In Alaska, hatchery fish are carefully differentiated from farmed fish and are promoted as wild even though they are not ‘truly wild’.” wrote the Management of the WWF Global Marine Programme in a detailed response to Seafood Intelligence.

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