The State of Alaska has just released its 2008 annual report that summarizes the size of its salmon ranching program. It’s no surprise to us that a significant percentage of Alaskan salmon is cultured, and even less surprising that marketers (including the Seafood Watch program and Marine Stewardship Council) will continue to ignore this fact.
In 2008;
- Alaska hatcheries released over 1.4 billion juvenile salmon into the ocean basin to compete with wild salmon for food
- an estimated 60 million adult salmon of hatchery origin survived and returned
- there were approximately 146 million salmon harvested in the commercial and sport fishery, and an estimated 60 million, or 41% were produced by the Alaska salmon ranching program
- in the Prince William Sound area, ranched salmon accounted for 91% of the salmon in the commercial harvest
- Over 60 million ranched salmon are expected to return in 2009
Wild huh? The only thing ‘wild’ about Alaska salmon is the fact that they can keep this program so secret.
To learn more about salmon ranching, click here.
To view the annual report, click here.
