Check its fins. If there is any eroding or scarring on the fins it is most likely that they were at one time it tanks, raceways or cages. When trout and salmon are crowded into and grown in man made enclosures their fins are almost always damaged and the scaring of the fins lasts until the day they die.

Now if you purchase your salmon in fillets in a supermarket you won’t see any fins, however, if you purchase in a seafood market, like Pike’s Place, you can check out the fins.

You’ve asked about the information regarding the health and wild and farmed salmon. We have copied a link to the paper (Friesen et al. 2008) below. It is a follow up paper to Hites et al. and accounts for the new salmon diets that have been engineered over the last few years. There are a few charts in this study which make it a little easier to pick out the highlights.

http://www.aseanbiotechnology.info/Abstract/21027734.pdf

Yes, it would be nice and farmed and wild salmon were equally healthy…and fortunately that is exactly the case. Perhaps your negative opinion was formed by taking information from the ‘infamous’ Hites (2004) study which looked at a comparison between farmed/wild salmon in 2001. Not only has the diet for farm-raised salmon changed over the past decade to ensure wild and farmed salmon are virtually identicle in health and contaminents, but the study you refer to actually found that both farm-raised and wild salmon are all very low in contaminents and high in Omega 3/6. The study was infact produced by the anti-salming farming Foundation called PEW that was determined to spin the results to attack salmon farmers and promote the consumption of wild salmon. The study has been since discredited due to many reasons.

New studies have now replaced the Hites study that show farm-raised and wild salmon are virtually identicle in health benefits with minimal ‘undesirables’.

So the fact is; whether it’s a wild, enhanced, farmed or ranched salmon – it’s very healthy for you. Thanks for asking (well actually you weren’t asking, you were telling…)

If that’s the way you feel then you are certainly missing the point of this blog. We support all types of responsible salmon culture including enhancement, ranching and farming. You are correct though; this blog clearly exposes the fact that most “wild” salmon are not “wild” at all (Alaska salmon ranching) and suggest that producers of salmon should be upfront with their methods of production. By simply calling their product “wild caught” is not a clear admission of how the salmon is produced. All production methods have benefits/impacts and only by openly discussing these benefits/impacts can we begin to do what is best for wild salmon.

Maybe letters to the CBC will further connect you to conservationist attitudes.

I don’t think we should tolerate extinction because it reflects our own attitudes about ourselves and I want to survive in the ecosystem as homo sapiens.

If we ignore this, we are homonoids.