Salmon Farming – A Dream or Nightmare?

 

Current Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is an unlimited fan for fish farming. Just the other day, he named fish farming to the front line for investment opportunities between New Zealand and Thailand.  Jones was on a Zoom call to delegates at the inaugural Thailand-New Zealand business matching event, in Bangkok.

Back in March, Shane Jones lauded the final approval of New Zealand King Salmon’s Blue Endeavour open ocean aquaculture project as a significant step for New Zealand’s aquaculture and a win for the economy. 

“Blue Endeavour will be the first open ocean aquaculture salmon farm in New Zealand. It’s going to provide more jobs for the Marlborough region and benefit our economy by providing sustainable kaimoana to the world,” Mr Jones says.  

The Blue Endeavour project will develop salmon farming in the open sea off the north Marlborough Sounds and is expected to produce 10,000 tonnes of harvested salmon annually, with export revenue of up to $300 million per year.

But is fish farming full of fortune or just a fallacy?

I am sceptical. From a personal viewpoint I’m very aware that King Salmon has struggled in its salmon farm endeavours in the Marlborough Sounds. Fish deaths were rumoured to be high particularly in summer and that truckloads were being taken to the local refuse station. 

 

 

Marlborough Sounds

 

 

Bureaucratic Brick Wall

So I set about finding out and enquired to the Marlborough District Council about amounts dumped. I ran into a bureaucratic brick wall. Council refused to release the data on the grounds of “commercial sensitivity”. 

So I went to the Ombudsman and laid a complaint.

The Ombudsman ordered the Marlborough District Council to release the figures.

The amounts were staggering. Not all was dead fish, some was debris, old tired ropes etc., but mostly dead fish. The amounts of monthly dumpings were staggering ranging from 20 tonnes or so to 100 tonnes in some four week periods. Rumours were rife about heavy disease losses but information non-existent. 

Not helping is that the Ministry of Fisheries, according to independent scientists, lacks ability to diagnose and to be publicly open.

Now as Shane Jones lauds, King Salmon is moving into more open water but still in the Marlborough Sounds.

The troubles for King Salmon did not really surprise me. 

Going back decades, I was involved in scrutinising proposals for trout farming that were proposed by the then National government. I had been warned by a fisheries officer about the ill effects of trout farming. so I investigated.

Similar Picture

I corresponded with sources mostly scientific in a number of countries from Australia to Denmark, Japan, USA and a few others. Basically they, independently of each other, painted a picture of ill environmental effects, fish deaths due to rampant disease and poor economic value.

As Chief of Public Use for Fish Hatcheries Bureau of Sports Fisheries and Wildlife, USA Department of Interior the late Ben Schley put it to me personally when he called on me at Motueka, “capital intensive, high risk and marginally economic”. He repeated it in a following letter for me to include in my submissions to a parliamentary select committee on trout farming.

“For some reason or another, some seem to erroneously think that a great deal of money can be easily made by producing trout for the commercial market.”

Ben Schley told of “tremendous difficulties with diseases” with commercial fish farms closed down by government order due to “very serious disease organisms.”

The problem for fish farms it seems, is due its “marginally economic” nature. Fish pens are crowded in a striving for at least some profit. However, dense populations provide optimum conditions for disease to establish and erupt.

Trout or salmon – they’re both of the salmonoid family.

New Book

A relatively new book from publishers Patagonia in the US gives an up-to-date searching insight into the salmon farming dream. Authors Simen Saetre and Kjetil Ostli carried out a five year study and investigation, evaluating the effects of salmon farming, particularly in Norway but also Chile and Australia.

It all began with a dream.

“People could see money in it. And which fish would people pay the most for? Salmon! Yes, salmon, the king among fish—a superior fish for festive occasions and fancy restaurants.”

So in 2016 the authors started their investigation into salmon farming. But there were obstacles. People, even scientists were afraid to speak openly.

Norway became the main focus for the investigation, a seafood nation —“where money talked—-and critics were branded as activists.”

In only a few decades, Norway’s salmon farm industry emerged making some people rich.

According to the prestigious “Forbes” magazine, three of the world’s richest people under the age of thirty were salmon farming heirs. New seafood billionaires infiltrated the lists of the planet’s wealthiest individuals. 

“They were hailed by the authorities, celebrated by the industry media and praised by politicians with visions of the bright future of salmon farming.”

Problems Emerged

The salmon farm dream gained momentum in producing countries such as Chile, UK, Canada, Australia and our native Norway,” wrote the authors. “but the wealth and the power came at a cost.”

Lice infested the salmon crowded into pens.

“Wrasse which were supposed to eat lice off the salmon, died on the job. Shrimp, lobster and other fish in the fiord environment, like the wild salmon themselves, are now considered near threatened.”

The industry reacted by seeking new ways or solutions. But every solution had the potential to cause another problem. The fish escaped and interbred with wild salmon, compromising genetic strains—in response a new fish was made; sterile and triploid, but it was often deformed and died due to ulcers.

Wild salmon numbers in rivers plummeted.

All the time the salmon farm industry tried to bury growing damning evidence by hiring spin doctors and in some cases, paying researchers to write complimentary reports.

Lice were a major problem but they developed resistance to all louse poisons. “Biosecurity is sacrificed in the battle against lice,” said one veterinarian.

Salmon in a farm have to be fed. But that means taking food from elsewhere to feed the farmed salmon. 

Food Conversion

“Salmon was one of the fish that needed the most marine feed to grow. The industry estimates that one salmon currently needs 1.39 kilos of wild fish to put on a kilo of weight. This means that for every kilo it gains, it has eaten 1.39 kilos of fish from the sea. Therefore salmon is contributing to there being fewer fish in the world.”

But in places like West Africa where the small fish along the coast had nutrients that children were deficient  in and could give them healthier lives, but the fish were exported as feed——families, especially children—- are suffering across Africa and Asia because of the demands of the aquaculture industry.”

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) wrote “the small fish can be used to to feed people —-but the systems are rigged to make sure the fish go to aquaculture.”

Chile’s woes with salmon farming are graphically told. A scientist related how “If there were lice, chemicals were thrown at them. If fish died in droves, antibiotics were used—another time, farmers used malachite green, an anti-parasitic banned in many countries, to remove fungus.”

She dived beneath the farm where “waste from salmon floated along with feed remnants and sludge. It was very dark down there, like being blind.”

Corruption is continually revealed in “The New Fish” with cases of scientists doing supposedly credible reports on salmon farming but not revealing they had shares in the seafood industry. Other scientists daring to speak candidly, were muzzled or intimidated.

An investigation into researchers receiving funds from the industry revealed that in 70 out of 76 cases, the conclusions were as the sponsor wanted. 

In another case a Norwegian researcher commenting on escaped farmed salmon in the Alta River resulted in a politician demanding the scientist be fired. Other similar cases abound.

Revealing

In a nutshell, authors Authors Simen Saetre and Kjetil Ostli have produced a revealing, deep insight into the detrimental effects of salmon farming.

But politicians can be both blind and deaf. 

Norway’s minister of fisheries thinks “Norwegians should be proud of their farmed salmon as the French are of their wine,” write the authors. “As someone said, however aquaculture is the best industry in the world – until you look closer.”

“What do we see today? A sicker salmon. More ulcers, viruses, more fish dying, facilities with so many lice—.”

Some countries have responded to stricter controls on salmon farming even to the point of prohibition.

“In southern Argentina, salmon farming is banned. The same is happening in the state of Washington in the United States. In Canada salmon farmers are being forced out of some areas and into closed facilities,” explain the authors.

In Chile there are protest demonstrations against salmon farming.

“Young Norwegians are turning their backs on the salmon, eating less of it, despite authorities attempts to market it to children.”

“The salmon industry has a poor reputation,’ write the authors, “with criticism from the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, the Office of the Auditor General and from veterinarians who work in the industry.”

Even so the vested interest salmon farm industry fights back, “armed with lawyers, lobbyists, PR advisors and industry-financed research.”

Here in New Zealand, Fisheries Minister Shane Jones pushes on with his dream – or will it become a nightmare?

“The New Fish” candidly spells out the realities.

Perhaps Shane Jones should read “The New Fish” ?

Buy it and judge for yourself. Highly recommended.

 

Footnote: ‘The New Fish” by Kjetil Ostli and Simen Saetre, published by Patagonia.  The book can be purchased from: https://www.patagonia.co.nz/collections/books