Even though it’s considered to be one of the healthiest foods in the world, fish can be toxic, especially farmed one.
In fact, farmed salmon is claimed to be one of the most poisonous fish in the world. The farmed salmon industry is at a great cost, not just for the consumers, but for our precious environment too!
Unfortunately, salmon farms are a threat to the population of wild fish and are also impacting the communities nearby which rely on salmon.
In the last 10,000 years, the coastal First Nations of BC used the sea to provide for the community.
In fact, whole villages were fed with wild salmon and an abundance of other seafood like clams, rockfish, and abalone.
Why Is Salmon Farming Bad for the Environment?
The usage of open net-cages in the ocean releases the waste, chemicals, and parasites directly into the waters around and thus, negatively influences the marine life.
Since salmon are carnivorous, they need a lot of protein from wild fish. And, more kilos of wild fish are needed to raise salmon than the salmon which is produced.
This results in reduced stocks of wild fish and wild fish depletion. Moreover, farmed salmon often escapes and thus, it increases the habitat and food competition between the wild and the farmed salmon.
Farmed Salmon Is Toxic & Bad for Us
In the documentary of Nicolas Daniel, Fillet Oh-Fish, it’s clearly shown how intensive farming and global pollution has made the flesh of the fish we consume a deadly cocktail of chemicals.
Moreover, salmon farms are known to be very crowded and can hold up to 2 million salmon in a small space. As a result of this insufficient space, illnesses spread fast among the already-stressed salmon.
The pesticides they use to prevent pests like sea ice have been linked with neurotoxicity. Farmed salmon is therefore 5 times more toxic than any other food produce that was tested.
These pesticides have a negative impact on the DNA of fish and lead to genetic mutations. Moreover, around 50 percent of farmed cod is deformed because of the overuse of pesticides.
When the deformed female cod mates with the wild cod, these mutations spread into the wild fish.
Another Major Issue, Fish Meal
Fish meal is given to farmed salmon- it consisted of ground fish and fish oil from only several species of ocean fish.
This is why they’re high in contaminants- the fish given to salmon are full of toxins due to run-offs from agriculture and industry that goes into the ocean and then into them.
Since farmed salmon, unlike the wild, doesn’t have the option for consuming a variety of fish, they end up eating what’s given to them.
In this case, fish meal.