Got any tips? salmonfarmingkills@gmail.com
Got any tips? salmonfarmingkills@gmail.com
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Don Staniford reports on why you should avoid Scottish salmon
Morrisons supermarket has been working with the University of Stirling to seek consumer feedback on feeding chicken guts, offal and blood to Scottish salmon. Read more via Mail On Sunday: "Coming soon to a fish counter near you, the salmon that's truly fowl...."
Claims by the Scottish salmon farming industry that they are "sustainable" and "guardians of the environment" are laughable. Scottish salmon farming is inherently unsustainable and represents the antithesis of sustainability. Read more via "EXPOSED: Scottish Salmon's Sustainability Scam".
Salmon farmers, faced with a shortage of wild fish for use in feed, are now looking at alternatives including maggots, beetles, Black Soldier fly larvae and other creep crawlies. Is your flesh creeping yet? Read more via "Insect meals in salmon feed"; "The feasibility of using insects in salmon feed in Scotland" and "Will it fly?"
Scottish salmon is a scam, sham and a consumer con. Read more via "Tesco's 'Scottish' Salmon Scam Exposed!"; "Scots fish are ‘Vikings with kilts on’"; "‘Tartan imposters’ charge as fish egg imports hit 90%" and "Supermarkets sell Norwegian fish as ‘Scots’ salmon".
Farmed salmon - which can contain 15-20% fat - are fattier than pizza. Scientific research indicates that the consumption of farmed salmon "contributes to several metabolic disorders linked to type 2 diabetes and obesity". Read more via "Farmed salmon has 'more fat than pizza'"; "‘Healthy’ smoked salmon fattier than pizza" and "Chronic Consumption of Farmed Salmon Containing Persistent Organic Pollutants Causes Insulin Resistance and Obesity in Mice".
Read more via "Shopped: Net Closes on Fishy Salmon Labelling"
Mmm - lovely marinaded salmon fresh from the fishing boat? Not quite. Read more via "The Sun on Sunday: What's the catch?"
The online version of the packaging has a picture of a river bank - but this is a farmed not wild salmon product. Maybe this is a breach of Trading Standards for deceptive marketing? Read more via "The Scottish Salmon Scam".
Fancy a trip to Lochmuir to see where your M&S Scottish salmon is caught? Well, think again. Lochmuir doesn't even exist. "It's a name chosen by a panel of consumers because it had the most Scottish resonance," admit M&S. "It emphasises that the fish is Scottish."
Too good to be true? Of course - buyer beware of cheap imitations. Scottish salmon is farmed and dangerous. Cheap and nasty Scottish salmon leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Read more about the killing of seals at salmon farms sourced by Sainsbury's (from RSPCA Assured Marine Harvest) via "Carry on Killing Says RSPCA" and "RSPCA in firing line over Marine Harvest's seal-killing spree in Scotland"
Extra special Scottish salmon? Only if you think added extras including artificial colourings, cancer-causing contaminants, toxic chemicals, parasitic lice and infectious diseases is extra special. Read more via "Scottish Salmon Farming 101".
Fresh from loch? Healthy? Er, no! Read more via "Data on Mortalities & Diseases at Scottish Salmon Farms"
Say BOGOFF to Buy One Get One Free Scottish salmon! Especially if supermarkets cannot be bothered to distinguish between Scottish or Norwegian salmon (which is just as bad). Read more via "Red Light for Scottish salmon: Scotland is ranked worst in the world".
The only 'catch' about Scottish salmon is that it comes from a sea-lice infested factory farm. No fishing boats were involved in catching this Scottish salmon - only the mis-named'well boats' used to transport sick Scottish salmon.
If you're watching your weight and think Scottish salmon is the healthy choie, then think again. This Scottish or Norwegian salmon fillet from Lidl weighs in at a whopping 19% fat. And don't get us started on why supermarkets are allowed to label salmon "from Norway or Scotland". Surely consumers have a right to know which farm and company the salmon comes from?
This farmed Scottish salmon - packed in Belgium and then shipped back to the UK for sale via the Co-op - claim to be "from responsible sources, farmed in an environmentally responsible manner". Yes right.
Salmon farming is inherently unsustainable since it requires wild fish (including anchovies and krill) as a feed supply. Far from being a panacea for the world food problem, salmon farming is part of the problem. Read more via "Farming Salmon is Stealing Food from Poor People & Our Oceans”.
"About 3-4 pounds of ground up small fishes are required to produce one pound of farmed salmon," says Dr. Daniel Pauly. "Thus, the more farmed fish we produce, the less fish there is. This is akin to robbing Pedro to pay Paul."
"Aquaculture in the West produces a luxury product in global terms," continues Dr. Daniel Pauly. "To expect aquaculture to ensure that fish remain available--or, at least, to expect carnivore farming to solve the problem posed by diminishing catches from fisheries--would be akin to expecting that Enzo Ferrari’s cars can solve gridlock in Los Angeles. Read more via a "Letter to Kofi Annan".
In the desperate quest for feed, salmon farming companies are looking to Antartic krill. Farmed salmon pellets “are coated in krill to make them palatable to farmed fish” according to Taras Grescoe who reports that “enormous vessels from six different countries are vacuuming up krill” to satisfy demand. Read more via "Is krill the future of aquaculture?" and "Quick with krill".
In Peru, Dr. Patricia Majluf has campaigned to stop anchovies from being used in salmon feed and instead being eaten by hungry people in Latin America. Read more via "Fighting for fish meals not fishmeal".
"Unlike terrestrial livestock systems that rely mainly on vegetarian
diets, marine aquaculture is centered on raising “tigers of the sea"," wrote researchers at Stanford University. We don't farm top-predators such as tigers on land so why are we farming carnivores such as salmon in the sea? Read more via "Aquaculture & Ocean Resources: raising tigers of the sea".
Levels of beneficial omega-3 oils in farmed salmon have halved in five years. Read more via Omega-3 oils in farmed salmon 'halve in five years'
and "Are You Trading Your Omega-3s for PCBs with Your Choice of Salmon?"
Genetically engineered feed - including GM soya - is already used by salmon farming companies in other parts of the world. In Scotland, despite consumer resistance to GM including a ban on GM crops in Scotland - the pressure to feed farmed salmon on GM feed is intense with scientists predicting uptake by 2020. Read read via "Genetically modified crop successfully fed to salmon, say scientists" and
Genetically engineered salmon was farmed in Scotland in Loch Fyne in the 1990s but the salmon farming industry. Read more via "Fish farmers told 'reject GM salmon'"; "Giant GM salmon on the way"; "GM salmon prompts safety pledge"; "Monster scare for fish farmers"; "GM fish fail to hook Scottish salmon farmers"; "Q&A on Omega 3 levels in Farmed Salmon"; "GM crop ban: how Scottish salmon – and public health – could have benefited from this technology"; "Genetically engineered salmon goes on sale for the first time".
When you buy Scottish salmon you're also buying the bullets to shoot seals - even RSPCA Assured salmon.
"RSPCA Assured Seal Killers!"; "Marine Harvest: Scotland's #1 Seal Killer"; "RSPCA in firing line over Marine Harvest's seal-killing spree in Scotland".
In January 2018, a fish vet from Norway "highlighted major head injuries she has seen to fish treated with warm water delousing machinery". "No matter what non-drug method you use for delousing, it kills," said Kristin Ottesen in a report by Fish Farming Expert.
By buying Scottish salmon you are supporting environmental pollution (not to mention the killing of lobsters, seals and wild fish). In 2017, the Sunday Herald revealed 45 lochs in Scotland contaminated by salmon farms. Read more via "Revealed: Scandal of 45 Scottish lochs trashed by pollution".
In 2017 the Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food detected the banned carcinogen DDT in Scottish farmed salmon on sale in supermarkets across the UK (including Aldi, ASDA, Budgens, Marks & Spencers and Morrisons). Read more via "Pesticide residues in food: quarterly monitoring results for 2017".
Recipe of the Day: Steamed Scottish salmon. Heat the salmon in a Thermolicer for an hour at up to 34 degrees. Then serve, dead as a Norwegian Blue, on a bed of lice. Sprinkle liberally with a dash of Chlamydia and a sprinkle of Salmon Gill Poxvirus. Wash down with a bath treatment of Azamethiphos. Read more via "Scottish Salmon - ordering off menu?".
Around 4 million farmed salmon have escaped from Scottish salmon farms since 1998 in over 200 incidents.
Read more via "Scottish Salmon's Great Escape" and "Scotland's Aquaculture: Fish Escapes".
Salmon farms have spread like a malignant cancer around the Scottish coast - with 250 farms now littering the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. Then there's the cancer-causing chemicals found contaminating the sea-bed under salmon farms and in the flesh of farmed salmon. Read more via "Risk-Based Consumption Advice for Farmed Atlantic and Wild Pacific Salmon Contaminated with Dioxins and Dioxin-like Compounds"; "Farmed salmon linked to cancer risk" and "Study proves cancer-link chemicals in farm salmon".
A genetic study found one in four 'wild' Scottish salmon contain DNA from Norwegian fish (due to interbreeding via mass escapes from salmon farms). The Royal Society of London reported in 2003 that repeated escapes of farmed salmon could cause an "extinction vortex" in wild fish". Read more via "Fish farms are 'wiping out Scotland's wild salmon'"; "Report on Genetic Tool Development for Distinguishing Farmed vs Wild Fish in Scotland" and "Fitness reduction and potential extinction of wild populations of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, as a result of interactions with escaped farm salmon".
Scottish salmon may be cheap but it comes at a huge price to both the marine environment and human health. When are all the costs are properly accounted for, salmon farming is morally, environmentally and economically bankrupt. More via "BBC: Warnings from the Wild: the Price of Salmon"; "BBC: Farmed salmon 'contaminated'" and "Scottish Salmon Farming 101".
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Quantitative Analysis of the Benefits and Risks of Consuming Farmed and Wild Salmon (pdf)
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DownloadScience: "Global Assessment of Organic Contaminants in Farmed Salmon" (pdf)
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