FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 5, 2007
CONTACT:
Dave Bard,
202.486.4426
Statement by Andrea Kavanagh, director, Pure Salmon Campaign,
on the escape of almost one million farmed salmon and trout into fjord waters around Norway in 2006
Washington, D.C. — A recent news report found that 790,000 salmon and trout escaped from Norwegian fish farms into rivers and the ocean in 2006. This is 10% higher than the number of fish that escaped last year. These fish carry diseases that affect wild populations. These farmed fish also compete for food and interbreed with the native species. This threatens the future of wild fish populations and other marine life.
"We rarely see the World Wildlife Fund call for a boycott. But they just did for salmon originating from the farms responsible for these escapes. The head of the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries was so outraged that he ordered that the lax security on the farms that result in escapes be treated as seriously as the crime of rape. Clearly, this problem cannot be regarded lightly.
"Every year, massive escapes of farm-raised fish from enormous net pens drastically alter marine ecosystems, coastal rivers and estuaries around the world. These fugitive fish pose a new and little understood form of environmental pollution.
"This is exactly why open ocean fish farms need to switch to closed containment systems. Closed containers, including fiberglass, cement tanks, and heavy gauge plasticized bags, physically separate fish from the external environment and would make problems like this a thing of the past."
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Background
For more information go to Pure Salmon Campaign.
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