Pure Salmon Campaign: Raising the Standards for Farm-Raised Fish

Our oceans are in trouble. Uncontrolled fishing has brought many species to the brink of extinction, while pollution from farms, cities, and factories is making other commercially important seafood unsafe to eat.

Problems with Salmon Aquaculture

Many thought that aquaculture held the answer to these problems. Yet, practices differ sharply from country to country, making some types of farmed seafood unsustainable or unhealthy. Salmon, perhaps the most popular type of fish raised in sea farms, poses several problems for the environment and public health:

• The waste from millions of captive fish empties directly into the ocean, polluting the water with untreated sewage, toxic chemicals, and other wastes.
• Approximately three million genetically identical salmon escape from their pens each year, interbreeding with, and often out-competing populations of genetically superior wild salmon.
• Captive farmed salmon make ideal hosts for highly contagious diseases and parasites; escapees spread them to wild fish.
• As they grow, carnivorous and voracious farmed salmon need increasing amounts of wild caught fish for food, thus competing directly with humans and fish species for this valuable yet diminishing resource. Currently, it takes the equivalent of three pounds of fish from the world’s oceans to make one pound of farmed salmon.

Farmed salmon also poses a significant threat to human health. A diet that includes wild-caught salmon can be very beneficial to health. Farmed salmon, in contrast, offers fewer dietary advantages and several disadvantages. Recent research has shown that:

• Farmed salmon contains such high concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other dangerous contaminants that scientists advise people to drastically restrict their monthly intake of farmed fish.
• Artificial coloring, toxic by-products, antibiotics and other drugs, and cancer-causing contaminants are present to various degrees in farmed salmon tissue, often at levels that can adversely affect human health.

The Pure Salmon Campaign

The Pure Salmon Campaign grew out of these human health and environmental concerns. Global in reach, Pure Salmon has partners in the United States, Canada, Scotland, the European Union, and Chile—all working to improve the way salmon is produced.

Our Goals
The Pure Salmon campaign rests on one simple premise: salmon can be farmed safely and with minimal ecological damage, if the industry adopts standards that protect the environment, consumers and local communities. Essentially, this means (1) replacing open net pens with enclosed tanks equipped with proper water filtration systems for wastes and (2) developing more ecologically sustainable forms of food to replace the current “fish chow” containing fish meal, fish oil, chemicals, drugs, and other toxic residues.

The campaign seeks nothing less than to transform the salmon farming industry, not merely for it to adopt marginally better “best practices.”

Pure Salmon calls on the salmon aquaculture industry to:

1. Adopt farming methods that eliminate disease transfer and salmon escapes;
2. Eliminate the use of antibiotics, biocides, and harmful chemicals in salmon farming;
3. Guarantee salmon farm waste is not discharged directly into the environment;
4. Stop the current depletion of wild fish stocks caused by the 3:1 ratio of slaughtered fish to salmon growth;
5. Prohibit the use of genetically engineered fish, feed, and other genetic modification;
6. Guarantee that salmon farming does not harm other wildlife;
7. Respect the views of coastal communities and other stakeholders in locating farms; and
8. Adopt and implement ethical business practices, including safe, healthy work environments and fair compensation.