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staniford files

The enclosed article - "NZ salmon fed chicken remains" - adds a whole new dimension to the phrase "Chicken of the Sea".

Note that Nutreco (www.nutreco.com), owners of Marine Harvest, as well as being the world´s largest salmon farming companies are also chicken farmers and poultry producers. Nutreco are not named in the enclosed article but Nutreco´s fish feed subsidiary Skretting supply fish feed to salmon farmers in Tasmania and New Zealand (http://www.skretting.com.au/). Skretting Australia have also participated in an Australian Government research programme using “meat, meat and bone, blood, feather, poultry meals” and “rendered animal products” in farmed salmon diets: http://www.frdc.com.au/pub/reports/files/98-322.htm

For more on BSE in fish see last year´s Nature article "Prions get fishy" which states: "Fish, like sheep, elk and humans, could suffer a version of 'mad cow disease', or BSE, preliminary evidence suggests. The results might help to reveal how the disease jumps from species to species"

http://www.nature.com/nsu/030127/030127-12.html

See also: "Search for BSE type disease turns to fish farms" (The Guardian, 15th March 2002): http://www.guardian.co.uk/bse/article/0,2763,667679,00.html

Includes: "A ban on any mammalian meat and bone meal from farm animals being fed to fish has been in place in Britain since 1996, cutting a theoretical route of BSE infection on fish farms

The Star-Times, 1^st February

NZ salmon fed chicken remains

Amie Richardson

Two of the country's largest salmon companies are feeding their fish ground poultry feathers - a practice damned by a marine expert who says it's a potential "recipe for disaster" for public health.

But the companies, New Zealand King Salmon and Sanford, both say feathermeal is safe.

It is a by-product of chicken processed for human consumption, heat-treated and hydrolysed to make the feathermeal, then heat-treated again to remove any traces of bacteria. Both companies have been assured by Australian suppliers of the product that it is "perfectly safe".

NZ King Salmon, which exports two-thirds of the 5000 tonnes of salmon it produces a year, uses the feathermeal in up to 5.5% of its feeds imported from Australia and Chile. The end product has about 80% protein and 10% fat.

NZ King Salmon produces brands such as Regal Marlborough Salmon, Seasmoke Traditional Seafood and Southern Ocean.

Chief executive Paul Steere said the practice was common and feathermeal is a "high quality and safe protein". The majority of the feed is made up of fish meal and fish oil. No cow products are used.

Sanford agriculture manager Ted Culley said the feathermeal was a good source of protein.

But UK marine expert and environmentalist Don Staniford, who visited King Salmon's farm in Pelorus Sound while in New Zealand, was not aware of any other country using feathermeal in salmon farming.

"Clearly wild salmon don't feed on chickens. It would be fundamentally altering the make-up of the salmon.

"Also feeding animals to other animals is not a good idea, given the problems in the UK with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalitis).

"It's a recipe for disaster. We don't know the potential public health impacts. Salmon don't eat chickens and they don't eat artificial colourings."

King Salmon also acknowledges using the anti-parasite treatment formalin - a known cancer-causing agent - in small quantities in the salmon hatcheries. Formalin is a European Union-banned substance, but is legal in New Zealand.

The company stopped using another anti-parasite treatment malachite green - a respiratory toxin and suspected carcinogen banned in the US and European Union - in 2002. Staniford, who is part of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said formalin is a "double whammy" negative substance, posing a health and environmental risk.

Staniford - who exposed the illegal use of chemicals on Scottish salmon farms - was also concerned about the industry's use of artificial colourings such as canthaxanthin and astaxanthin - fed to salmon to make their flesh pink.

European union farmers have been forced to lower levels of canthaxanthin because of potential health risks to the eye. King Salmon uses only astaxanthin, a similar compound now being tested for any potential health risks.

Green MP Sue Kedgley was shocked by the practice because with tests being done on potential risks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in chicken, she was concerned the bacteria could then be spread through the salmon.

She thought it "bizarre" that salmon would be fed chicken feathers: "I don't believe we ought to be feeding animals to fish."

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority said as long as the feed complied with the rules of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act then there were no concerns.

Mt Cook Salmon general manager Rick Ramsay said the company did not use feathermeal in its salmon feed and would not because of the potential damage to its image.

"We don't use chemicals, and we only use fish meal. Even if we needed an extra protein source, I wouldn't be keen to use it."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,2801478a6005,00.html

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Press update includes:

“Listeria found in smoked salmon” (The Sunday Times, 25^th January)

“Salmon farms face US lawsuits on toxins - Scots producers named over cancer risk chemicals” (The Herald, 24^th January)

“Salmon study authors hit back at critics” (Fish Farming Today, 23^rd January)

“Salmon are prisoners” (The Daily Telegraph, 23^rd January)

Includes from yesterday´s Herald:

“Factions within the Scottish salmon farming industry yesterday indicated, for the first time, that it had to examine its feed procedures to answer the critics. Pan Fish Scotland, based in Argyll and one of the largest suppliers of farmed salmon in Scotland, said it was considering switching from using fish oil to vegetable oil. Alex Adrian, its technical manager, said: “We don’t think there is anything in the salmon that is a cause for concern, but at the same time we cannot sit down and keep chanting that out as a mantra. “It may be that the reason why we see Scotland having higher levels of PCBs in its salmon is because we are the only major salmon production area that predominantly uses fish oil.”

For a media and document archive see The Salmon Farm Monitor: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

February issue of The Salmon Farm Monitor goes online from 1^st February – subscribe for free via: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

The Sunday Times, 25^th January

Listeria found in smoked salmon

Camillo Fracassini

Evidence that some Scottish farmed salmon is contaminated with listeria bacteria has been uncovered by a Sunday Times investigation. Almost a fifth of smoked salmon samples bought from supermarkets and food suppliers last week contained traces of the bug, dealing another damaging blow to the industry. The level of contamination was high enough to mean that the fish would be banned from America, Australia and New Zealand as well as a number of European countries, all of which have a “zero tolerance” of food contaminated with listeria. America has already blocked dozens of consignments of Scottish smoked salmon amid fears that they may be contaminated with listeria. In 2001, the European Commission recommended each member state carry out a study of listeria contamination in smoked fish products. Of the 15 member states, only six participated including France, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland and Spain. The Sunday Times investigation is therefore the first confirmation that the bacteria is present in some Scottish-reared fish.

The disclosure follows publication of a report by American scientists earlier this month, which concluded that Scottish farmed salmon was among the most toxic in the world. Salmon producers reject the findings and say they are considering legal action against the team, based at the State University of New York. It has been estimated that up to half the people employed in the industry could lose their jobs as a result of the negative impact of the report. The industry, worth £300m a year, relies heavily on foreign markets and accounts for 40% of Scottish food exports.

America, Australia, New Zealand, Austria and Italy have all adopted a “zero tolerance” approach to food contaminated with listeria. France, which accounts for a third of all Scottish smoked salmon exports, has said it may follow suit. However, it is legal to sell smoked salmon contaminated with minimal amounts of listeria in Britain. The Sunday Times commissioned a team of scientists at a government-approved laboratory in Scotland to test salmon samples for listeria. A total of 11 packets were bought from Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Harvey Nichols, Safeway, Marks & Spencer, Jenners, Harrods, Loch Fyne Oysters and Fortnum & Mason. Loch Fyne classic smoked salmon and Harrods Scottish smoked salmon tested positive for the bacteria. Both samples had fewer than 10 colony- forming units (CFU) per gram which is not considered a risk to human health by the UK authorities. Guidelines issued by the Health Protection Agency state that listeria counts of less than 100 CFU per gram are “acceptable”. The other nine samples were declared listeria-free.

Although listeria does not generally pose a risk to healthy people, it can in sufficiently high levels prove fatal to children, the elderly and those with impaired immune systems and can cause pregnant women to miscarry. The bacteria is killed by cooking but it can survive both salting and the cold smoking process. It can also multiply when refrigerated. Yesterday the scientist who oversaw the tests said: “Under the zero tolerance policy adopted by a number of countries these samples which tested positive would be banned. Listeria can multiply even at low temperatures. Under ideal nutritional conditions, at refrigerated temperatures, it could double in number between 12 and 24 hours.” Olivier Pierre, chief inspector of the French government’s consumer watchdog body, said: “We would obviously begin questioning our policy if there were problems.” Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University in London, called for urgent action by the Scottish executive to tackle the food scares associated with farmed salmon. “The presence of listeria in smoked salmon is very disturbing. This is yet another reminder that all is not well with the intensive fish-farming scene,” he said. “The Scottish executive must get a grip on the salmon farming industry. At the moment the industry is not passing muster and that is not acceptable.”

Don Staniford, of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said: “Why has Britain failed to carry out tests for listeria in smoked salmon products? By adopting a zero tolerance approach, the American Food and Drug Administration has put consumer safety first. Meanwhile, the British Food Standards Agency is protecting the salmon farming industry from public scrutiny.” A spokesman for Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents 65% of the industry’s producers, said: “We have to live by the advice of scientific experts and why that advice in the UK differs from that in other countries I cannot tell you. “Our advice to consumers is not to be concerned because it is a question of dose and there is nothing to indicate that the low presence of listeria that has been found is a matter of concern.”

A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency said: “Food producers carry out testing for listeria in their products. They have a legal duty to produce safe food by using good hygiene and manufacturing practices to minimise the risk of contamination.” Last night a spokesman for Harrods said: “We will certainly consult the supplier concerned to understand why that particular line from our large range of smoked salmons contained traces of listeria. That said, the traces are negligible when compared with the tolerances dictated by the relevant government bodies.” Nobody was available for comment at Loch Fyne Oysters yesterday.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-976779,00.html?submit.x=38&submit.y=1

Read more about Loch Fyne Oysters and listeria contamination in “US rejects ‘filthy’ farmed salmon - industry fury as 27 shipments banned by food watchdog” (The Sunday Herald, 30^th November 2003): http://www.sundayherald.com/38340

The Herald, 24^th January

Salmon farms face US lawsuits on toxins - Scots producers named over cancer risk chemicals

Martin Williams

Four of Scotland’s biggest farmed salmon producers are involved in possible legal action in the US for failing to warn that their fish carry “potentially dangerous” levels of toxic chemicals. Stolt Sea Farm Ltd on the Isle of Harris and Ross-shire-based Mainstream Scotland are among 50 salmon farms, fish processors and grocery chains named in a proposed global legal action being brought by American environmental groups. The action involves high concentrations of dioxins and polychiorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have been linked to an increased risk of cancer. Fish farming groups Nutreco of Holland and Pan Fish of Norway, the parent companies of Marine Harvest Scotland and Pan Fish Scotland, are also implicated. Grocery chains such as Safeway and the cash and carry wholesaler Costco are also named.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the Centre for Environmental Health (CEH) filed notice in San Francisco superior court that they intend to sue the companies under California’s anti-toxics law, known as proposition 65. It requires companies to notify consumers if their products contain hazardous levels of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm. The state’s law requires groups first to file notice of their intent to sue to allow the state attorney general and other prosecutors 60 days to decide whether to join or take over the action. Don Staniford of the UK Salmon Farm Protest Group said it was considering ways to take similar legal action in Europe. The US groups say PCBs in farmed salmon are high because many fish farms typically raise salmon on feed high in fatty fish and fish oils.

Factions within the Scottish salmon farming industry yesterday indicated, for the first time, that it had to examine its feed procedures to answer the critics. Pan Fish Scotland, based in Argyll and one of the largest suppliers of farmed salmon in Scotland, said it was considering switching from using fish oil to vegetable oil. Alex Adrian, its technical manager, said: “We don’t think there is anything in the salmon that is a cause for concern, but at the same time we cannot sit down and keep chanting that out as a mantra. “It may be that the reason why we see Scotland having higher levels of PCBs in its salmon is because we are the only major salmon production area that predominantly uses fish oil.”

The environmental groups have taken action in the wake of a controversial study, published in the journal Science, which suggested that eating more than three portions of farmed salmon a year could increase the chance of developing cancer. It also found fish from Scottish farms contained the highest concentrations of cancer-causing toxins in the salmon farming world. A separate EWG study of farmed salmon bought at various stores in America discovered one salmon imported from Scotland containing PCBs at levels so high that the US Environmental Protection Agency would restrict consumption to no more than six meals a year. Michael Green, executive director of Oakland-based CEH, said it was “challenging the entire industry to make farmed salmon safer”. Jane Houlihan, vice president for research with EWG, said farmed salmon should come with a warning label about the levels of toxins.

Dr Graeme Dear, managing director of Marine Harvest Scotland, insisted salmon was a vital part of a good, well-balanced diet. “Let’s be clear, farmed salmon is good for you and our fish meet all the quality and health standards set nationally and internationally by the World Health Organisation, the American Food and Drugs Agency and the UK Food Standards Agency, among others.” The Food Standards Agency said it has enlisted experts to measure toxin levels in wild and farmed salmon in Scotland as well as sea fish. A separate panel is looking into the potential risks of eating more than the recommended amounts of salmon.

FOUR UNDER FIRE

• A subsidiary of the Norway-based chemical transportation firm Stolt-Nielsen, Stolt Sea Farm Ltd’s multi-million pound fish farm and processing factory on Scalpay, off Harris, employs around 200 people.

• Alness-based Mainstream Scotland, part of the Oslo-run Mainstream Group, the fifth largest fish farming company in the world, has 18 Scottish farms, with the majority in Orkney and Shetland.

• Pan Fish Scotland, based on Loch Fyne, employs more than150 staff and operates around

32 marine and three freshwater farms.

• Owned by the Dutch multinational Nutreco, Marine Harvest Scotland produces around a third of salmon farmed in Scottish waters.

More details on the lawsuit can be found via: www.ewg.org

Fish Farming Today, 23^rd January

Salmon study authors hit back at critics

The authors of the January 9 Science article on contaminants in salmon have issued a press release defending their stand, despite the widespread criticism it has attracted. Ron Hites, David Carpenter, Jeff Foran and Barbara Knuth wrote: “Since its publication in the journal Science on January 9, our study, which showed significant levels of environmental contaminants in farmed salmon, has been distorted and mischaracterized in a number of ways. Since these distortions have high potential to confuse the public about our results, we would like to address a few of the issues that have been reported by the media.”

Regarding government standards and the meaning of the consumption recommendations reported in the study, the authors say that since the purpose of the study was to do a health-based analysis, they naturally used the health-based guidelines rather than regulatory levels that balance a variety of other factors. They say, “It is simply wrong for critics and even government regulators to assert or imply that a certain level of contaminants is safe because it falls under the FDA or FSA regulatory thresholds.”

In response to criticism of the methodology they say that the study was focused on contaminant levels in the types of salmon broadly available to consumers, they tested farmed salmon from all major producing regions of the world and the only type of wild salmon widely available to consumers: Pacific salmon. The authors also deny that they were tools of a U.S. trade policy out to damage European aquaculture or that the science was manipulated by the study's sponsor, the Pew Charitable Trusts. “First, the study went through peer-review and scientific editing processes at Science, one of the world's most respected scientific journals. Science's review process is widely seen as among the most rigorous in the scientific community”.

Second, at no time in the development or execution of the study were any of the authors in contact with U.S. trade policymakers or individuals representing wild salmon fisheries in the U.S. The authors continued: “For critics to claim without any factual basis that the U.S. government or the study's sponsor manipulated one of the world's premier scientific journals and six highly experienced and credentialed research scientists is merely an attempt to discredit the study through suspicion and innuendo.”

http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/1665/Salmon_study_authors_hit_back_at_critics.html

The Daily Telegraph (Letters), 23^rd January

Salmon are prisoners

How Gerard MacDonald (Letters, Jan 21) can claim to deplore cruelty to animals while remaining a salmon farmer is hard to swallow. Every farmed salmon is denied its most basic instinct: to migrate tens of thousands of miles. Mr MacDonald should consider whether it is possible to have high standards of husbandry when your animals want to go to Greenland but are kept in a cage in Wester Ross.

Donald Rice, London W11

See also in The Daily Telegraph (17^th January):

Fish farms cannot be allowed in a country that considers itself civilized

By Adam Nicolson

I have, in the past, driven behind a fish farm lorry for half an hour along the long slow roads of the Outer Hebrides. European money has improved stretches of them. You suddenly find yourself on a double-width, unnaturally expensive-looking surface, with unnecessarily large gravelled verges, and you give thanks to Brussels for its structural funds and its love affair with the poor outer margins of the Continent, before returning to the narrow, indigenous strip of tarmac, somehow paid for in the distant past by the Western Isles council. That is one of the moments when the reality of modern fish-farming hits home. The old road is not the lovely, moneyed euro carpet. It is bumpy and, at each bump, the large plastic containers on the lorry in front of you are given a little jerk. They contain dead, mature salmon, being driven from the farm to the processing plant. But the fish are swimming in their own blood and, at each bump, the blood slops out of the containers, on to the back of the lorry, and sprays the car behind. You have to keep your wipers going to see through the blood. The whole front of your car is sticky with it afterwards. It is like a horror film, weirdly overstated in its crudity. These blood-bumps are like the evidence of a body in the boot, a horrible slopping-out of a hidden fact.

Why is this so disgusting? Partly, I think, it is a question of deceit. Go into your average supermarket and look at the images with which salmon is sold: fresh, Scottish, beautiful and, above all, clean. You won't find any pictures of windscreens coated in blood, nor, as I have seen, of salmon still alive and thrashing in containers filled to the brim with their own and other fish's blood. Perhaps only in eggs and chickens is there a greater gulf between the realities of production and the deceptions of the chill cabinet. Fish farms are horrible places: horrible to work in, horrible to look at, horrible in the relationship they represent between money, mass production and the mass consumption of food. In common with all other battery-farming systems, fish farms are inherently careless. Beyond the needs of production, they do not and cannot care about the welfare of the salmon, which is - of course in all but its first and last phases - an oceanic animal, whose entire biological system is designed for the very opposite of the cage. Beyond the requirements of legislation, they do not and cannot care about the wellbeing of the larger environment, whether that is the seabed, the appearance of the bays and lochs in which they are set up, or the ocean ecosystem itself (where it is thought 40 per cent of all salmon are now farm escapes), because to do so would cost, and margins are so tight that to spend money on anything except the minimum would make a company non-competitive. And they do not care, beyond the needs of the market, about the quality of the product. Cost is the governing factor in fish farm production and so cheap is good. It would cost more to ensure that the fish are not swimming in their own blood en route to the processing plant.

In 2002, 145,000 tonnes of salmon were produced in Scotland by 1,306 people, about 111 tonnes a man. If the average weight of a farmed salmon is about 3kg, that means each man is producing about 37,000 fish a year, a level at which individual care can clearly not be given. The average space in a fish farm cage for each salmon is a little over three cubic feet. That is the equivalent for an Atlantic fish of spending your life in the rush hour on the Northern Line. Is this absurd? Should one be concerned for the life conditions, or even death conditions, of a fish? It always strikes me as strange that people get exercised about farming and its conditions only when there is a food scare. BSE started to matter in the press only when it was realised that it could cross the species barrier into human beings. The current crisis over farmed salmon is entirely generated by the suspicion that the flesh carries an unacceptable level of marine pollutants. Those are of course legitimate anxieties and they will no doubt be addressed. Fish farm companies are even now looking for vegetable-based substitutes for their fish-based food and, once they have sorted that out, no doubt the heat will be off. Those supermarket pictures will reassert themselves and everything will be all right again. But it won't be, because the brutalising methods of production will continue.

The jobs involved in this business are usually said to be crucial to the hard-pressed communities that have little other opportunity for employment. And one is meant to bow down before that double god of social and economic need. But two things need to be said. The jobs themselves are not only uncertain - the economic conditions of the industry yo-yo from year to year - they are both grindingly dull and very demanding. It is not as if greater regulation of fish farming would endanger some exquisite form of indigenous coastal existence. And it is surely now clear that government, on a global level, needs to improve the conditions in which the fish grow, to reduce the levels of pollution and to improve the quality of the product. In future, people will surely look back on these early years of fish farming and see in them the equivalent of conditions before the great Victorian factory Acts: in a word, uncivilised.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2004%2F01%2F17%2Fdo1704.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=63714

Lawsuits over PCBs in farmed salmon:

Breaking News on two lawsuits in the wake of the damning Science study:

“Two environmental groups have gone to court against 50 salmon farms, grocery chains and fish processors worldwide under California's tough anti- toxics law, claiming that the businesses are failing to warn consumers of dangerous PCBs in farmed salmon….The 50 defendants named in the filings include farmed salmon producers based in Canada and Europe, such as Marine Harvest, Panfish, Stolt Sea Farm, Heritage and Mainstream, as well as large U.S.-based retailers such as Safeway, Kroger, Albertson's and Costco” (More details via www.ewg.org)

The 50 defendants names in the lawsuit include: Atlantic Salmon of Maine, Fjord Seafood USA, Cermaq Group, Mainstream Scotland, Creative Salmon Company, Ltd., Cypress Island, Inc., Omega Salmon Group Ltd., Panfish ASA, Grieg Seafood, B.C., Ltd., Heritage Salmon, Inc., Marine Harvest USA, Marine Harvest Canada, Nutreco Holding N.V., Stolt Sea Farm, Inc. (USA), Stolt Sea Farm, Inc. (Canada), Stolt Sea Farm Holdings plc (London) and Stolt Sea Farm Ltd. (Scotland) (a full list is available from Intrafish: www.intrafish.com)

“Meanwhile, Scottish Quality Salmon has denied that it is considering legal action against the Pew-funded scientists who produced the fish farming report” (West Highland Free Press, 23^rd January)

Please find enclosed a press update including:

“Lawsuit aims to force reform in PCB levels” (Intrafish, 23^rd January)

“Farmed salmon industry to face lawsuit over contaminants in fish” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22^nd January)

“Anti-toxics law cited in legal action against salmon farms” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22^nd January)

“Groups plan California lawsuit against farmed salmon over PCB levels” (EWG, 22^nd January)

“European Parliament calls for reassurance over Scottish petitioner’s concerns” (Intrafish, 22^nd January)

“Blaming the activists is fishy” (Gallon Newsletter, 22^nd January)

“Salmon health scare raises key questions” (The Scotsman, 21^st January)

“Green MEP wants European food watchdog to report on carnivorous fish” (Intrafish, 21^st January)

“Costco moves to leaner fresh fillet” (Intrafish, 21^st January)

“Careful shopping will help keep you on salmon's wild side - risk of PCBs in farm-raised fish means consumers must ask questions at the store” (The Oregonian, 20^th January)

“Farming salmon/Low price doesn't cover costs” (Star Tribune, 20^th January)

“Scottish producers may consider legal action over US study” (Intrafish, 20^th January)

“Europe to consider petition accusing Executive” (The Scotsman, 19^th January)

“Scots salmon chiefs set to sue scientists” (The Sunday Times, 18^th January)

“Farmed salmon argument escalates – Greens repeat call for inquiry” (Scottish Green Party, 18^th January)

“Pink and poisonous?” (New Scientist, 17^th January)

“A fishy tale of salmon, dioxins and food safety” (New Scientist, 17^th January)

“Primary source vs the spin on salmon safety” (The Vancouver Sun, 17^th January)

“Dr Andrew Weil” (The Globe and Mail, 14^th January)

Includes:

“Two environmental groups have gone to court against 50 salmon farms, grocery chains and fish processors worldwide under California's tough anti- toxics law, claiming that the businesses are failing to warn consumers of dangerous PCBs in farmed salmon. The Center for Environmental Health in Oakland and the Environmental Working Group in San Francisco brought the action in San Francisco Superior Court last week against companies in San Francisco, San Jose and San Bruno as well as in Norway, Scotland, Canada and England, among other locations” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22^nd January)

“Under Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, companies are required to notify consumers if their products contain hazardous levels of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm. The law requires private groups to first file notice of their intent to sue to give the state attorney general and other prosecutors 60 days to decide whether to join or take over the lawsuit” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22^nd January)

“We want the farmed salmon industry to reform its practices and switch to nontoxic feed stocks, which would not contaminate farmed salmon," said Bill Walker, vice president of the Environmental Working Group. "If they don't want to change their practices, we think consumers should be informed" through warning label” (San Francisco Chronicle, 22^nd January)

“The salmon farming industry must stop needlessly exposing consumers to a cancer risk in every bite," said Michael Green, executive director of Oakland-based CEH” (EWG, 22^nd January)

“Scotland´s salmon farming industry is considering legal action against the authors of the report that claimed their produce was among the most toxic in the world. Scottish Quality Salmon (SQS) is preparing a case against American scientists who said Scottish farmed salmon was contaminated with high levels of cancer-causing particles including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)” (The Sunday Times, 18^th January)

“What are fish made of? "Five per cent protein, 95 per cent politics" goes the reply of one former fisheries official. In the case of farmed salmon, it seems the ingredient list should also include dioxins, PCBs and several other organochlorine pollutants. And as the war of words raging over last week's study confirms, these too come laced with politics” (Editorial in New Scientist, 17^th January)

“Despite the industry's efforts to clean up, sea lice, disease, insecticides and escaping fish all continue to make salmon farming an environmental pariah. The contamination issue isn't the most important reason to worry about farmed fish. Let's hope it might just be the one to spur some action” (Editorial in New Scientist, 17^th January)

“The disagreements over safety limits, however, do nothing to answer the key question of how to balance the damaging impact of the pollutants against the beneficial effects of eating oily fish. This calculation was not done by the US study, and is still being investigated by one of the FSA's expert committees, which is expected to report later this year. The question is important because it does not just concern salmon. Farmed sea bass are more contaminated with PCBs than wild sea bass, say Portuguese scientists (Chemosphere, vol 54, p 1503). And the same is likely to be true of animals, including sheep and other livestock, that are also fed fish oils to boost their levels of health-giving omega-3 fatty acids” (New Scientist, 17^th January)

“The fish are swimming in their own blood and, at each bump, the blood slops out of the containers, on to the back of the lorry, and sprays the car behind. You have to keep your wipers going to see through the blood. The whole front of your car is sticky with it afterwards. It is like a horror film, weirdly overstated in its crudity. These blood-bumps are like the evidence of a body in the boot, a horrible slopping-out of a hidden fact. Why is this so disgusting? Partly, I think, it is a question of deceit. Go into your average supermarket and look at the images with which salmon is sold: fresh, Scottish, beautiful and, above all, clean. You won't find any pictures of windscreens coated in blood, nor, as I have seen, of salmon still alive and thrashing in containers filled to the brim with their own and other fish's blood” (The Daily Telegraph, 17^th January)

“The bottom line for consumers: stop eating farmed salmon until salmon farmers clean up their acts. Now if you ask me where to get those essential omega-3 fatty acids, my answer is: from plant sources including flax seeds, walnuts, hemp seeds (really!), and a green called purslane. From animal sources look at oily fleshed cold-water fish such as mackerel, sardines and wild salmon. My personal preference is wild salmon from the great Pacific Northwest. In the face of this new study, I remain puzzled at the fact that government and industry keep demanding more proof that what they’re doing is causing harm. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” (Dr Andrew Weil in The Globe and Mail, 14^th January)

For regular updates on salmon farming issues including an international media and document archive see The Salmon Farm Monitor: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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Press Release from the Salmon Farm Protest Group, Thursday 22^nd January

www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Contaminated Scottish farmed salmon on trial in Europe

- Allan Berry gives oral evidence to the European Parliament´s Petitions Committee

The European Parliament will meet today (Thursday 22^nd) to debate the environmental and public health disaster that is Scottish salmon farming. Allan Berry, who submitted his petition in April 2002, has been invited to attend in person and will give oral evidence to the Petitions Committee in Brussels this morning. Mr Berry has asked that his petition is discussed in public and further evidence will be presented by other interested parties. Officials from the European Commission´s Directorate General of Fisheries (DG FISH), Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO) and Environment (DG ENV) will also be in attendance.

In the wake of the damning Science study which concluded that Scottish farmed salmon was so contaminated with cancer-chemicals it was safe to eat only three times a year, public scrutiny by the European Parliament could not have come at a more embarrassing time for the Scottish Executive and the Scottish salmon farming industry. Allan Berry´s petition (518-2002) accuses the Scottish Government of gross negligence and fraud in promoting sea cage fish farming at the expense of wild salmon and Scotland’s pristine marine waters. Mr Berry’s European petition follows a petition (PE 96) he submitted to the Scottish Parliament in February 2000. PE 96 led to an ‘Aquaculture Inquiry’ by the Scottish Parliament (2001-2002) but Mr Berry’s central concerns were never addressed and he was never asked to given oral evidence.

Speaking exclusively to The Salmon Farm Monitor, Allan Berry said:

“I am delighted that the European Parliament is finally meeting to discuss my petition and only hope that the European Parliament has more success than the Scottish Parliament in placing the Scottish Executive under close public scrutiny. The UK Government clearly do not want their dirty linen washed in public but the issue of sea cage farming cannot be allowed to continue to fester in a political climate of apathy and denial. The UK government and the Scottish Executive have adopted a partisan and inappropriate approach to the whole matter of sea cage fish farming, deliberately suppressing scientific evidence, which might lead to limits on production. For twenty five years the Executive has ruthlessly promoted and protected the industry regardless of the consequences - it clearly has a great deal to hide - and has no intention of permitting public scrutiny.

“Since the advent of salmon farming in Scotland in the 1970s, sea lice larvae originating from cage farm stock have caused the virtual extinction of wild sea trout and salmon in most West coast and Island waters where salmon are farmed. Sea cage fish farming is now the largest licensed industrial polluter in Scotland. The Scottish salmon farming industry uses our coastal waters as an open sewer, discharging annually nearly eight thousand tonnes of nitrogen as waste ammonia ; equivalent to the sewage wastes of 9 million people (Scotland's population is only 5.1 million). In the case of sea cage fish farming in Scotland, the Executive has deliberately concealed, misrepresented and denied the effects of such abuse, while using the power of the state to pervert proper scientific assessment of industry impact. Let us hope the deliberations of the Petition Committee will result in proper objective scientific examination of the adverse effects of sea cage fish farming. The European Parliament has one last opportunity to save Scotland’s wild salmon from extinction and to put an end to salmon farmers’ free use of the our once pristine coastal waters as an open sewer”

For further information please contact Don Staniford on 00 34 952 49 49 16 or Allan Berry in Brussels on 00 44 7754 150 194

Notes to Editors:

(1) Further information including a photo of Allan Berry and the full text of his petition is available on The Salmon Farm Monitor: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Further information on the European Parliament´s Petitions Committee including an agenda, list of members and written papers can be found on:

http://www.europarl.eu.int/committees/peti_home.htm

The clerk to the Petitions Committee, David Lowe, is on 00 32 2284 2396

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Sunday papers swarm on Scottish salmon like files around…….

Salmon farmers around Scotland will be choking on their contaminated smoked farmed salmon this morning as they yet read more front-page headlines, editorials, opinion pieces and exposes.

Please find enclosed a personal synopsis of today’s Sunday press coverage in The Sunday Herald, The Sunday Times, The Independent on Sunday, The Observer and Scotland on Sunday. All the internet links are provided so readers can access the full articles and judge for themselves (the Mail on Sunday is sadly not available on-line but also features contaminated farmed Scottish farmed). For further information including a media archive see The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Sunday press coverage in the UK includes:

“Government scientists warned watchdog of salmon safety risk - Food agency told of poison fears last year … but ignored advice” (The Sunday Herald – front page)

“Spawning a new crisis – Official dissent over a devastating US study showing farmed Scottish salmon could harm human health has raised new questions about regulation” (The Sunday Herald)

“Salmon? Another fine mess we have allowed” (The Sunday Herald – editorial)

“The salmon scandal they tried to ignore” (The Sunday Times)

“Salmon farmers need to come clean” (The Sunday Times)

“America in new Scots salmon health scare” (The Sunday Times)

“Salmon farmers get £100m lifeline” (The Sunday Times)

“Sales backlash expected on ‘toxic salmon’ scare” (The Times)

“Toxic salmon faces EU-wide sales ban – Second cancer alert as surveillance reveals that fish farmers have continued to use known poison to disinfect their eggs” (The Independent on Sunday)

“Farmed and dangerous: Has fish had its chips?” (The Observer)

“US in fresh blow to Scottish salmon farms” (The Observer)

1) The Sunday Herald

A front page ‘Investigation’- “Government scientists warned watchdog of salmon safety risk - Food agency told of poison fears last year … but ignored advice” - by award-winning environment editor Rob Edwards lambasted the UK’s Food Standards Agency:

“UK government scientists warned last year that people who followed the Food Standards Agency advice to eat one portion of salmon a week would breach the safety limit for toxic chemicals. The government study contradicts repeated assurances by the FSA and the Scottish Executive that salmon farmed in Scotland is within international safety limits. It also backs up the findings of the controversial US research which sparked a salmon safety scare last week”

“The government warning is contained in a report by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Central Science Laboratory, which concludes that eating a single portion of salmon a week would result in an average daily toxins intake of 4.46 picograms – just above the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) highest “tolerable daily intake” of 4 picograms. It urges: “We recommend that the existing toxicity data should be re-examined to determine more objective estimates of the uncertainty.”

“The Defra study has been seized upon by those demanding an independent inquiry into the safety of Scottish salmon. “This appears to be entirely at odds with what the FSA has previously said. That it would criticise its own scientific advisers simply amplifies the need for an independent investigation to get at the truth,” said Mark Ruskell, Scottish Green Party environment spokesman. Ruskell also condemned the deputy environment minister, Allan Wilson, for backing the FSA’s line. “The minister’s bland assurances that children should be fed contaminated salmon, without any fear for health, is a transparently inadequate response to the serious concerns being raised for food safety by respected and authoritative scientists”

Full article: http://www.sundayherald.com/39220

In “Spawning a new crisis – Official dissent over a devastating US study showing farmed Scottish salmon could harm human health has raised new questions about regulation”, Rob Edwards writes:

“Like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the Scottish salmon farming industry always looks on the bright side of life”

“Dr Richard Dixon, head of policy at the environmental group WWF Scotland, pointed out that the FSA had been set up to end the cosy relationship between government and the food industry. “But it now seems to be falling into the same trap,” he alleged. “The FSA has attacked organic food, sung the praises of genetically modified food and is now urging people to ignore scientific advice suggesting that farmed salmon may be unsafe. It looks more like a defender of big business than a champion of public health”

“This has provoked angry criticisms of the FSA, and new calls for it to revise its advice. “The FSA should urgently set contaminant limits which protect human health, not industry profits,” said Dan Barlow, head of research at Friends of the Earth Scotland. “The FSA must demonstrate that it is willing to champion human health and informed consumer choice, rather than defending food industry practices.”

“I and my family do not eat farmed salmon,” revealed Jeffrey Foran, a University of Michigan toxicologist and one of the authors of the US study. “My hope is that public health agencies will look at our study and issue advice encouraging people to eat less contaminated fish.” He stressed that the solution was not to shut down the salmon farming industry, but for it to reform and cut contamination . “I hope the industry doesn’t shoot the messenger,” he commented”

“If they choose to misread a serious scientific study, then they only have themselves to blame,” said Paul Johnston, principle scientist at the Greenpeace research laboratory at Exeter University. “It is a clear case of garbage in, garbage out. It they feed salmon garbage, they will be contaminated.”

Full article via: http://www.sundayherald.com/39188

An Editorial – “Salmon? Another fine mess we have allowed” – states:

“From being one of the most lustrous of Scotland’s economic jewels, farmed salmon was revealed last week to be yet another cankered foodstuff. Salmon raised on Scottish farms are fed dyes to ensure the flesh turns pink and are contaminated by 14 pollutants and toxins which could cause cancer. Worse still – and reminiscent of the BSE scandal – the salmon are fed fish, rather than plant-based material. A lot of this fish comes from industrial trawlers that scrape the bottom of the polluted North Atlantic for their catches. Little wonder that US environmental scientists conclude it would be unwise to eat a portion of this salmon more than three times a year. So bad is the situation that Scottish farmed salmon is now ranked the most contaminated in the world. No longer the healthy alternative, it will now be viewed as a potentially life-threatening food which many of us will from now on avoid”

“Their fierce attacks on the US research last week suggest they are more interested in shooting the messenger than finding a solution. Disappointingly, the industry has been supported by the government’s watchdog, the Food Standards Agency, and the Scottish Executive. This leaves the public wondering to whom they can turn for truly independent and trustworthy advice. That is why we think that Scotland now needs an independent inquiry into the salmon farming industry – not designed to shut it down, but to save it”

Full article via: http://www.sundayherald.com/39134

2) The Sunday Times

In “The salmon scandal they tried to ignore” award-winning journalist Richard Girling writes:

“This week’s revelation that eating Scottish salmon may significantly increase the risk of cancer comes as little surprise. Nor, sadly, does the industry’s response to the latest blow to its tattered credibility. Whenever salmon is criticised Scottish Quality Salmon (SQS), the trade association of Scottish sea farmers, always reacts in the same way, like a she-cat defending its kittens — furious, determined, unthinking. It happened in September 2001 when I wrote an award-winning piece in The Sunday Times Magazine (download via: ) describing the environmental damage caused to wild salmon stocks and other marine life by pollutants from the west coast fish farms. Like all critics of SQS I was denounced as ignorant, biased and malevolently anti-Scottish”

“Later this month the European parliament will hear a petition calling for it to investigate the failure of the Scottish executive to hold a full public inquiry into the environmental impact of sea-cage farming. If SQS has as clean a record as it claims, it will back this to the hilt”

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-958675,00.html

In “Salmon farmers need to come clean” columnist Allan Massie writes:

“A study from America, published in the magazine, Science, has now asserted that farmed Atlantic salmon from Scotland contain the highest levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the world. The fish are, it is said, so contaminated that they should not be eaten more than three times a year. They are stuffed to the gills with dioxins, dieldrin, toxaphene, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Enough to make the average consumer’s flesh creep”

“Not surprisingly, Scottish Quality Salmon, the body representing most salmon farms here, doesn’t agree, claiming that consumers should be reassured by this research. Its take on the findings is that PCB and dioxin levels in Scottish salmon are significantly lower than the thresholds set by international watchdogs. So that’s all right then. We are in danger of being only a little contaminated or poisoned. Perhaps more reassuring are the words of Sir John Krebs, chairman of the Food Standards Agency, a zoologist and former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council. He plays down the risk, reiterating that the benefits of eating one portion of oily fish a week “outweigh any possible risk”. To some all this recalls the sort of complacency with which officialdom typically responds to bad news. They may be reminded of the then agriculture minister, John Gummer, having himself photographed feeding a hamburger to his young daughter at the height of the BSE scare”

“Robin Harper’s demand for an inquiry should be granted. But the inquiry has to be comprehensive, addressing economic, environmental, and health issues. It will take years to complete. Meanwhile the salmon farming industry can only help itself if it responds to this American survey not by denial, but by imposing stricter standards and controls on the rearing and feeding of its fish”

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-959494,00.html

In “America in new Scots salmon health scare” Nick Fielding reports that:

“Concerns about listeria contamination have been growing for some time. Since adopting a “zero tolerance” approach to any contamination, American regulators at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have rejected dozens of consignments of salmon from Scotland, citing concerns over listeria”

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-959712,00.html

In “Salmon farmers get £100m lifeline” it is revealed that:

“Scottish executive has been forced to provide a rescue package for salmon farmers worth up to £100m because banks are refusing to finance an industry they believe is a bad risk. Ministers have pledged to underwrite bank loans for fish farmers to safeguard thousands of jobs under threat. A report published last week by American scientists, claiming Scottish farmed salmon was the most toxic in the world, was yet another blow to the already beleaguered industry”

“It has also emerged that ministers could be forced to appear before the European parliament to answer claims that the industry has caused massive pollution and damaged wild sea trout with sea lice from salmon farms”

“Ministers and officials are now devising a scheme to prevent the collapse of any more fish farms which give fragile rural communities a lifeline and account for 50% of Scotland’s food exports. Allan Wilson, the fisheries minister, is proposing the executive should act as guarantor, reassuring the banks that they will make good on bad debt if a crisis threatens to plunge a debtor into bankruptcy. He said: “We are willing to invest in the industry because it would be investing for the good of the whole country”

“The move, involving Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, will be accompanied by a charm offensive to assure banks and insurance companies that the fish farming industry is to be put on a more secure footing. Ministers also plan to offer a series of incentives to make “greener” organic fish farming more financially worthwhile, and have commissioned a consultant to draw up organic standards which are expected to rule out controversial pesticides and fish feed”

“Yesterday the Shetland Isles Council convener Sandy Cluness warned that 50% of industry jobs across Scotland could go as a result of the latest consumer scare”

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-959450,00.html?submit.x=21&submit.y=5

In The Times (10^th January) article “Sales backlash expected on ‘toxic salmon’ scare”, consumer editor Valerie Elliot reported that:

“The reassurances of Sir John Krebs, chairman of the Food Standards Agency, about the safety of farmed salmon met with some scepticism because the agency has asked experts for a new opinion about the long-term effect on health of eating farmed salmon. It has yet to receive the report. The agency admitted that government scientists had not tested farmed salmon since 1996 but insisted that the levels of contaminants found by the US study were exactly the same as previously known in Britain and were all within World Health Organisation limits”

“Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Safeway and Marks & Spencer briefed staff to reassure customers that their fish was safe and that supplies were checked for toxins”

“One London fishmonger, Michael Lear, of Chalmers & Gray, said: “I’ve already had customers this morning who were going to use salmon in a recipe but because of this report have decided not to”

The Times also launched a debate on:

“Will warnings put you off salmon?”: Send your e-mails to: debate@thetimes.co.uk

Download via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-957969,00.html

3) The Independent on Sunday

In “Toxic salmon faces EU-wide sales ban – Second cancer alert as surveillance reveals that fish farmers have continued to use known poison to disinfect their eggs”, Severin Carrell writes:

“Sales of Scottish salmon could be banned across Europe because of contamination by an illegal and toxic chemical, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. Safety tests have proved that samples of farmed salmon and trout are tainted by a banned chemical which can cause cancers and mutations. As a result, the European Commission is to introduce even tougher health limits and is threatening legal action against the UK”

“The FSA admits there are real safety risks over the continuing use of a different chemical in farmed salmon and trout from Britain - a cheap dye called malachite green once routinely used as a fungicide in fish farms. Fears about the toxicity of malachite green are expected to be confirmed next month by US safety experts on the National Toxicity Program. That panel is expected to state - for the first time - that it is a proven carcinogen which causes mutations”

“Several fish farms are under investigation by the VMD, and at least one has had its fish temporarily banned from sale, after repeated traces of malachite green were found in salmon and trout. One fish farmer is facing prosecution. But under even stricter safety regulations being prepared by the European health commissioner David Byrne, an even larger number of fish farms will face automatic bans across the EU from the end of this year. Dr Byrne is to introduce a far tighter maximum limit for malachite green in December of two micro-grammes per kilogram - a level which Scottish and English fish farms have repeatedly breached”

Full article via: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=480055

More information on malachite green including the Salmon Farm Protest Group’s submission to the US National Toxicology Program is available via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

4) The Observer

In “Farmed and dangerous: Has fish had its chips?”, Stephen Khan (Scotland editor) reports that:

“Stacks of salmon steaks and fillets remained on ice at Chapel Street Market in Islington on Friday. Only weeks ago ago they were disappearing at a record rate, destined for millions of festive dinner tables. Now shoppers flashed a concerned glance and passed by. Farmed fish was having its mad cow moment.

Just as BSE research prompted an EU ban and shoppers' boycott of beef almost eight years ago, now public confidence was being rocked in the very foodstuff nutritionists have been telling us we must eat more of”

“Across the UK this weekend sides of smoked pink fish 'fresh from the crystal clear waters of Scotland' sat untouched on shelves alongside curiosities such as salmon nuggets and tikka bites. Staff in one branch of Tesco near Glasgow estimated that the store was shifting less than half its usual stock of farmed fish. Back at the Islington market in London, Jamie Curtis revealed that sales had nosedived. 'I've had people coming up to me all day,' he said. 'A lot of customers have been saying that since hearing the news about the risks associated with eating salmon they're going to give it up for good”

“On hearing details of the American research, one shopper considered ditching her purchase. Nicola Burn, a 30-year-old teacher, said: 'If I had known about it I'm not so sure I would have put this packet of salmon in my basket. I'll definitely be reading the labels on fish more carefully from now on.' Reactions like this will distress Scottish fish farmers as they begin the mammoth task this week of attempting to rebuild public trust”

“One person who won't be serving any of them, however, is Jackie MacKenzie who worked at a fish farm in the north-west of Scotland for three years in the 1990s before quitting over concerns that the chemicals he was using were having a detrimental effect upon his health. 'There used to be fresh salmon on the table when I was a boy,' he told The Observer. 'But that was a different fish to what we get now. I wouldn't feed my children the stuff that comes out of these farms.' He claimed that the aquaculture industry had taken a quality product and turned it into 'gunk'. Wild salmon, he said, was a firm, muscular, healthy fish. What now masqueraded as the king of fish was a flabby, dyed-pink beast that bore little resemblance to its wild relative”

“In Britain, a million Scottish-farmed salmon a week were sold during the Christmas period. Thousands more trout, sea bass, sea bream and cod that lived and died in captivity were also eaten. None, however, passed the MacKenzie family's lips. It appears that many more families up and down the country are now following their lead”

Full article via: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1120704,00.html

In “US in fresh blow to Scottish salmon farms”, The Observer reports:

“Salmon from Scottish fish farms was refused entry to the US after tests showed the batches were unfit for human consumption, according to strict Food and Drug Administration guidelines. The US government agency condemned 27 imports of smoked salmon last year amid concerns that they may have been contaminated with listeria”

“Just last month Scottish salmon farmers enjoyed record sales of more than a million salmon a week during the build-up to Christmas. Almost overnight, though, it appears confidence in the product has been shattered”

“Scottish salmon is one of the most frequently refused of UK food imports. Last year 15 shipments of smoked salmon were turned away because they were contaminated with listeria. A further nine salmon shipments from Scotland were classified as 'insanitary'. According to the FDA, they 'may have become contaminated with filth' and 'may have been rendered injurious to health'.”

“Neil Spreckley - managing director of Bathgate-based EWOS Ltd, the world's largest salmon feed company - said the study had the potential to be 'very damaging' to the industry. 'We might find customers not buying any salmon for the next two weeks,' he said”

Full article via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,1120635,00.html

5) Scotland on Sunday

In “Salmon is safe says US food expert”, the fiercely patriotic and pro-salmon farming Scotland on Sunday unashamedly (and inaccurately) proclaims Professor Charles Saunterre (his surname is Santerre) as a “leading American food safety expert” (since 1^st January 2004 he has in fact been employed as a paid consultant to the salmon farming industry). Murdo MacLeod’s article is also accompanied by a photo of Nick Joy of the oxymoronic ‘Sustainable Salmon’ company proudly holding up a contaminated farmed Scottish salmon. According to Scotland on Sunday:

“Santerre said: "In the United States we reckon that we could save 100,000 lives a year from heart illnesses if we got more people to eat salmon in their diet. That far outweighs any risks from toxins”. Santerre suggested that very cautious consumers might remove the skin from the fish because most of the toxins are found in or near the skin. He said: "I don’t think it’s necessary but people might want to do it. I believe that your Scottish salmon is very safe and I would not have a problem eating it”

Full article via: http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/index.cfm?id=34952004

In “Salmon scare – off the hook?”, Murdo MacLeod explains that “Reports of dangerous levels of toxins in Scottish salmon have been exaggerated, say experts, who claim toxins in farmed salmon are no higher than in other foodstuff”. He points out the importance of farmed salmon sales to Scotland (the Scottish Executive claim that Scottish farmed salmon contribute some 50% of the value of all Scottish food exports):

“Fish heading further afield are driven to airports such as Glasgow Prestwick, to be flown to North America. Within 48 hours a Scottish salmon can have gone from the waters of the West Highlands to a plate in a swanky New York restaurant. In the past three years, exports of Scottish salmon to the USA have almost trebled - from less than 4,000 tonnes in 2001 to 11,000 tonnes last year. Just under a 10th of all the salmon exported from Scotland goes to the United States. But last week the king of fish found itself at the centre of a damaging new health scare - one that threatens to kill the US market, rock the Highland economy and damage Scotland’s international reputation as a producer of luxury goods”

“The salmon industry is now engaged in a furious fight to repair its battered reputation”

The article states that “even in the US, experts are beginning to distance themselves from the research” and then goes on to quote “Charles Santerre, associate professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana” stating:

“Farmed salmon is delicious and nutritious and a vital part of our diet”

Mmmm – if you were being paid thousands of dollars by the salmon farming industry that’s exactly what you would say isn’t it?

Full article via: http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1080&id=34622004

In another error-ridden, xenophobic and jingoistic article – “Spreading salmon scare stories” – columnist, and apologist for the Scottish salmon farming industry, Magnus Linklater writes:

“What an irony that America, the most health-conscious nation in the world, which insists that its beef is safe to eat, despite an outbreak of BSE, should be attempting to decimate the Scottish farmed salmon industry by spreading wholly unjustified scare stories. It is barely 10 days since the USA launched a campaign to persuade the dozen or so countries that have suspended imports of American beef that the fears about its safety were grossly exaggerated. Now its Environmental Protection Agency has issued a report which claims that Scottish farmed salmon is full of toxins and potentially carcinogenic. Yet the evidence is far flimsier, far less convincing and far more distorted than the case against their own contaminated meat”

The article refers to “One American scientist who has read the report in detail” who “says that in his view it is an argument for eating more farmed salmon rather than less”. Is this the very same Professor Charles Santerre (or Saunterre as Scotland on Sunday likes to refer to him as) who is a paid consultant to the salmon farming industry? And could Mr Linklater not managed to check other facts such as the fact that the Science study was not conducted by the US EPA but respected scientists at Indiana University, the University at Albany and Cornell University? His jingoism goes on:

“So where does the scare come from, and why is it being spread so zealously by the Americans? A cynic would have no difficulty in reaching a conclusion. This would appear to be a naked bid to protect the USA’s own farmed salmon industry, and to promote the Pacific salmon which it claims is entirely safe to eat. By alleging that North European salmon are contaminated, it effectively undermines the opposition while promoting its own product. If that were the case, then it would be remarkably short-sighted. There would be no sympathy whatsoever for US beef producers as they attempt to shore up their own industry; and the next time there was even the smallest scare story about American food, the Europeans would simply turn their backs on it. A more likely explanation is the sheer paranoia of American consumers, producers and scientists alike”

The article concludes by making a plea (no doubt supported by paid consultant to the salmon farming industry, Professor Charles Santerre) for the US to disregard independent peer-reviewed research published in the world’s foremost scientific journal, Science, and to advocate the consumption of more contaminated farmed Scottish salmon:

“So the Americans are right to play down the risk from their single case of BSE-infected cattle. But if they want our support, they should desist from spreading unwarranted scare stories about other people’s food. The best thing they can do to redress the damage is to issue a clear statement now which emphasises that their own report has been widely misunderstood. In fact, they should say, it demonstrates that Scottish, Norwegian and Irish farmed salmon is perfectly safe to eat, is good for your health, and should, if anything, be consumed in greater quantities than before. Then we can all breathe easier”

Full article via: http://www.news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=34492004

An editorial – “Fishing for answers” – outlines the very real economic implications of a consumer boycott of contaminated farmed Scottish salmon:

“The image of salmon took a blow last week with the publication in Science, the highly respected American scientific journal, of a report suggesting that the levels of dioxins and PCBs - potentially cancer-causing chemicals - found in farmed Scottish salmon are substantially higher than those found in wild salmon. Fish farming is one of Scotland’s great business successes. The Scottish salmon-farming industry is the third largest in the world, producing 150,000 tons of salmon a year, generating £500m a year and directly and indirectly employing more than 6,500 people. However, competition is growing, particularly from South America, and profit margins are under pressure. The fear is that this warning from American scientists could have a substantial impact on Scotland’s salmon farmers. This would hurt the Highlands, where salmon provides half of the region’s food exports, but it could also affect the Scottish food industry more broadly. Over the last 10 years Scotland has established a growing international reputation for the production of top-quality food, and salmon has been widely seen as a symbol of the excellence of ‘Scotland the Brand’. Any reluctance by consumers to buy Scottish farmed salmon could cause wider damage to the food industry”

Full article via: http://www.news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=34812004

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For press up-dates including a media archive please see The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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Science press up-date (9^th January):

For further up-dated information on the Science study see The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Further press information can be found via the Institute for Health and the Environment: http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/index.html

Includes:

The Science paper – “Global Assessment of Organic Contaminants in Farmed Salmon”: http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/completestudy.html

“Salmon meals per month recommendations”: http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/graph1.html

“Frequently asked questions about the Science study”: http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/faqs.html

Please find enclosed the following press coverage on the recent Science publication:

“Only eat salmon three times a year” (The Daily Mail, 9^th January)

“Warning! Eating salmon can seriously damage your health: farmed salmon linked to cancer risk – scientists warn against eating more than one portion every 8 weeks” (The Times, 9^th January)

“Scottish farmed salmon is ‘full of cancer toxins’” (The Daily Telegraph, 9^th January)

“Cancer warning over Scottish farmed salmon” (The Guardian, 9^th January)

“Toxins cited in farmed salmon – cancer risk is lower in wild fish, study reports” (The Washington Post, 9^th January)

“Wild healthier than farmed” (CBS News, 9^th January)

Includes a video clip: “We are certainly not telling people not to eat fish….We’re telling them to eat less farmed salmon” (Dr David Carpenter, University at Albany, N.Y – co-author of the Science study)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/08/health/main592163.shtml

Other press links enclosed include New Scientist, Reuters, BBC News, The New York Times, Reuters, USA Today, ABC News, The Herald, The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, CBC News, The Scotsman, The Oregonian and The London Evening Standard (for up-dated links to news articles see The Salmon Farm Monitor’s media and press archive: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org)

See also press releases on the Science study:

“Science: Scottish farmed salmon the most contaminated in the world – consumption advice is that no more than one meal every four months should be consumed in order to avoid an increased risk of cancer” (The Salmon Farm Protest Group, 8^th January: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org)

“New report: Scots farmed salmon top world ‘toxic league table’ – scientists warn of human health risk” (Friends of the Earth Scotland, 8^th January): http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/press/pr20040101.html

“Salmon contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals, study shows (Friends of the Earth, 8^th January): http://www.foe.org.uk/resource/press_releases/salmon_contaminated_with_c.html

“Food Standards Agency – Greens not convinced, demand for inquiry” (Scottish Green Party, 9^th January): http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/2004/jan/090104fsa.htm

“Scottish farmed salmon contamination – investigation needed say Greens” (Scottish Green Party, 8^th January): http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/2004/jan/080104salmon.htm

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The Times includes a cartoon: Two cats sitting in a restaurant reading a menu and saying to the waiter: “Cancel the salmon. We’ll just have the mice”]

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The Daily Mail (Front page), 9^th January

‘Only eat salmon three times a year’ – salmon health alert

Sean Poulter (Consumer affairs correspondent)

Scientists issued a devastating new warning last night about the safety of Scottish farmed salmon. They said the fish is so contaminated with toxic chemicals it should be eaten no more than three times a year. The chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and birth defects, come from the feed used in fish farms. The findings could have a shattering impact on the £700 million-a-year Scottish salmon farming industry, which supports some 6,500 jobs. Sales of salmon soared as farming brought prices down and the health benefits of oily fish emerged. It has overtaken cod as the best-selling fresh fish in Britain – 98 per cent comes from Scottish farms. Salmon farmers there branded the latest study ‘deliberately misleading’ last night while the Food Standards Agency said the levels of pollutants were within safety limits used by Britain, the EU and the World Health Organisation. Its chairman Sir John Krebs said the health benefits of eating oily fish outweighed any risk. Dr Jeffery Foran, an American toxicologist involved in the study, said neither he nor his family would eat farmed salmon again after what he discovered.

[Photo of a farmed salmon and caption: What’s in your dinner?

PCBs, dioxins and pesticides collect in seas through dumping, rain and run-off into rivers. They accumulate in fat of ocean fish used to produce feed pellets for farmed salmon.

PCBs: Now banned, once used as electrical insulation. Worries over increased cancer risk, damage to brain and immune system

Dioxins: Given off in waste incineration, chemical manufacturing, paper bleaching. Linked to higher cancer rates

Toxaphene and Dieldrin: Pesticides previously used in agriculture. Worries over cancer risk

Canthaxanthin: Chemical colour fed to farmed salmon to dye flesh ‘healthy’ pink. EU wants to restrict use, fearing it damages eyesight

Radioactive waste: Technetium-99 found by separate studies in Scottish salmon. Experts say no risk at levels detected but Sellafield considering stopping discharges

Malachite green: Used by farmers to treat parasites. Now banned as cancer risk, but recently found in 15 per cent of farmed fish]

The project – based at the University of Albany in New York state – looked at pollutant levels in farmed and wild salmon bought in Britain, Europe and North America. Previous small-scale studies had identified a contamination risk, but this is by far the biggest and most comprehensive study. Researchers measured the levels of industrial pollutants – PCBs and dioxins – and agricultural pesticides such as toxaphene and dieldrin. They examined 700 fish, some bought in London supermarkets and some direct from Scottish farms. The highest concentrations were found in fish from Scotland and the Faroe Islands. Dr Foran said this may be because their feed contains oil recovered from the ground-up bodies of tiny sea life harvested in the North Atlantic – a dumping ground for decades for man-made toxins. Fish from Norway also performed badly.

The study, published in the respected U.S. journal Science concluded: “The consumption advice is that no more than one meal every four months should be consumed in order to avoid an increased risk of cancer”. Even smaller amounts, it suggested could trigger harmful effects to brain function and the immune system. Dr Foran said: “All the compounds we were looking for are classified as probable carcinogens. The evidence from comprehensive animal studies points to a range of cancers including liver, breast, lymphatic and thyroid. There are a variety of other health effects, particularly in relation to PCBs. They include reproductive and developmental effects. There are also neurological, brain function effects and immune system effects”. All the fish tested was in fillets, but the findings apply equally to smoked salmon. Almost all tinned salmon, however, is produced from wild fish which have only low levels of pollution.

Despite the startling results of the survey, the FSA said it was sticking by its advice to consumers. Sir John Krebs said: “People should consume at least two portions of fish a week – one of which should be oily like salmon. There is good evidence that eating oily fish reduces the risk of heart attacks. We advise that the known benefits outweigh any possible risks”. Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents farmers, said the researchers had been wrong to use strict guidelines drawn up by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency rather than those used elsewhere in the world. Technical consultant Dr John Webster said: “PCB and dioxin levels in Scottish salmon are significantly lower than the thresholds set by international watchdogs”. The organisation said its members apply “the most stringent and independently inspected quality assurance standards in the world”. It said feed suppliers had taken steps to minimise PCB and dioxin levels, including sourcing fish meal and oils from seas which are less polluted and switching to plant oils.

But Don Staniford of the Salmon Farm Protest Group (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org) said: “This scientific study blows out of the water the myth that farmed salmon is safe, nutritious and healthy. It’s official – farmed salmon is now the most contaminated foodstuff on the supermarket shelf”. Dr Dan Barlow, head of research for Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “We have long known that farmed salmon were more heavily contaminated with toxic pollutants than their wild relatives. We now know Scottish-raised salmon are among the most contaminated and that the levels of contaminants may be so high as to possibly detract from the health benefits of eating fish.” Pollutants are not the only problem facing salmon farmers. Recent studies have found contamination with radioactive waste from Sellafield nuclear plant, while there are concerns about the use of malachite green to kill parasites and infections. There are also health fears over feeding the fish chemicals which colour their flesh pink. Scotland’s estimated 300 salmon farms produce some 160,000 tonnes of salmon a year. Almost three-quarters of the jobs in the industry are in remote rural areas with fragile economies. These are boosted by an estimated £1 million a week in wages alone.

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The Times (Front page), 9^th January

Warning! Eating salmon can seriously damage your health

Farmed salmon linked to cancer risk – scientists warn against eating more than one portion every 8 weeks

Mark Henderson (Science correspondent)

People who regularly eat farmed salmon may be raising their risk of developing cancer, scientists said yesterday. Salmon raised on British fish farms are so contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals that consumers would be unwise to eat them more than once every other month, a major study has concluded. The analysis of more than 700 fish weighing more than two tonnes in total found that farmed salmon across Europe and North America had much higher concentrations of 14 pollutants than fish caught from the wild. The chemicals, which include dioxins, DDT and PCBs, belong to a class known as organochlorines, which are linked to cancer and birth defects. Levels in salmon bought from European supermarkets were so high that eating more than one portion every two months could raise a person’s risk of cancer, according to guidelines from the US Environmental Protection Agency. The most polluted salmon came from farms in Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark. It was so contaminated that the EPA advice would allow only an 8oz (227g) portion every four months. North American farmed salmon had lower levels of the chemicals, allowing up to two portions a month to be eaten safely. Wild salmon is cleaner, and can be consumed up to eight times a month without any negative effects.

[Photo of a farmed salmon ‘today’s special’: Food for thought – consumers who spend £700 million a year on farmed salmon in supermarkets are likely to be alarmed by the study into the health risks]

The findings, which are published today in the journal Science, suggest that the cheap farmed salmon sold in supermarkets is far from a healthy option. The British industry is worth £300 million a year, and consumers spend £700 million on farmed salmon in supermarkets. Sales have risen from 600 tonnes in 1980 to 140,000 in 2001. While salmon is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which reduce the risk of heart disease and may protect against some cancers, these benefits may be outweighed by the environmental pollutants. “Risk analysis indicates that consumption of farmed Atlantic salmon may pose health risks that detract from the beneficial effects of fish consumption,” the scientists said. David Carpenter, of the State University of New York, one of the study authors, said: “The punch line is that eating the wrong kind of fish has real dangers. Fish that is not contaminated is a healthy food, high in nutrients, such as omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, that are known to have a variety of beneficial health effects. However, this study suggests that consumption of farmed salmon may result in exposure to a variety of persistent bioaccummulative contaminants, with the potential for an elevation in attendant health risks”.

[Cartoon: Two cats sitting in a restaurant reading a menu and saying to the waiter: “Cancel the salmon. We’ll just have the mice”]

The most likely explanation for the high levels of pollutants in farmed salmon is the feed they are generally given, which consists of a high-fat mixture of other fish, ground into fishmeal and fish oil. As organochlorines build up in the fatty tissues of fish, they become concentrated in this high-fat food, and are passed on to the farmed salmon. Experts said that the results showed the importance of changing the feed regimes on salmon farms. “This is a definitive study,” Miriam Jacobs, a nutritionist and toxicologist at the University of Surrey and the Royal Veterinary College said: “Further action has to be taken to reduce contaminant levels in feed”. Mary Taylor, a chemicals campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “The figures look pretty shocking. I think consumers and food producers alike will be alarmed. We need to get to grips with the problem of persistent chemicals. There’s a need for more studies along these lines. It’s not just a problem with farmed salmon; the same problem could apply to other intensively farmed animals”….

Ronald Hites, of Indiana University, who led the study, said: “I think it’s important for people who eat salmon to know that farmed salmon have higher levels of toxins than wild salmon. Farmed salmon retails at between £3 and £4 for 10oz of steak, although a single piece at a fresh fish counter can cost as little as £1. The farmer gets about 65p for 10oz. The study’s conclusions do not apply to tinned salmon, most of which is wild and imported from Alaska. They do, however, apply to smoked salmon.

Full article via: http://www.timesonline.co.uk

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The Daily Telegraph, 9^th January

Scottish farmed salmon is ‘full of cancer toxins’

Includes: “We think it's important for people who eat salmon to know that farmed salmon have higher levels of toxins than wild salmon from the open ocean,” said Prof Ronald Hites of Indiana University, who led the study.

“My choice would be, if I were to seek out farm-raised Atlantic salmon, to select north or south American sources, based on these data,” added co-author Prof Barbara Knuth of Cornell University

Full report via:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/09/nfish09.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/09/ixhome.html

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The Guardian, 9^th January

Cancer warning over Scottish farmed salmon

Includes: “Levels of cancer-causing toxins in Scottish farmed salmon are so high that consumers are being advised not to eat more than one portion every two months to safeguard their health. Some scientists were so alarmed by the findings that they believe that young girls and women of child bearing age would be advised not to eat Scottish salmon at all for fear of causing birth defects and brain damage in their unborn children”

“The research, published in today's Science magazine, which analysed salmon samples bought around the world, including from shops in London and Edinburgh, concluded that salmon farmed in Scotland and the Faroe Islands was the most contaminated in the world. Wild salmon was given a clean bill of health and farmed salmon from Chile and North America, while containing some pesticides and dioxins, was cleaner than that from the North Atlantic. Some of the most dangerous chemicals associated with cancer - dieldrin, lindane, dioxins and PCBs, now all banned or carefully controlled - were found in samples of Scottish salmon. The size of the sample was massive, with 594 individual whole salmon purchased and 144 fillets in cities across Europe and North America - a total of two tonnes of fish. The study, by a group of American universities, is the largest of its kind”

Full report via: http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1119339,00.html

Also in The Guardian:

“Contamination of the food chain - Salmon scare to hit fish farms and the fleets” (9^th January):

Includes: “The discovery of high quantities of cancer-causing chemicals in farmed salmon from Scotland is catastrophic news for fish farming in Britain, as well as for the already hard-pressed fishing fleets. The loss in sales that will follow will affect them both - because the chemicals found in farmed salmon do not come from the water they swim in but from the food they eat. This food is manufactured from fish caught on the bottom of the seas round Britain, predominantly in the North Sea”

“The report comes as a body blow for Scotland's salmon farmers after a difficult year. Prices have slumped in the past year and there have been a series of studies condemning the industry for the quality of its product and its impact on wild fish.

“What can you say?” said one salmon farmer, who asked not to be named, yesterday. “There isn't a week goes by when there isn't negative press. Everybody is totally depressed. Why do we need this?”

Full report via: http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1119227,00.html

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The Washington Post, 9^th January

Toxins cited in farmed salmon – cancer risk is lower in wild fish, study reports

Includes: “The two-year, $2.4 million study, funded by the Pew Charitable Trust and published yesterday in the journal Science, is the latest blow to the commercial fish industry, already suffering from growing concerns about elevated levels of mercury in tuna and shellfish”

“Consumers may have difficulty distinguishing between farmed and wild salmon, because many stores and restaurants do not clearly label them. Wild salmon is three to four times as expensive, but some retailers confuse the issue by identifying farmed salmon as "Atlantic salmon." The study called for labels differentiating wild from farmed and noting the country of origin”

Full report via: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A733-2004Jan8.html

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CBS News, 8th January

Wild salmon healthier than farmed

Includes Video to download:

“We are certainly not telling people not to eat fish. ... We're telling them to eat less farmed salmon” (Dr David Carpenter, University at Albany, N.Y – co-author of the Science study)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/08/health/main592163.shtml

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Other press articles includes (see also The Salmon Farm Monitor’s press archive: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org):

“New warning over poisons in farmed salmon” (The Herald, 9^th January): http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/7685.html

“Eating farm salmon 'raises risk of cancer'” (The Scotsman, 9^th January): http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/scotland.cfm?id=27102004

“Study finds higher level of toxins in farmed salmon” (The Seattle Times, 9^th January): http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2001833048_salmon09.html

“Study warns of danger in eating farmed salmon” (Seattle Post Intelligencer, 9^th January): http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/155971_salmon09.html

“Farmed salmon have more contaminants than wild ones, study finds” (The New York Times, 9^th January): http://www.nytimes.com

“Scientists split on safety of salmon” (The London Evening Standard, 9^th January): http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/8519194?source=Evening%20Standard

“Salmon health warning sparks inquiry call” (The Scotsman, 8^th January): http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2388000

“Study finds farmed salmon contains pollutants: Good or bad for you? - contaminants found in farmed salmon tarnish a healthy food's reputation” (ABC News, 8^th January):

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/SciTech/Living/salmon_risk_contaminants_040108-1.html

“Scare over farmed salmon safety - Salmon farmed in Scotland is among the most tainted with cancer-causing chemicals, US scientists have warned” (BBC News, 8th January): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3380735.stm

“Farmed salmon more contaminated than wild” (New Scientist, 8th January): http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994547

“Farmed salmon loaded with chemicals, study finds” (Reuters, 8th January): http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=042D3MGQFOVUOCRBAE0CFFA?type=healthNews&storyID=4096208

“More dioxins found in farmed salmon, but FDA unconcerned” (USA Today, 8^th January): http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-01-08-salmon-study_x.htm

“Study raises concerns for salmon farming industry” (The Oregonian, 8^th January):

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1073615340121480.xml

“Farmed salmon loaded with chemicals, study finds” (Reuters, 8^th January): http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=042D3MGQFOVUOCRBAE0CFFA?type=healthNews&storyID=4096208

“Study raises questions about safety of farmed salmon” (CBC News, 8^th January): http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/08/salmon_040108

“Study confirms farmed salmon more toxic than wild fish” (CBC News, 8^th January): http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/08/salmon040108

The Salmon Farm Protest Group Limited

An ruda bhios na do bhrôin, cha bhi e na do thimhnadh

That which you have wasted will not be there for future generations

JANUARY EDITION OF SALMON FARM MONITOR

ON-LINE MONDAY 5TH JANUARY 2004:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

European Parliament petitioned to investigate Scottish Executive fish farm fraud
Fish farm protesters out in San Francisco, USA and Queensland, Australia
Nutreco under investigation for fraud and breach of contract
Green Party leader, Robin Harper slams “out of touch fisheries minister”
Malachite green meeting in February on "toxicology and carcinogenesis"
Leading Canadian environmentalist writes New Year 2004 guest column
Massive Irish fish farm application chucked out by Appeal Agency
WWF and SWT denounce Executive claims of ‘sustainable fish farm growth’
International News, News from around the Fish Farms, Rod McGill

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

The simple and elegantly laid-out Salmon Farming Monitor site has table-thumping news and views of the fish farming industry here and throughout the world
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/index.shtml

Embargoed Until 12pm 20th December
“Santa Says No No No to Farmed Salmon”
- Ten Reasons to Boycott Farmed Salmon This Christmas
The Salmon Farm Protest Group (SFPG) today (Saturday 20th) takes to the streets of Edinburgh to celebrate wild salmon and to protest about the danger factory farmed salmon poses to wild fish populations. SFPG supporters will be dressed as Santas and chefs handing out tins of wild Alaskan salmon to Christmas shoppers on Princes St (12-1pm outside M&S) and Rose St (1-2pm outside Sainsbury’s). At 2.15 pm the SFPG will personally deliver a surprise Christmas present to the First Minister of Scotland at St Andrews House on Regents Road.
Bruce Sandison, Chairman of the SFPG, said:
“Consumers should avoid farmed salmon this Christmas. Before buying customers should count to ten and think again. Ten reasons to say no to farmed salmon include: fish farm sea lice infestations killing wild salmon, a possible risk of listeria, artificial colourings and contaminants. Before buying these products in supermarkets, consumers would be well-advised to ask staff if it is wild or farmed salmon, and what chemicals it contains. Better safe than sorry. Have a happy, healthy Christmas.”
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Notes to Editors:
Ten Reasons to Boycott Fresh Farmed Salmon This Christmas:
1) Sea lice – factory salmon farms are infested with parasites and spread sea lice to wild salmon and sea trout
2) Escapes – a recent scientific paper published by the Royal Society concludes that mass escapes from farms can lead to extinctions in wild salmon
3) Wastes: Salmon farms discharge untreated wastes directly into pristine marine waters thereby using the sea as an open sewer
4) Unsustainable: far from saving wild fish, salmon farming is a drain on depleted marine resources and is inherently unsustainable
5) Listeria – One in ten smoked salmon are contaminated with listeria which can cause meningitis, blood poisoning and still births in pregnant women
6) Insanitary and filthy – the US FDA have refused over 200 cases of Irish, Scottish, Chilean and Norwegian salmon for being ‘insanitary’ and ‘filthy’
7) Fatty – Farmed salmon contains more fat than wild salmon (up to ten times fattier in some cases)
8) Chemicals – Factory farmed salmon are dependent upon a cocktail of toxic chemicals to control diseases and parasites
9) Artificial colourings – farmed salmon contain synthetic pink dyes such as Astaxanthin and Canthaxanthin (E161g)
10) Contaminants – farmed salmon can contain DDT, chlordane and dioxins and can be up to ten times more contaminated with PCBs than wild salmon
For the more details on the “Ten Reasons” including web-links and further information: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/pr201203notes.shtml

Press Release from The Salmon Farm Protest Group: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

Please find enclosed a press up-date on sea cage fish farming issues from around the world.

Includes articles from Nature, Science, New Scientist, Reuters, National Geographic, ABC, Bloomberg, ENN, Mail on Sunday (Scotland), LA Times, The Irish Examiner, Intrafish, The Seattle Times, The Salmon Farm Monitor, The Irish Independent, The Advertiser (Australia), The Press & Journal, Scoop (New Zealand), Independent on Sunday, The Oregonian, The Belfast Telegraph, Latin American Press, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Herald, The Mercury and the Inter Press Service

Keep up-to-date on sea cage fish farming issues via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

The Salmon Farm Monitor includes an international news archive (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/archive.shtml) and all the latest international news: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/news.shtml

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1) “Santa Says No No No to Farmed Salmon” - - Ten Reasons to Boycott Farmed Salmon This Christmas: The Salmon Farm Monitor, 20^th December

2) Irish licence appeals board gives thumbs down to Marine Harvest site: Intrafish, 17th December

3) Natural salmon naturally better, says leading chef: The Seattle Times, 15^th December

4) I lost my girlfriend and my career and almost lost my mind – because of a chemical used in fish farms: Was the life of a bright young student destroyed by poisons that were used every day in the mass production of fish for human consumption?: The Mail on Sunday, 14^th December

5) Kingfish farm locations cause concern: ABC News, 11^th December

6) Tighter rules for organic fish farms: Independent on Sunday, 7^th December

7) Salmon farming must change; we have a lot to lose - the escape of Atlantic salmon into Northwest waters could cripple the region's iconic wild fish: The Oregonian, 7^th December

8) Threat to salmon is probed - scientists look at danger from fish farm escapes: The Belfast Telegraph, 5^th December

9) Salmon farm industry struggles to live up to its promise: ENN, 5^th December

10) Going Dutch: The Salmon Farm Monitor, December

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“The accident Mr Findlay refers to as ‘the end of my world’ happened on May 28, 1990. Already disturbed at the lax conditions he had found at the Cromarty Salmon Company, he was unhappy to be told he would have to ‘delouse’ the cages more than a mile out in the Firth. Given a slight, protective mask and wearing overalls, he watched as a mix of Aquaguard SLT, an organophosphate compound, was added to a bucket of water and he was then shown how to sluice it over the trout cages moored in the Cromarty Firth. As he did so, the bucket slipped in his hand and its contents went all over his head, face, shoulders and upper body. “I felt an immediate burning sensation and I wretched the mask off, shoving my head forward to stop anything running into my mouth. The manager, Brian Shaw, grabbed me and tried to wash my face with the cage water which was already contaminated with the compound” (Extract from The Mail on Sunday, 14^th December)

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11) Marine Harvest fish farm blockade: The Salmon Farm Monitor, December

12) Pollution minister ‘out of touch’ on fish farming, say Greens: The Scottish Green Party, 4^th December

13) State takes dim view of GloFish, bans sale: Los Angeles Times, 4^th December

14) The big business agenda driving the destruction of Scotland’s marine environment: The Salmon Farm Monitor, December

15) Policing aquaculture: The Irish Independent, 3^rd December

16) Salmon farmers reject claims Irish fish were 'filthy': The Irish Independent, 3^rd December

17) Executive ‘unaware’ of fish farm jobs: The Press & Journal, 2^nd December

18) Salmon industry under fire - fish farming needs to clean up act, say critics: Latin American Press, 1^st December

19) Farmed salmon – a dream turned nightmare: The Salmon Farm Monitor, December

20) Scottish salmon banned in U.S. after discovery of ‘deadly’ bug – Queen’s supplier among firms whose products are rejected as unhealthy: The Daily Mail, 1^st December

21) New Zealand government extends ban on new marine farms: Bloomberg News, 1st December

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“Chile the production of salmon in the country has climbed spectacularly in recent years, the industry is now having to fend off an increasing number of accusations concerning poorly monitored farming processes, badly paid workers and its destructive effects on Chile’s coastline. Illegal chemicals are still being used in the production process, some food safety campaigners claim, while others allege that certain Chilean producers use more antibiotics in their rearing of the fish than they should. Antibiotics are added to the food given to salmon to protect them against disease and infection. Several Chilean shipments were stopped by both the United Kingdom and Netherlands customs authorities this year, after inspections revealed that the salmon cargoes contained a banned anti-fungal chemical, malachite green. The substance, which is cheaper than accepted anti-sea lice agents, has been linked to cancer” (Extract from the Latin American Press, 1^st December)

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22) US rejects ‘filthy’ farmed salmon - industry fury as 27 shipments banned by food watchdog: The Sunday Herald, 30^th November

23) Pacific Northwest salmon farms breed concerns - authorities in the region grapple with diseased stocks escaping and the ill effects posed by high food costs and tons of fish waste: The Oregonian, 30^th November

24) Spawning freaks of nature: The Oregnonian, 29^th November

25) Eat your veg - with fish farming on the rise, researchers are seeking ways to make aquaculture sustainable. One solution may mean turning carnivorous fish into vegetarians: Nature, 27^th November

26) Oversized fish cause concern: Scoop, 26^th November

27) Salmon farms need to clean up their act: Irish Examiner, 24^th November

28) Legal battle looms over lost fish: The Advertiser, 22^nd November

29) Glowing fish to be first genetically changed pet: Reuters, 21^st November

30) The future for fisheries: Science, 21^st November

31) New illegal salmon catch: The Mercury, 21^st November

32) Sea star menace spreads: The Mercury, 5^th November

33) Genetically altered fish raises ethical concerns: Inter Press Service, 28^th October

34) Wild-farm hybrids not reaching spawning grounds?: National Geographic, 28^th October

35) Fish farm danger: New Scientist, 25^th October

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Keep up-to-date on sea cage fish farming issues via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

"INSANITARY" AND "FILTHY" FARMED SALMON
United States refuses imports of Irish and Scottish salmon

Over the last year the US FDA has refused to allow the import of over 260 farmed salmon products from Ireland, Scotland, Norway, and Chile. Reasons for the issuing of Import Refusal Reports include "Insanitary" (226 cases), "Listeria" (23), "Filthy" (9) and "Mislabelling" (4).

Findings include:

Irish salmon was by far the most "insanitary" representing 210 out of 226 cases

Salmon from the United Kingdom was the most likely to be contaminated with listeria accounting for 15 out of the 23 cases (65%)

"Filthy" salmon was refused from Ireland (4 cases), UK (3), Chile (1) and Norway (1)

Nolans Seafoods, Tipperary Fine Foods Ltd, Wrights of Howth, Loch Fyne Oysters Ltd, Lossie Seafoods Ltd, Chiefdale and Pinneys Of Scotland Ltd were the worst offenders

The FDA's define the offences in their 'violation codes' as follows:

'Filthy': "The article appears to consist in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise unfit for food"

'Insanitary': "The article appears to have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health"

'Listeria': "The article appears to contain Listeria, a poisonous and deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health"

Don Staniford, MD of the Salmon Farm Protest Group, said:

"The US FDA has discovered what many of us have known all along - that there are farmed salmon products from Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Chile that might be a health hazard and 'unfit for food'. The refusal of the FDA to allow some imports of farmed salmon from Scotland into the USA is a particularly devastating blow for an industry that accounts for 40% of total Scottish food exports and is still reeling from a threat by the EU to ban Scottish salmon contaminated with malachite green.

"If the US is refusing to allow some Irish and Scottish salmon into the country, then why should consumers be duped into buying what could possibly be, on the evidence from the US, 'filthy' and 'insanitary'? Scotland and Ireland's hard-won reputations as purveyors of high quality foods are being internationally degraded by the export of smoked salmon that is unfit for human consumption"

For further information contact Don Staniford on Tel: 07880 716082
(00 44 7880 716082 from outside UK)
See also: www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

A selection of news links to sea cage fish farming articles from:

Reuters, The Sunday Times (Australia), The Irish Examiner, BBC News (UK), The New Zealand Herald, Kansai Time Out (Japan), The Times Standard (Canada), Castlebar News (Ireland), The Press & Journal (Scotland), Greenzine International, The Salmon Farm Monitor (UK), Salon (United States), ABC (Australia), The San Jose Mercury, The Oregonian (US), The Alaska Journal of Commerce, The Chicago Tribune, The Anchorage Daily News, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail (Canada), The Sea Around Us, Environment, The Northern Advocate (New Zealand), EcoAmericas (Chile), Science Daily and Save The Swilly (Ireland)

International issues featured include:

- Contamination of Chilean farmed salmon

- Illegal chemical use on Japanese fish farms

- Royal Society paper on farmed escapees

- Stanford University study of salmon farming

- GM fish coming to a supermarket near you soon?

- Irish salmon farming inquiry after a TV expose

- Shark attacks on tuna farms in Mexico

- Escapes threaten wild salmon in Iceland

Keep up-to-date on international sea cage fish farming issues via The Salmon Farm Monitor: http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

The enclosed Word document features:

1) Poison fish: Kansai Time Out (November)

2) The salmon farm industry in Southern Chile: from panacea to Pandora’s box?: The

Salmon Farm Monitor (November)

3) Forum educates the public on farmed salmon dangers: The Times Standard (16^th November)

4) One fish, two fish, genetically new fish - firm seeks OK for altered salmon: The Chicago Tribune (12^th November)

5) Marine farmers look to grow overseas: New Zealand Herald (12^th November)

6) Radioactive Russian salmon feared among Scottish stocks: The Press & Journal (11^th November)

7) Farmed and dangerous: Salon (7^th November)

8) Sea trout and wild salmon have been victims of ethnic cleansing: Save The Swilly (5^th November)

9) Escapes enter Icelandic rivers: The Salmon Farm Monitor (November)

10) Scottish Seafarms Limited pollute West Highland river: The Salmon Farm Monitor (November)

11) Diver attacks Great White: The Sunday Times (2^nd November)

12) Fish farm campaigner - Earthbeat meets an international campaigner on
the environmental and health effects of sea-cage fish farming, who says Australia should be wary of overseas experience: ABC (1^st November)

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Quote of the month “The present conflicts in the Chilean southern archipelagos is part of an emerging global environmental battle over high-intensity fish farming. Environmentalists, coastal communities and the artisan fishermen in south of Chile are calling for the consumers’ awareness concerning the negatives impacts of Chile's rapidly expanding salmon-farm industry. This problem is a global concern in salmon industry terms, and a time bomb in ecological terms” (Juan Carl Cardenas of Ecoceanos writing in the November issue of The Salmon Farm Monitor): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

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13) Salmon aquaculture in the Pacific Northwest - a global industry with local impacts: Environment (October)

14) Farmed salmon come under fire: The Globe and Mail (31^st October)

15) Think twice about eating farmed salmon: The New York Times (31^st October)

16) Farmed salmon have negative impact on Alaska fishing industry: The Alaska Journal of Commerce (27^th October)

17) Fish farm waste treatment at sea?: ABC (23^rd October)

18) Debate grows over fish farms - environmental concerns are key issue at UW forum: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (21^st October)

19) Farm threat to wild salmon: BBC News Online (20^th October)

20) Despite all the rage there are still fish in a cage: Greenzine International (16^th October)

21) Threat to Northern Ireland’s wild salmon: BBC News, 16^th October

22) Fishy goings-on with salmon farming: The Irish Examiner (14^th October)

23) Fisheries Board to go to the E.U. if action not taken on fish farms: Castlebar News (4^th October)

24) Scientist issues finfish farming warning - is our clean green image at risk?: The Northern Advocate (4^th October)

25) Salmon farms spawn fortunes, and critics, in Chile: Reuters (2^nd October)

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Quote of the month: “RTE’s recent Prime Time programme finally exposed what really goes on in the murky world of salmon farming. For the first time, TV cameras unveiled salmon farming’s routine and scandalous abuse of our environment: a) sea-beds knee-deep in dumped salmon carcasses; b) stocks of wild salmon and sea trout eaten alive with parasites from the densely-packed salmon-cages; c) fisheries destroyed; d) bogs used as convenient dumps for diseased salmon and offal…..

How, then, can the appalling environmental sacrileges and illegalities exposed by Prime Time be allowed to go unpunished? Simple. The backbone of the Marine Institute board comprises men who are up to their necks in salmon farming. And the latest recruit to the aquaculture appeals board is an ex-salmon-feed manufacturer. These political shenanigans guarantee that salmon farmers ignore scientific findings, ride roughshod over environmental concerns while simultaneously remaining protected from sanction and prosecution. We must be grateful for Prime Time finally dragging some of these spurious environmental protectors under the full glare of public scrutiny” (Dr Roderick O’Sullivan in The Irish Examiner, 14^th October)

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26) Fungicide and antibiotic sideline Chilean salmon: EcoAmericas (September)

27) Fish farms bite fishermen's bottom lines: The San Jose Mercury (27^th September)

28) Salmon farms pose significant threat to salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, researchers find: Science Daily (23^rd September)

29) Imported seafood goes untested - despite evidence of illegal contaminants in imported fish, only a tiny fraction is screened before reaching U.S. consumers: The Oregonian (14^th September)

30) Chile’s fish tainted by dangerous antibiotic - high levels of the toxic antibiotic oxytetracycline found in farmed salmon from Chile are sending shock waves through the industry: Anchorage Daily News (13^th September)

31) Finfish farming – should New Zealand adopt the new technology?: Whangarei Crusing Club (September)

32) Salmon farming in Chile: The Sea Around Us (July/August)

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Quote of the month: “Salmon farming is but one facet of the international cartel to privatise the near-shore coastlines and ocean-bottoms for everything from algae production to shellfish to fish. Given that the overwhelming bulk of the world’s marine landings come from waters under national jurisdiction, this is a social, legal and international issue that needs immediate attention in Chile and in all coastal nations” (Jim Fulton writing in The Sea Around Us, July/August)

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The Salmon Farm Monitor includes a monthly up-date of ‘International News’:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/news.shtml

And an International news archive:

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/archive.shtml

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Kansai Time Out, November

Poison fish: Pufferfish (fugu) are a traditional winter delicacy. But the way they're farmed is a cause for concern. Nevin Thompson reports

Includes: “In May, fisheries officials in Nagasaki Prefecture ordered over a million farm-raised fugu to be destroyed after local aquaculture cooperatives admitted to dumping formalin into floating sea-cages. Formalin, the liquid version of formaldehyde, the same chemical used to preserve laboratory specimens and embalm corpses, is used to kill external parasites. Formalin is also a known carcinogen and has been banned from human consumption in Japan since 1981”

“Although fish farmers often have to resort to smuggling formalin over from Taiwan and Korea, its use is a widespread, underground activity that is unofficially sanctioned by the government," says Matsumoto Motosuke, an activist based in Amakusa, Kyushu”

Full article available via Kansai Time Out: http://www.kto.co.jp/article1.html

See also: “Cancer-causing chemicals found in Japanese fish” (The Salmon Farm Monitor: June 2003): http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/intlnewsjune2003.shtml#item10

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The Salmon Farm Monitor, November

The salmon farm industry in Southern Chile: from panacea to Pandora’s box?

Juan Carlos Cárdenas, Chile’s leading environmentalist, on the big business interests behind the explosive development of Chile's damaging salmon farming industry

Includes: “The recent case of shipments of Chilean farmed salmon contaminated with carcinogenic malachite in the Netherlands and the UK, or the retention of salmon exportations in Japan because of higher levels of antibiotics than the standards of this country allow, prove that the industry still has a long way to go before it can demonstrate it can develop in agreement with sustainable environmental standards. Regarding effects on public health, the use of malachite green in aquaculture in Chile has been prohibited since 1997. However, many Chilean salmon companies still continue using this substance in order to eliminate fungus from their fish farming centres. However, Chile has no regulation on antibiotic use, as other countries such as Norway, Canada and the USA. Antibiotic use is growing as the salmon industry grows. It reached a peak in the year 2000, when 500 tonnes of antibiotics were used”

“The present conflicts in the Chilean southern archipelagos is part of an emerging global environmental battle over high-intensity fish farming. Environmentalists, coastal communities and the artisan fishermen in south of Chile are calling for the consumers’ awareness concerning the negatives impacts of Chile's rapidly expanding salmon-farm industry. This problem is a global concern in salmon industry terms, and a time bomb in ecological terms”

http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/guest.shtml

Closing the Net on Sea Cage Fish Farming

Introduction:

Aquaculture increasingly represents the future for fish but sea cage finfish farming threatens both fisheries and other fish farming sectors. Far from being a panacea for the crisis in capture fisheries, the intensive farming of carnivores such as salmon, sea bass, tuna, sea bream, kingfish, red snapper, barramundi, cod and halibut serve only to compound the problem. If we continue on the present course towards the global expansion of sea cage fish farming we are heading for a disaster of Titanic proportions. The so-called ‘Blue Revolution’ has certainly ushered in a new era of fisheries resource exploitation that has transformed the way in which fish reaches our plates. Yet, sea cage finfish farming jeopardises both the integrity and water quality of the marine environment and also public health and food safety. The transition from a capture to a culture economy has led to profound social, environmental, economic and food safety implications. In the final analysis open sea cage fish farming is a false economy.

The Five Fundamental Flaws of Sea Cage Fish Farming:

The problems inherent in intensive sea cage fish farming are international in compass. The global reach of tuna farming in the Mediterranean, Mexico and Australia extends to markets in the Far East. And the ecological footprint of salmon farming extends way beyond the confines of Norway, Chile, Scotland, North America, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Tasmania and New Zealand. Feed for tuna farms in Australia for example is sourced from North America. On the international stage sea cage fish farming has gotten far too big for its boots. A comparison between sea cage fish farming in the Northern hemisphere and the Southern hemisphere reveals disturbing similarities. The species farmed and the locations may be different but ‘the five fundamental flaws’ remain the same; namely: untreated wastes; mass escapes; diseases and parasites; toxic chemicals and fish feed/food. The first four flaws can at least be mitigated by waste treatment and closed containment. Ultimately, however, the dependence upon depleted and contaminated fish feed as a fuel supply represents the fifth and fatal flaw. This paper seeks to build on previous papers presented in Chile and the European Parliament and frame the Australian (and to a lesser extent the New Zealand) sea cage fish farming debate in a global context [1].

The Blue Revolution – Making Waves Across the World:

Aquaculture is the fastest growing sector of the world food economy. According to the latest FAO report – “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2002” - aquaculture accounted for 32% of the world’s fish supply in 2000 – up from less than 5% in 1970. Between 1985 and 2000, the volume of global aquaculture production grew fourfold from 11.4 million metric tonnes to 45.7 million. Finfish production also grew four-fold from 5.2 million to 23.1 million mt. In 2000, half of the volume of aquaculture production came from marine waters, 45% from freshwater and 5% from brackish waters. Mariculture is on the march. And although carnivorous finfish species accounted for only 13% of global finfish production by weight in 2000, they comprised 34% of total production by value. Aquaculture already consumes ca. 35% of the world’s fish meal and ca. 70% of the world’s fish oil. If the current rate of growth in consumption continues, aquaculture will account for 56% of the world’s annual production of fish meal and 98% of the fish oil by 2010. Aquaculture is quite literally eating into capture fisheries. By 2020 farmed fish are predicted to have overtaken wild caught fish. This is already the case for salmon but the shift is also taking place with other species such as cod, tuna, halibut, barramundi and kingfish [2].

Aquaculture in Australia:

Australian aquaculture in particular has witnessed unprecedented growth increasing in value by an average of 11% a year since 1991-92 and is now the fastest growing primary industry in Australia. Through its ‘Aquaculture Industry Action Agenda’, Australia plans to treble production by 2010 and predicts that by the end of the decade the value of farmed fish will increase from ca. A$750 million to over A$2.5 billion – 5 times the 1999 figure. This is eminently feasible (whether it is environmentally desirable is another matter entirely): in real terms the gross value of aquaculture production in Australia nearly trebled between 1991-92 and 2001-2. Aquaculture now accounts for 30% of the total gross value of Australian fisheries production and 19% of the total volume (44,300 tonnes out of 233,300 tonnes). Five species contribute the bulk of aquaculture: southern bluefin tuna ($261m), pearls ($175m), Atlantic salmon ($112m), prawns ($65m) and edible oysters ($57m). These five species made up 91% of Australian aquaculture (in value not volume) in 2001-2 [3].

The Australian government is running a five-year R & D plan and sees Australia becoming ‘a major global player at the high-quality end of the market’. For example, the Australian government have just invested $28 million in a long-term project to domesticate southern bluefin tuna. The first tuna farm was only set up in Port Lincoln, South Australia, in 1991 but the tuna farming sector has grown to the point where ca. 98% of the Australian southern bluefin tuna quota is now farmed. Twelve tuna farming companies now operate on twenty-five sites concentrated around Port Lincoln requiring ca. 50,000 tonnes of baitfish including pilchards and herring. Australian tuna farming production now stands in excess of 10,000 tonnes - representing 67% of the value of world tuna farming production. Atlantic salmon and ocean trout production (ca. 15,000 tonnes valued at $111.5 million at the farm gate) is almost exclusive to Tasmania where 14 commercial operations are located in the Huon River, Port Esperance and D’Entrecasteaux Channel and Tasman Pennisula. Tasmania’s production of farmed salmonids has risen eightfold since 1989-90 when only 1,750 tonnes was produced [3].

It is not just salmon and tuna that are fuelling the expansion of sea cage fish farming. The sea cage farming of barramundi ($11m) has also expanded in recent years and is predicted to grow inexorably. Yellowtail kingfish ($13m) is increasingly farmed in South Australia and is considered ‘the next big thing’[4]. In New South Wales commercial production of snapper has commenced and may soon be followed by mulloway. According to the Sunday Mail (3^rd March 2003), prawn farmers are interested in diversifying into gold-spot cod. A $1 million four-year project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research is exploring the commercialisation of the gold-spot cod in Queensland and South Asia. Imported fish products now provide more than 60 per cent of seafood sold in Australia [5]. Clearly, Australia wants to be a net producer of fish.

New Zealand Aquaculture:

New Zealand does not want to miss the boat either and have embarked on an ambitious plan to promote high value species such as kingfish, salmon and are even considering bluefin tuna farming. Aquaculture contributes ca. 20% of New Zealand’s export earnings but the government are sowing the seeds for future expansion. According to the New Zealand Herald (22^nd June 2003), the industry aims to double its earnings by 2010 and reach $1 billion by 2020:

“With its clean waters and 17,000km coastline, New Zealand should be in the vanguard of this boom, say fish-farming proponents who aim to turn the boutique industry into a billion-dollar export earner. But if New Zealand is to swim with the big fish it needs to diversify into high-value finfish species such as kingfish, snapper and grouper which, unlike South Island salmon, can be farmed in warmer northern waters, says marine scientist Andrew Jeffs. A breeding trial at NIWA’s Bream Bay hatchery has wildly exceeded expectations, producing 30,000 kingfish with the potential to fetch hundreds of dollars a kilo in sashimi restaurants in Japan” [6]

Salmon farming is still synonymous with sea cage fish farming in New Zealand. The vast majority (ca. 90%) of New Zealand’s farmed salmon production originates from farms run by Malaysian-owned New Zealand King Salmon in the Marlborough Sounds and Canadian-owned Sanford Ltd off Stewart Island. However, kingfish farming is coming to New Zealand. In May this year it was announced that Island Aquafarms Ltd had converted four salmon farm cages to raise juvenile yellowtail kingfish in Crail Bay, Marlborough Sound. Aquaculture programme leader Andrew Jeffs said NIWA was focussed on increasing the value of aquaculture in New Zealand: “We are trying to develop species that are worth more than mussels. New Zealand is mostly focussed on developing low value aquaculture species”. While New Zealand aquaculture was worth about $1600 per tonne, Australian aquaculture was worth $30,000 per tonne, he said [7].

Aquaculture companies are now putting pressure on the New Zealand Government to lift the moratorium on fish farming imposed in 2001. Moana Pacific, for example, is thinking of closing a kingfish farm project in Northland and moving it instead to Australia [8]. New Zealand, famous for its Greenshell mussel farming industry, would do well though to heed international warnings before committing itself to an expansion in sea cage fish farming. Whilst the Scottish environmental watchdog, Scottish Natural Heritage, was far too late in warning in 2001 that salmon farming and shellfish farming were “incompatible” [9], there is still time for Australian aquaculture to alter course.

Clash of Cultures – Finfish vs Shellfish Farming:

As in the agricultural sector there are fundamental differences between farming systems. Whilst aquaculture has been practised for millennia it is only relatively recently with the advent of intensive fish farming (mainly shrimp and salmon) in the 1970s that we have witnessed a shift away from sustainable ‘family’ fish farming to ‘factory’ farming. The intensification of sea cage finfish production in the 1980s and 1990s has ushered in a new era of resource exploitation. Subsistence shellfish farming in particular has been sacrificed for the development of finfish operations which discharge contaminated wastes directly into the sea and depend upon chemicals to control diseases and parasites. A clash of cultures between finfish and shellfish farming means that fish have now become more a biological agent of pollution than a biological indicator.

Compared to sea cage finfish farming shellfish farming is relatively environmentally benign. It requires no inputs such as fish meal and fish oil, antibiotics and other chemicals to control parasites and disease or artificial colourings and there are few outputs such as waste effluent, uneaten feed or escapes. Shellfish farming is not without its environmental impacts [10] but sea cage finfish farming is in a different league [11]. Salmon farming in particular has been targeted as a ‘cancer of the coast’ [12]. Environmental and food safety groups in Canada, Chile, Scotland and Ireland have exposed a catalogue of crimes against the marine environment including evidence of illegal chemical use, contamination, pollution, infectious diseases, mass mortalities and escapes [13].

Salmon farming, however, is not the only sea cage fish farming sector to have attracted criticism. Tuna farming seems set to take over salmon farming’s mantle as the bete noir of environmental and fisheries groups [14]. More recently, cod farming in Norway and Scotland has been criticised for producing 50% more wastes than salmon farming [15]. And kingfish farming in Australia has come under fire for its appalling track record on escapes [16]. An international public backlash threatens to blow sea cage fish farming out of the water [17]. Nor has Australian or New Zealand aquaculture escaped the barrage of negative news articles [18] or vocal local opposition to sea cage fish farming [19].

The Privatisation of Fish:

Global protests against factory fish farming represent a potential watershed in the history of aquaculture. Whilst on land the switch from hunting and gathering to a society based upon agriculture took several thousand years, the transition from a capture to a culture fisheries economy is occurring in front of our very eyes. Clashes between fishermen and fish farmers and between sea cages and shellfish waters are symptomatic of the tensions of transition. The analogies between aquaculture and terrestrial agriculture are all too obvious. As sea cage fish farming displaces capture fisheries we are now witnessing the beginning a new era of marine exploitation - in much the same way as shifting cultivation made way for modern factory farming. The wholesale destruction of mangrove forests to make way for intensive prawn farms and the expansion of sea cage fish farms encroaching into traditional inshore fisheries area are fencing off swathes of the seaside. Marion Shoard’s clarion call in her 1980 book “The Theft of the Countryside” warned of the destruction of the English countryside by modern intensive farming methods [20]. Some twenty years later the same warning signs are now visible along our coastal margins and inshore coastal waters – only this time it is the theft of the seaside. Fish are being privatised. The sea is being sold off.

A once ubiquitous common property resource is now controlled by a select few multinationals. The top seven companies, for example, control 40% of the world’s farmed salmon production [21]. Multinationals such as Nutreco, Stolt and Cermaq are now diversifying their operations by adapting methods of farming salmon to other species of carnivorous fish. The global GM giant Monsanto also moved into aquaculture in Asia in 1999 and is one of the founding members of the Global Aquaculture Alliance. By 2008, Monsanto expects to earn revenues of $1.6 billion and a net income of $226 million from its aquaculture business [22]. Fish are being privatised so quickly that sea cage fish farming is not only a high risk strategy for the marine environment but also for investors be they in Japan, Europe, North America or Australia. According to ABC (27^th March 2003) the Director of the South Australian museum, Dr Tim Flannery, warned investors not to go into aquaculture to make money because it is a huge leap into the unknown:

“On land we’ve been used to agricultural systems for at least 10,000 years….in the oceans we have maybe 50 years experience. Don’t get into aquaculture for the quick buck. I personally think that the systems are so dynamic and so easily upset that you want to have every insurance that you’ll still have money in ten years time” [23]

As if to prove the point salmon farming companies across the world are going bust losing millions. The world’s largest salmon farming company, Nutreco, announced record losses of 186 million euros for the first half of 2003 [24]. Last year Australia’s largest salmon producer, Tassal, went into receivership with debts of $30 million [25]. The boom industry of the 1990s is now going bust. Sea cage salmon farming is dead in the water.

Australian Aquaculture – Heading for the Rocks:

Australia’s plans to treble production by 2010 and the focus on high value sea cage species such as tuna pose a real threat to the future. Already there are alarming signs that the salmon, kingfish and tuna cages littering the Australian coastline are encroaching upon pristine waters [26]. The New Zealand government have also recently published a damning research report on impacts of marine farming [27]. In South Australia, the hundreds farms are like a noose around Australia’s neck [28]. Salmon farms in Tasmania are discharging so much untreated waste in the Huon Estuary that their expansion has been capped [29]. The increasing incidence of toxic algal blooms in New Zealand and Australian waters is becoming to hazard both to shellfish and to public health. Intensive cage finfish farming is, quite literally, suffocating marine life via the spread of contaminated wastes, mass escapes, uneaten feed, mass mortalities and the deaths of dolphins and other marine species. Damning evidence of the ‘five fundamental flaws of sea cage fish farming’ is now emerging. Tuna farming in particular may be making millionaires out of a small group of owners but environmental factors are not accounted for [30]. Lessons can be learned from salmon farming in Chile, Scotland, Canada and Norway; from tuna farming in Japan, Spain and Croatia; from sea bass and bream in the Mediterranean as well as emerging species such as cod, halibut and haddock. However, such international experience is not being taken on board by the Australian authorities. Unless Australian aquaculture drastically changes course it is heading for disaster.

Making the Same Mistakes:

The country and the culture species may be different but the companies involved are all too familiar. The world’s largest salmon farming company, the Dutch-owned multinational Nutreco, has already secured a foothold in Australia. Nutreco is gearing up for huge expansion in barramundi, kingfish and is interested in becoming involved in tuna farming off Port Lincoln. Norwegian company Stolt is already the second biggest tuna company in Port Lincoln. In 2001 Nutreco joined forces with Tasmanian salmon company, Tassal, to buy Pivot’s aquaculture business including an aquafeed plant in Tasmania and a barramundi facility in the Northern Territory. In 2002 the Stehr Group signed a deal with Nutreco to grow out kingfish in Spencer Gulf, South Australia [31]. By the end of the end of the decade Nutreco hope to be producing 10,000 tonnes a year from their barramundi farm on Bathurst Island. The $20m farm, 100 miles north of Darwin, has capacity for 2.2 million fish and is capable of flooding the entire barramundi sector. “It has the potential to certainly displace much of the wild-caught fish on the market today,” Northern Territory Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries Mick Palmer told ABC in 2001. “That’s not to say that that industry will disappear but it will provide the consumer in Australia a cheap bulk volume product that they’ll be able to put very high quality fish on the home table at a price that’s very competitive with other products” [32].

That’s exactly what they said about salmon before the market crashed and consumer confidence led to a public backlash against cheap and nasty farmed salmon. Nutreco are still reeling from a BBC documentary – “The Price of Salmon” – which was broadcast across the world during 2001. Nutreco’s share price fell 15% even before the documentary revealed that farmed salmon contained high levels of cancer-causing chemicals such as dioxins and PCBs [33]. And just this month Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) revealed that Nutreco were prosecuted and fined $1,800 in December for the illegal use of the carcinogenic chemical malachite green [34]. Last year Nutreco were also accused of shoddy labour practices in Chile, bad working conditions and dozens of workers went out on hunger strike [35]. Having left a trail of pollution in their wake in Scotland, Canada, Norway and Chile, Nutreco appear to view Australia’s pristine marine environment as an ideal place to import pollution.

Different Hemisphere - Same Problems:

Investigating a new research topic is rather like opening a can of worms. If the ‘five fundamental flaws of sea cage fish farming’ are used as template through which to examine Australian and New Zealand aquaculture parallels with sea cage fish farming operations around the world immediately become apparent. The well-documented pollution problems inherent in salmon farming in Chile, Norway, Scotland, Ireland and Canada also exist in Tasmania and New Zealand for example. It is merely a question of flushing them out. Whilst tuna farming in the Mediterranean is only just beginning to attract the close scrutiny it warrants, the experiences in the Australian tuna farming industry over the last decade are particularly revealing. Equally, yellowtail kingfish may appear a completely different kettle of fish but it is also farmed in Japan. And red snapper is another name for red bream – sea bream is farmed in the Mediterranean too. Sea cage fish farming in the Northern and Southern hemispheres are not poles apart at all. Even the briefest of trawls through the literature reveals alarming similarities between the five fundamental flaws of European sea cage fish farming and Antipodean sea cage fish farming. Over the coming months fieldwork in both Australia and New Zealand will flush out the issue yet further and will be published in the forthcoming book “Cancer of the Coast: the environmental and public health disaster of sea cage fish farming” [32]. Thus far the picture emerging is not pretty.

1) Wastes:

By discharging untreated and contaminated toxic wastes directly into the sea, tuna, salmon, cod and kingfish farmers are using coastal waters as an open sewer. Considering all other businesses are charged waste disposal and wastewater treatment costs it is not altogether surprising that sea cage fish farmers are portrayed as unfairly freeloading on the marine environment. WWF have calculated that an average salmon discharges the waste equivalent as the sewage from a town of ca. 20,000 people – salmon farms in Scotland for example discharge almost twice the phosphorus waste as the entire human population [33]. In enclosed bays and lochs with low tidal flows and poor water exchange it is rather like flushing the toilet only once a month. No wonder coastal communities the world over do not want such a polluting presence their doorstep. When SunAqua’s application to farm kingfish and red snapper in the pristine waters of Moreton Bay Marine Park, Queensland, was submitted last year Lord Mayor Jim Soorley vowed:

“It will go ahead over my dead body. This stupid and idiotic proposal would put nutrients and nitrogen back in the bay…Our waterways are too precious. We have to reduce waste and lower the nutrient and nitrogen levels” [34]

SunAqua’s claim that “the likelihood of algal blooms due to increased nutrient inputs is considered to be negligible” simply does not stand close scrutiny [35]. If SunAqua wanted to eliminate risk entirely then they would adopt closed-containment technology. The solution to pollution is surely not dilution.

An increasing body of international research points to strong causal links between untreated finfish farm effluent and toxic harmful algal blooms [36]. Whilst there is a growing body of evidence detailing waste impacts from salmon farms, the threat posed by tuna, kingfish and red snapper farm wastes has been less well publicised. Privately though the Australian Government have long known about tuna farming’s capacity to produce wastes. According a 1996 Fisheries Research and Development Corporation project:

“Environmental monitoring was undertaken from the first stages of southern bluefin tuna farming development, with the early surveys suggesting localised effects on the seafloor sediments and benthic communities, as well as surrounding water column. The causes appeared to be primarily from the shading effect of the nets, accumulation of waste feed and increased sedimentation of particulate matter, as well as the release of dissolved nutrients” [37]

A ‘pollute and move on’ mentality has characterised the Australian Government’s approach to tuna farming:

“Frid and Mercer (1989) recommended the siting of sea cages in areas of high tidal flow as this would disperse the sediment rain over a broader area and reduce the more localised environmental impact. They note, however, that nutrient enrichment of the water body for a longer period could stimulate the growth of phytoplankton. An alternative approach advocated by some resource managers and used for the farming of tuna in South Australia, is to accept that the accumulation of wastes will exceed the natural assimilative capacity of the seafloor community. In response farmers are issued with a larger lease area so as to allow the practice of cage rotation and seafloor fallowing (Bond 1993)” [38]

Such a state-sponsored policy of shifting cultivation has not been without its problems. In 1996, ca. 75% of all the farmed tuna stock in South Australia were mysteriously wiped out by a toxic algal bloom with any surviving fish towed to deep water [39]. The 1996 Boston Bay incident is still highly controversial and whilst there is some documentary evidence many facts are still to emerge from unpublished insurance and Government documents [40]. Tuna farmers claim they were the innocent victims of a natural event. However, it has all the hallmarks of man-made disaster. The link between tuna farming wastes and the algal blooms is all too obvious. One year after the 1996 tuna kill a researcher attached to Flinders University conducted tests at tuna feedlot sites near Port Lincoln and found 47 species of algal bloom. One potentially toxic bloom affected all monitored sites near Port Lincoln in May and June 1997 [41]. A subsequent TV investigation in 2000 suggested that the 1996 incident was hushed up. According to the ABC documentary ‘Cells from Hells’:

“In the last 30 years there have been increasing numbers of fish kills around the world. The tuna in this South Australian fish-farm died in just two days in 1996. As with so many other cases a natural cause is still the official explanation. However more and more, evidence is shifting the blame away from mother nature…. in Australia and around the world, there's a reluctance to acknowledge that it's human activity that is triggering the transformation of normally benign organisms into increasingly dangerous forms. If we continue to mismanage the way nutrients and pollutants are released into the environment we'll have to confront new incarnations of the cells from hells” [42]

It quoted Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff from the University of Tasmania:

“The local South Australian government prefers to stick with this explanation because it somehow claims that this is a completely natural event. There is no human involvement whatsoever. The alternative claim that there is an algal bloom that caused this problem is of much more concern. But in Japan Chattonella is a prime example of an algal bloom phenomenon which is actually induced by the waste products of the aquaculture industry itself and of course that’s not something that the tuna aquaculture industry want to hear”

Professor Hallegraeff told ABC that when he examined a water sample he found that it was teeming with a toxic alga never before seen in Australia called ‘chattonella’. The same organism killed half a billion dollars worth of fish in Japan in 1972. Professor Hallegraeff said that in Japan chattonella is “an example of an algal bloom phenomenon which is actually induced by the waste products of the aquaculture industry”. Speaking later on radio, Professor Hallegraeff stressed:

“What is important, there’s a very good data set from Japan more than fifty years of data that have shown a very good relationship between increase of Chattonella marina blooms (particularly the Seto Inland Sea) and the fertilisation of water by both domestic and industrial and in particular aquaculture wastes. And this is important to take into account, that if finfish aquaculture operations develop in very sheltered areas like Boston Bay, they have to be prepared for an increasing frequency of these algal blooms” [43]

The furore prompted a parliamentary question: do toxic algal blooms represent threats to or from aquaculture? [44]. That is a question neither the industry nor the government want to answer. Others though are more public in declaring a direct link between tuna farm wastes and toxic algal blooms:

“In April 1996, organic wastes and nutrients from the faecal wastes from the 66 caged tuna farms contributed to a phytoplankton bloom in Boston Bay….respected researchers, such as Dr Anthony Cheshire (University of Adelaide) and researchers from SARDI, have clearly identified the tuna farms as a major contributor to nutrient and organic loads within the bay. Poor flushing of waters within the bay, and a history of pollution within the bay, resulted in SARDI researchers actually predicting the eventual disaster as early as January 1993. The State government, eager to please the demands of the tuna industry, ignored all scientific warnings, and are now trying to convince the public of South Australia, that the disaster was natural, and not the result of poor environmental management and monitoring” [45]

According to the ‘Australia State of the Environment Report 2001’:

“Tuna farming in feedlots can generate a significant amount of pollution. Recent research suggests that pollution is causing the sudden appearance of strange micro-organisms capable of poisoning fish. It has been suggested that a toxic algae was the cause of death of the tuna in Boston Bay, Port Lincoln in 1996” [46]

And perhaps most damning of all - this from a whistleblower within the tuna farming industry:

“I have participated in a research program on the tuna cages in Port Lincoln in South Australia. It is true that food and fish waste add nutrients to the nearby water column, however some of that is absorbed by the community of sessile organisms living on the cage wall. This in itself creates a problem, the growth of these organisms slows down water exchange between the cage and outside water column. As the fish in the cage use the oxygen in the water little is replaced so the cages are routinely cleaned. This results in large piles of decomposing organic matter on the sea floor, killing any algae and seagrass underneath for some considerable distance around the cage. This can be up to 50 cm thick. The results of this research was quashed by some in South Australia but if you hunt through the court records in the Tuna Boat Owners Associations attempt to claim insurance against tuna losses in a ‘storm’ you should find it” [47]

This event in Australia echoes with recent incidents in Ireland where salmon farmers have also tried to blame mass mortalities due to ‘acts of God’ rather than look for explanations closer to home [48]. Sea cage fish farming is shooting itself in the foot by overstocking and overproduction. The Boston Bay tuna farming mass mortality incident smacks of so-called ‘self-pollution’ coined by scientists in the late 1980s in relation to salmon farming in Scotland [49]. Mortality rates on Scottish salmon farms have been between 10-35% over the last decade. Official figures show that between 1999 and 2002 over 4 million farmed salmon died in their cages with over 2 million being attributed on insurance claims to naturally occurring algal blooms [50]. The 1,700 tonnes of dead tuna involved in the 1996 Boston Bay incident, for example, were subject to insurance claims estimated at $45 million. Insurance claims from sea cage fish farms, be it for disease losses, algal blooms or escapes, are reaching record levels. One cannot help but wonder if sea cage fish farming is one big insurance scam [51]. Being paid compensation for a self-inflicted wound is akin to money in the back pocket and a pat on the back as a reward for polluting the marine environment. The ‘polluter gets paid principle’ is seemingly alive and well down on the sea cage fish farm.

Tuna farms are not the only species in Australian waters implicated in harmful algal blooms (HABs). According to the Canberra Times (17^th August 2000):

“HABs often follow the establishment of fish farms due to increased nutrients in the water from waste food and fish excreta. Nutrients flowing from a trout farm upstream from Cooma were believed responsible for a blue-green algae bloom which caused the hospitalisation of Cooma residents in 1998” [52]

Nutreco’s barramundi farm on Bathurst Island, Northern Territory, is also classified by consultants in a newly published Environmental Management Plan as a ‘medium risk’ in terms of wastes. Ignoring new developments in closed containment systems it states that:

“It is impractical to catch the waste products from marine farming operations and these need to be managed in situ. The nutrients from the faeces from a dense population of farmed fish have the potential to impact on the water column and on the bethos, causing eutrophication in the water column and benthos resulting in increase of aquatic plant growth and deficiencies in dissolved oxygen levels. In severe cases hydrogen sulphide can be generated from the sediment. Eutrophication will be exacerbated by high temperatures (as are found in Port Hurd), excess fish feed passing through the water column and by lack of water movement…..Eutrophication is not a desirable condition for the fish or for the environment. Lack of oxygen and the impact of hydrogen sulphide cause stress on the fish and potential loss of fish stocks. Increased nutrients will cause nuisance growth of algae outside the farm and will increase the potential for algal blooms” [53]

‘Impractical’, as used above, is merely a euphemism for unprofitable.

Salmon farms in Tasmania have also been placed under the microscope. An ongoing project - “The effect of fin-fish aquaculture on phytoplankton populations” - at the University of Tasmania for example is investigating the link between salmon farming wastes and toxic algal blooms. The project outline states that:

“Marine-farming of finfish releases particulate and nitrogenous waste that impacts the immediate and surrounding coastal environment. This project is examining how this waste (particularly nitrogen) is entering the pelagic environment and whether it influences phytoplankton biomass and species composition, leading to harmful algal blooms (HABs)” [54]

A government report on the Huon Estuary in Tasmania published in 2000 also tackled the question of salmon farming wastes and the link with algal blooms [55]. This followed a 1996 FRDC project which conceded that:

“Key environmental issues in the Huon Estuary are associated with effects and fate of nutrient and organic matter loads from the catchment, from coastal waters, and from activities in the estuary, especially salmon farming….Salmon farms may affect water quality nearby their sites. Our field observations yielded evidence of higher ammonia concentrations in surface and mid-depth waters close to the marine farm zones” [56]

Evidence of salmon farming’s capacity to foul its own nest has been slowly seeping out since the 1980s. Back in 1989 New Zealand scientists investigating the impact of salmon farming wastes on Big Glory Bay, Stewart Island, warned of potential effects on the water column [57]. As a report published last year for the Ministry of Fisheries explains:

“The best documented impacts of finfish farming within New Zealand were gathered during a phytoplankton bloom at Stewart Island. Chang et al (1990) identified the phytoplankton species responsible for the mortality of 600 tonnes of salmon in January 1989; Mackenzie (1991) provided background information regarding phytoplankters and the nature of the toxicity from the bloom, whereas Pridmore and Rutherford (1992) estimated that salmon farming increased the nitrogen concentration of the bay by about 30%” [58]

The incidence of toxic algal blooms, coincident with the rapid expansion of salmon farming, has certainly increased over the last decade in New Zealand waters [59]. An international conference on HABs - Harmful Algal Blooms 2003 - will take place later this year in New Zealand in November [60]. We will have to wait and see what, if anything, comes out of the wash. Sea cage fish farmers though do not like to air their dirty linen in public. The Ministry of Fisheries report concludes by recommending a lid be kept on any problems in order to preserve New Zealand’s lucrative export market in farmed shellfish and salmon:

“Phytoplankton blooms were linked to mass mortalities of salmon at Stewart Island and have been discussed in the benthic impacts effects section. Their effects on wild populations are unknown; it is possible that dense blooms could have localised effects on wild fish, but mobile species would generally be expected to avoid such areas. HABs are a recurrent feature of New Zealand aquaculture in recent years. It is possible that their recurrence is merely due to improved surveillance, but their presence requires increased vigilance in order to maintain domestic and export markets. Aquaculture activities have the potential to accelerate the spread of blooms, but they also provide increased surveillance”

Farmed salmon are romantically portrayed by some farmers as ‘canaries in the cage’ acting as barometers of the health of our blue planet and monitors of pristine water quality. If farmed salmon really are canaries then with the millions of dead salmon littering the bottom of sea cages we are already in deep trouble.

2) Escapes:

The very nature of sea cage fish farming predetermines a high level of risk in relation to escapes. Moving further offshore to cleaner waters will only serve to exacerbate that risk. Whilst escapes of farmed salmon have dominated the international headlines there have also been escapes of farmed cod in Norway and from sea bass cages in the Mediterranean [61]. Mass escapes of kingfish into Australian waters are also reaching crisis levels – so much so that SARFAC have set up “Kingfish Watch” to monitor the increasing number of escapes in South Australian waters [62]. Local fishermen are concerned at the expansion of kingfish farms at the gateway to the Great Australian Bight. A campaign to stop further developments is being headed by the recreational fishing council and local professional fishermen who have heard reports from the Spencer Gulf about escaped kingfish threatening other fish stock. According to The Australian (9^th April 2003): “A year ago, an unusually high number were reported at the top of Spencer Gulf, leading to reports the aggressive predatory fish had escaped, devouring their way through schools of whiting and garfish, even through squid ‘leaving only ink and tentacles’ behind” [63]. The current situation in Australia with kingfish escapes resonates loudly with the disastrous history of farmed salmon escapes in Canada, Scotland, Norway and Chile [64].

Escapes of potentially diseased and infected farmed kingfish have steadily increased over the past three years, with 1882 escaping in 2001, 6069 in 2002 and 21,258 so far in 2003. Official government figures reveal that 29,209 farmed kingfish have escaped in 10 separate incidents since June 2001 [65]. A $2 million three-year research project to address key issues including the interaction between wild and farmed kingfish and aquaculture and marine mammal populations was announced in February 2003. “This study will increase research we have already been doing following the initial escapes,” said Fisheries Minister Paul Holloway. “We need more research and the industry does have to improve its performance”. However, Trevor Watts of the South Australian Recreational Fishing Advisory Council wants a moratorium as a matter of precaution:

“We still believe there should be a moratorium on kingfish farming until a range of issues are resolved, particularly the fish escaping. We would also like to know the measurements of the chemicals and antibiotics that are used and is the industry taking note of overseas experience?” [66]

In April, following the eighth kingfish escape in less than two years, Fisheries Minister Paul Holloway was forced to admit once again the need for “further tightening of the industry’s operating procedures and farming practices”. Anecdotal evidence suggests the escapees are swimming up to 50km from their pens, and locals are reporting declines in fish stocks in the area [67]. In South Australia escapes from kingfish farms have reached such level that the Government (PIRSA) are developing a code of practice and operating standards, which will be incorporated into license conditions. The Government is currently conducting tests on kingfish aimed at distinguishing escapee farmed fish from wild kingfish [68]. Nor are escapes from kingfish farms the only problem.

Escapes from salmon farms have long been a feature of salmon farming in Tasmania but have increased dramatically in the last few years [69]. To such an extent that in July the Tasmanian Minister for Primary Industries, Water and Environment, Bryan Green responded to the persistent problem of escapes by urging salmon farmers to adopt a formalised code of practice [70]. The Tasmanian authorities admitted last week that:

“Until recently large escapes were relatively rare and were rather eagerly greeted by the recreational fishing fraternity. Two large escapes (thousands of fish) recently took place in Macquarie Harbour on the West coast, where a group of operators new to the locality underestimated the operating conditions. The area does not have a large population of recreational fishers, and commercial licensed netters (who are not permitted to sell salmonids) complained that their large catches of salmon were interfering with their flounder catching activities and creating a disposal problem” (Darby Ross, Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, pers.comm.)

Escapes from barramundi farms have been reported in Lake Argyle [71] and there is anecdotal evidence that recreational fishermen have caught escaped farmed snapper around Port Stephens [72]. Each escapee is a potential vector for the spread of infectious diseases and parasites. Escaped farmed fish are highly mobile pollutants.

3) Diseases and parasites:

The diseases may be different but the problems are exactly the same. Whether it is Infectious Salmon Anaemia in North America (Maine and New Brunswick), the Faroes and Norway, Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis (Scotland and Norway), Rickettsia (Chile) or Kudoa (Canada), diseases and parasites are simply a function of intensification and overproduction [73]. Cramming migratory fish into cages at stocking densities equivalent to battery farmed chickens is a recipe for disaster. A report by Compassion in World Farming calculated that each farmed salmon has the equivalent space to swim around in as a bathtub of water [74]. The explosion in diseases endemic in salmon farming will inevitably manifest themselves in emerging new species such as tuna, cod, halibut, barramundi and kingfish.

In Tasmania the biggest killer is Amoebic Gill Disease (AGD). According to the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, “prevalence of the disease and costs associated with the freshwater treatment are increasing”. AGD is “associated with extensive mortality and reduced production of Atlantic salmon in Tasmania” and accounts for 10-20% of production costs [75]. Overproduction has also led to welfare problems with jaws deformities in farmed Tasmanian salmon [76]. In New Zealand, whirling disease has been reported in salmonids [77]. Other problems on salmon farms include cataracts, deformities such as ‘hunchback’ syndrome and so-called ‘death crowns’ due to sea lice infestation [74]. Mass mortalities on salmon farms are so commonplace that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia have published a handy ‘Disposal Manual’ that covers ‘the safe transport and disposal of carcases, animal products, materials and wastes’. The ‘Destruction Manual’ ‘guides the decision to destroy stock, and the choice of appropriate techniques’ [78].

Diseases and parasites are also problems in other sectors; be it nodavirus or barramundi encephalitis virus (BEV) in barramundi, ‘Beko’ disease, gill fluke and black spot in kingfish or blood fluke in tuna [79]. A potentially huge problem also exists in Kudoa contamination of farmed tuna. According to a 1991 Fisheries Research and Development Corporation project: “The only fish health issue identified during the project was the presence of the parasite Kudoa in 0.5% of the marketed southern bluefin tuna” [80]. It is not known whether these studies have been published or if Kudoa has taken a hold in Australian tuna farmed. What is certain however is the capacity of Kudoa – a flesh eating parasite – to shatter market confidence. In Canada, Kudoa (also known as “soft-flesh syndrome”) has devastated the farmed salmon market costing the Canadian industry CA$30-40 million and affecting 20-50% of salmon farmers. The problem with Kudoa is that the parasite does not manifest itself until several days after the fish has been slaughtered, when it 'liquefies' the salmon's flesh [81]. Kudoa would not be good news for Australian tuna farmers dependent upon exports to the Japanese sashimi sector. Kudoa is not the only parasite affecting farmed tuna – instead of eating the flesh of the fish this one burrows through the brain:

“A syndrome characterized by atypical swimming behaviour followed by rapid death was first reported in captive southern bluefin tuna Thunnus maccoyii (Castelnau) in the winter of 1993. The cause of this behaviour was found to be a parasitic encephalitis due to the scuticociliate Uronemanigricans (Mueller). Based on parasitological and histological findings, it is proposed that the parasites initially colonise the olfactory rosettes and then ascend the olfactory nerves to eventually invade the brain” [81]

New diseases in farmed tuna are emerging all the time as tuna farming expands and problems manifest themselves. A recent review of disease in tuna stated that: “it has become clear that much more research needs to be undertaken on the physiology of the species (southern, northern and Pacific bluefin tuna) currently used in aquaculture in order for the pathogenesis of some conditions to be properly understood” [82].

Kingfish are also emerging as carriers of infectious diseases and parasites. In their environmental statement for a kingfish and red snapper farmed in Moreton Bay Marine Park, Queensland, SunAqua concede that “wild snapper in Western Australia are known to have several parasites including the didymozoid trematode” and that “the pathogens Vibrio spp and Cryptocaryon irritans are also recorded in cage culture in Japan and New Zealand” [84]. In Japan, species of marine flatworm, such as hadamushi, are already significant problems in farmed yellowtail kingfish. Hadamushi has also been found in wild yellowtail kingfish in Australia and it is predicted that more parasite outbreaks are likely to occur in Australia in the future [85]. Research by fish biologist Tim Dempster at the University of Sydney on a sea-cage kingfish farm at Port Stephens in New South Wales (and on Mediterranean farms) also shows has sea cages attract vast numbers of wild fish which can either infect farmed fish or be infected themselves [86].

Imported fish meal also has the potential to devastate wild fish populations and spread diseases. Feeding large tonnages of imported fish such as pilchards to farmed tuna is an activity that presents a high quarantine risk. Such a high risk strategy has not prevented tuna farmers in South Australia, unable to source fish feed from local stocks, importing ca. 50,000 tonnes of pilchards from North American waters. In 1995 and 1998 the local pilchard populations started dying off. As the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation explains:

“The pilchard mass mortalities of 1995 and 1998/9 were unprecedented in their rate and geographical scale of spread. Waves of mortality spread from South Australia to Western Australia and to Queensland at a rate of 10-40 km d^-1. In many cases, stocks were reduced by over 60%. The cause of this mortality was certainly a herpesvirus” [87]

As with the link between toxic algal blooms and fish farm wastes, the causal relationship between imported farmed fish meal and wild fish mortalities is all too obvious. Again, however, the government seem more interested in protecting the tuna farming industry than wild fish. A report to CSIRO in 1997 stated that pilchards imported as feed may have been implicated in the herpes-like virus infected affecting wild populations of pilchards but indicated that there was “administrative difficulties and debate regarding the independence of scientific advice”. According to a government scientist “there is strong circumstantial evidence for a connection between the locations of the pilchard mortalities in 1995 and 1998 and their proximities to caged aquaculture ventures in South Australia” [88]. Coincidence or causal link – we may never know for certain [89]. In 1999 the Environment, Resources and Development Committee of the Parliament of South Australia recommended:

“The rapid phasing out of the importation of pilchards in conjunction with the phasing in of manufactured diets for farmed tuna. The Committee would like to see commercial trials of the use of manufactured diets in the next tuna season, in partnership with the industry. These trials should occur as a matter of urgency” [90]

Losses from diseases and parasites are not the only mortality problems on sea cage fish farms. In South Australia, at least 13% of all dolphin carcasses studied are believed to have died as result of entanglement, including many in the tuna feedlots near Port Lincoln. A study by the South Australian Natural History Museum recommended minimising wastage when feeding tuna, since overfeeding attracts other fish species to the vicinity of the feedlots. Evidence strongly suggested that dolphins and sea-lions were eating these other species in the vicinity of the feedlots, and then becoming entangled [91]. Seal predation is also a big problem in the Marborough Sounds of New Zealand [92]. The threat from predators is altogether more hazardous though in Australian waters. As well as Leopard seals and sealions, predators include whale sharks, tiger sharks and crocodiles [93]. As one barramundi farmer in Northern Territory explained to ABC in 2001:

“They’ve got a whole different range of predators, if we haven’t got seals coming up and nipping you on the gumboot we’ve got crocodiles potentially tearing you off and eating you, so sometimes it’s hard to see the feed loss and that sort of thing” [94]

4) Chemicals:

The illegal and state-sponsored use of toxic chemicals has received considerable attention in Scottish salmon farming [95] and more recently in Chile with the illegal use of the carcinogen malachite green [96]. The use of artificial colourings has also been under the spotlight with a lawsuit in the United States taking legal action against supermarkets for not labelling farmed salmon [97]. European salmon farmers have until the end of the year to drastically reduce the levels of Canthaxanthin (E161g) after the European Commission’s Commissioner on Health and Consumer Protection declared the artificial dye unsafe [98]. Where this leaves New Zealand and Tasmanian salmon farmers using artificial chemicals to colour their farmed salmon is unclear but it is known the artificial dye astaxanthin is used in both New Zealand and Australia. The current status of chemical use in Australia is thus far unclear.

Chemicals used on kingfish farms are understood to include hydrogen peroxide as a bath to control skin and gill fluke infections and Praziquantel for more intense infections. Sunaqua’s environmental statement for their proposed kingfish and red snapper farm in Moreton Bay, Queensland, alludes to the use of ‘therapeutants and chemicals’ but does not list them [99]. When asked to list all the chemicals to be used, Sunaqua’s MD merely states that “no chemicals or agents would be allowed to be administered without QFS (Queensland Fisheries Service) consent” and that “we will not be using antibiotics as a matter of course” (Dr Julian Amos, pers.comm). Requests to Government officials for further information on chemical use in Australia and New Zealand have either been refused or are taking time to process. According to the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment in Tasmania, “chemical use in salmon farming in Tasmania has generally been very low” but they do not specify which or in what quantities. They do admit that anti-fouling copper-based paints are being widely used:

“The industry has in the past avoided the use of conventional anti-foulants on net cages, but has recently obtained a limited permit from the National Registration Authority to use copper-based anti-foulants on predator nets in an attempt to combat seal attacks during frequent net changes of unprotected nets. A condition of the permit is a study to determine the impact of this use. Work is still continuing on potential alternatives anti-foulants” (Darby Ross, pers.comm)

Last year the Scottish Executive expressed “reason for concern because of the accumulation of copper in sediments below fish farms, and its potential toxicity to benthic organisms”. A survey carried out in 1996-7 by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency found that sediments directly beneath the cages and within 30 metres of the farms were severely contaminated by copper and zinc at 7 of the 10 farms surveyed. The report pointed out that elevated copper and zinc concentrations, in combination with high levels of other potentially toxic substances such as sulphides and ammonia, could represent a significant barrier to the recolonisation of benthic sediments when fish farm sites are fallowed [100]. New Zealand scientists have also found concentrations of zinc that exceeded the criteria for adverse ecological effects and suggested that recovery of benthic assemblages might be delayed because of heavy metal contamination in the polluted sediments under salmon cages [101].

In Tasmania, “effective treatments” being investigated by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation include “the use of multiple freshwater baths to remove and kill the parasitic amoeba”. The chemicals referred to are chlorine dioxide (Anthium dioxide^TM), chloramine-T (Halamid^TM) and hydrogen peroxide (Ecoshield^TM). According to FRDC, “Further development of these treatments is planned through the health program of the CRC for sustainable aquaculture of finfish (Aquafin) to provide a cost effective and efficacious treatment for AGD” [102]. As the industry trebles production over the next decade there will inevitably be an explosion in diseases, parasites and the consequent use of chemicals. Nutreco’s barramundi farm in Northern Territory has only been in operation for a few years but it has already experienced disease outbreaks requiring chemical controls:

“Treatment for gill fluke and the copepod is relatively benign with hydrogen peroxide bathing being used….The hydrogen peroxide is transported as a 50% solution to Barrabase in 200 litre drums and moved to pens when required. The fish to be treated are crowded into an area approximately one quarter of the size of the pen. The hydrogen peroxide is diluted with water to a concentration of 400ppm and pumped through the pens using a soaker hose” [103]

If Nutreco are already experiencing significant disease problems with production levels at only ca. 500 tonnes per year what chemicals will they have to resort to if production reaches the 10,000 tonnes predicted by 2010?

5) Feed:

The fifth and fatal flaw of sea cage fish farming relates to its dependence upon a wild fish fuel supply that is both depleted and contaminated. Sea cage fish farming is like an oil tanker running on empty [104]. Vast quantities of fish meal and fish oil are imported from Chile and Peru countries to supply salmon, cod, halibut, turbot and tuna farms all over the world [105] Marine fish and salmonids together account for 85% of all fish oil consumed by the aquafeed sector [106]. Such are sea cage aquaculture’s demands that krill from the Antarctic and Arctic are now being targeted by the capture sector as raw material. Krill are a precious commodity to salmon farmers in particular as they as relatively PCB-free and also naturally contain pink pigment [107]. The crux of the current problem is that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to exploiting fisheries – we are ‘fishing down marine food webs’ but at the same time we are also ‘farming up marine food webs’. As Dr Daniel Pauly said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in 2001: “the new trend in aquaculture is to drain the seas to feed the farms” [108]. The Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation recognised this problem back in 1993:

“If aquaculture is to continue to expand in Australia cost-effective diets based on Australian agricultural ingredients urgently need to be developed. The replacement of fish meal as the protein source of choice is a global research priority driven by a declining supply of fish meal and rapidly expanding aquaculture and aquaculture feed industries” [108]

Research has been ongoing in Australia over the last decade to investigate the potential of soybean meal, pea protein concentrate and lupin protein concentrate to replace fish meal protein [110]. The substitution of fish meal with vegetable protein is a significant trend within the global sea cage fish farming industry. For example, the proportion of vegetable oils used in Nutreco Aquaculture’s total fish feed production doubled from 5.5% in 2001 to 11.4% in 2002. Scottish Quality Salmon (SQS) recently revised its standards to allow members to substitute up to 25% of the fish oil in salmon diets with plant oil whereas Norway salmon farmers use up to a third vegetable oils [111]. A new European Union-sponsored initiative - “Fish Oil and Meal Replacement” (FORM) – is also underway across Europe to find alternative fuel supplies for carnivorous fish [112]. Tuna farmers in Australia have also looked at switching from the use of fish such as pilchards to dry feed pellets with a significant vegetable component. Results from the studies show that food conversion ratios improves significantly from 15 to 1 with pilchards to 5 to 1 for pellets (five tonnes of pellets turns into one tonne of tuna flesh) [113].

Despite the savings in feed costs (and in terms of environmental impact) tuna farmers are reluctant to switch to pellets as the final product tastes different to wild fish. Similarly, the substitution of fish meal with vegetable protein fundamentally alters the ‘meaty’ taste of carnivorous fish. It seems carnivorous fish fed on soybeans, maize, peas and other vegetables are just not fishy enough. You are what you eat after all. For example, the Japanese - the largest buyers of farmed salmon and tuna for sushi and sashimi – have in the past sent back consignments of Norwegian salmon complaining that it tasted too ‘earthy’. In taste tests farmed cod also fared badly against wild caught cod [114]. Ultimately, trying to turn a carnivore into an herbivore is doomed to failure and rather like force-feeding a tiger on lentils and rice [115].

So if there are no wild fish left in the sea and vegetables are not palatable to either the fish themselves or the end consumer what options are left open to sea cage fish farmers? Australian scientists think the answer may lie on land not out to sea. Just as BSE was rearing its ugly head in Europe, scientists at CSIRO’s Queensland research facility and at the University of Tasmania started working on the substitution of fish meal with terrestrial protein from chickens and other meat- producing animals. A 1993 FRDC project outlined the problem:

“Australia is particularly vulnerable to any world shortage of fish meal because of our reliance on imported fish meal. However, Australia has an abundant supply of terrestrial animal and vegetable protein feeds which have the potential to at least partly if not fully replace the fish meal presently used in compounded aquaculture diets. Successful and cost-effective replacement of fish meal by terrestrial proteins in aquaculture diets may provide export opportunities for Australian feed manufacturers to supply the large Asian aquafeed market” [116]

Trials were conducted on barramundi using “three terrestrial abattoir meals (poultry offal meal and two meat meals) and blood meal”. Diets based on meat meal or poultry offal meal performed as well as diets based on Tasmanian fish meal. Another 1995 project by the FRDC stated that:

“Australia has an abundant supply of terrestrial animal and vegetable protein feeds which has the potential to at least partly if not fully replace the fishmeal presently used in compounded aquaculture diets. Fish reared on diets containing high inclusions of meat meal, with or without some fishmeal but supplemented with fish oil, was found by trained taste panel assessment to be liked as well or better than fish reared on a diet formulated with a high fishmeal content…..These results demonstrate unequivocally the suitability of meat meal as a partial or complete replacement of fishmeal protein in grow-out diets for barramundi” [117]

When asked for further details on meat substitution in fish feeds, the author of a paper on meat meal in farmed barramundi published earlier this year [118] replied that:

“The reported meat meal work in barramundi feeds was done before the BSE issue made headlines around the world. Although Australia has been fortunate in not having had any BSE problems, our feed manufacturers have taken a firm position of excluding any terrestrial animal protein from aquaculture feeds where harvested fish is exported to Europe or other countries (e.g. Japan) where certification of freedom from land animal products in feeds is required. In reality, this means that meat meal is excluded from all Atlantic salmon feeds (only one feed manufacturer in Australia) and usage in barramundi feeds would be minimal. I am not privy to the feed formulations used by the Feed Companies. The BSE issue is a concern but it is also a shame that meat meal is banned because it a very good source of protein for fish. I am unaware of any reports implicating transmission of BSE to humans through consumption of fish” (Kevin Williams CSIRO, pers.comm)

Australian researchers advocating the use of meat meal in fish diets should perhaps read a report - “Prions get fishy” – published earlier this year in Nature. It states that:

“Fish, like sheep, elk and humans, could suffer a version of ‘mad cow disease’, or BSE, preliminary evidence suggests. The results might help to reveal how the disease jumps from species to species. Infectious prions are thought to cause BSE and human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). They probably crossed from sheep to cows, and then to humans in infected meat” [119]

Such is the concern for cross-contamination in Europe that the UK Government are investigating farmed fish for BSE type diseases and the European Union banned fishmeal in animal feeds [120]. Nor are barramundi the only aquaculture species in Australia weaned on meat. According to the Department of Primary Industries “farmed crocodiles are generally fed chicken heads and/or kangaroo meat and sometimes beef and horse offal” [121]. More seriously, farmed salmon have been fed on potentially infected meat meal. A 1998 FRDC project, in collaboration between Nutreco’s fish feed company Skretting Australia (the major manufacturer of salmonid feeds in Australia) and the Nutrition Group at the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute stated that:

“Atlantic salmon parr were used to assess the apparent digestibility of crude protein (nitrogen), indispensable amino acids and energy of 19 protein sources with potential for use in Atlantic salmon feeds. Protein sources included marine (fish meal), animal (meat, meat and bone, blood, feather, poultry meals) and plant (canola, corn, lupin, soybean, wheat) products” [122].

Since Australia already imports over 60% of its fish products and is committed to trebling aquacultural production by 2010 it is clearly under pressure to increase its supplies of fish meal and find alternative feed sources. Whether that involves importing contaminated fish such as herring from Europe, disease-ridden pilchards from South America or feeding fish on potentially contaminated meat, meat and bone, blood, feather and poultry meals the risks are all too real. The painfully obvious conclusion is that we must stop farming carnivores such as salmon, tuna, barramundi and kingfish and start supporting sustainable forms of aquaculture such as shellfish farming.

Food for Thought:

Fish is an important food source – in fact it is the primary source of animal protein for one billion people. However, it is a myth peddled by apologists for expansion of carnivorous fish farming that all aquaculture “feeds the poor” and must therefore be supported at all costs. The bulk (93%) of total finfish production within developing countries in 2000 was contributed by omnivorous/herbivorous and filter-feeding fish species. In contrast, 73% of the total finfish production within developed countries in 2000 was due to the culture of carnivorous fish [122]. The so-called ‘Friends of Aquaculture’ [123] and Global Aquaculture Alliance’s “Feeding the world through responsible aquaculture” programme [124], for example, are clearly designed to group the whole spectrum of farmed fish sectors in the same boat and present a united front. Yet, as in the agriculture sector, aquaculture has many different facets and affects the marine environment in many different ways. Sea cage fish farming is as similar to shellfish farming, for example, as intensive factory farming is to small scale subsistence or organic farming. Genetically engineered fish, for example, are portrayed as a panacea for the world food problem [125] but are nothing to do with alleviating poverty and everything to do with making money.

The developing world is clearly dependent upon family fish farming to support itself but factory fish farming in the developed world is altogether different. The business of carnivorous sea cage fish farming essentially turns a cheap low quality wild fish product into a luxury cash crop. Australian and Mediterranean farmed tuna, for example, is sold almost exclusively to the Japanese sashimi markets whilst farmed salmon from Chile, Norway, Canada and Scotland also find their way into sushi bars. Farmed yellowtail kingfish is being marketed under the Japanese name for the fish, hirmasa. Potential markets for Australian hirmasa are certainly not the starvi