AN OVERVIEW OF SALMON FARMING
To keep up with consumer demand, hundreds of industrial salmon farms have set up their sea cages off Norway, Scotland, Iceland, Atlantic Canada, British Columbia, the U.S., Tasmania, and Chile over the past 50 years.
These lucrative farms produce Atlantic salmon at an accelerated pace, but their harvest comes at a steep price. Wherever the industry goes, wild Atlantic salmon are the first to suffer irreversible consequences, the first link in a chain reaction of environmental harm.
Wild Atlantic salmon populations have plummeted in all salmon-farming countries, and the greatest declines have occurred near farms along salmon migration routes. There are now significantly more salmon in captivity than the estimated three million Atlantic salmon in the wild. A single salmon farm can crowd 2.2 million fish into 10 to 12 sea cages — enormous mesh pens that retain fish while permitting water to circulate.
Because they are underwater, sea cages are hidden from public view, concealing the death, disease and environmental degradation that emanate from them. (Land-based salmon farms, it should be noted, offer a promising alternative to ocean farms. These indoor facilities grow salmon in tanks that, unlike sea cages, can be kept clean and secure.)
Sea cages are a controversial component of salmon aquaculture. Alaska, Washington and California in the United States, as well as Argentina, have banned salmon farms, citing conclusive evidence that they are unsustainable as well as detrimental to wildlife, ecosystems and economies worldwide.
Summary of Science
We know a good deal about the reality of sea cages. We know that wherever sea cages operate, wild salmon numbers decline and marine ecosystems are polluted. We know that farmed salmon regularly escape and spawn with wild Atlantic salmon, compromising their gene pool.
We know that flesh-eating sea lice, disease-carrying bacteria, pesticides, antibiotics and feces float out of sea cages and pollute the surrounding ocean environment, harming marine life. We know that between 2012 and 2022, 865 million farmed Atlantic salmon died prematurely in sea cages, a staggering waste of life that further illustrates the unsustainability of this industry.
What we don’t know for certain is how eating farmed salmon affects human health. But studies show that ocean-farmed salmon contain microplastics, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, all of which may be linked to a range of health problems, including cancer, thyroid disease, infertility, autism, antibiotic resistance and more.
42nd Annual Meeting
of NASCO
The Forty-Second Annual Meeting of NASCO will be held in Cardiff, Wales from 3 – 6 June 2025.
The meeting will be held at the Mercure Cardiff Holland House Hotel & Spa, located close to Cardiff city center. Invitations and further details will be issued in the near future.
The Reality Gap: Contrasting an Industry’s Claims with its Practices
Around the world, the salmon farming industry presents a squeaky clean picture of responsible, sustainable protein. But data and evidence tell a different story.
A recall of smoked salmon
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recalled smoked salmon sold at Costco late last year due to possible listeria contamination. No medical issues had been reported in connection with the Kirkland Signature Smoked Salmon, but listeria poisoning is a serious condition that can be life-threatening.
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FAQs
Sea cages used by salmon farms degrade marine and freshwater ecosystems in multiple ways. The sea lice that infest the cages feed off of, and sometimes kill, nearby wild salmon, sea trout and other fish.¹ The antibiotics and pesticides used in sea cages also are lethal to other forms of sea life.² And untreated waste from the salmon farms pollutes surrounding waters.³
In addition to polluting the environment,³ salmon farming is inherently unsustainable because the large amount of wild fish it takes to feed the salmon in the farms results in a net loss of protein from the ocean.⁴ To feed farmed salmon, giant trawlers off the coast of West Africa haul in tons of small fish that are ground into feed. Ninety percent of these wild fish could help feed Africans. In this way, sourcing food for ocean-farmed Atlantic salmon not only contributes to the industry’s large carbon footprint but also takes protein off the plates of people who need it.
The conditions in sea cages are inhumane by any measure. The cages are overcrowded with up to 200,000 fish, which leads to many health concerns, including fecal-infested waters. Each year, millions of salmon die prematurely from viruses and parasitic infections. The crowded conditions in the pens also create an optimal environment for sea lice to multiply. These sea lice eat the salmon alive, resulting in open wounds and sometimes premature death. This in turn often drives fish farming companies to use antibiotics and pesticides in an attempt to control the lice.⁵
Salmon.info is led by the Atlantic Salmon Federation and the North Atlantic Salmon Fund.
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