On the train to Liverpool yesterday.
Riding the Rails
How lucky we are to have this distinctive building off-setting the very drab Australian suburban surroundings. I pity the poor Swiss for voting against minarets.
Fish Farming – Atlantic Salmon
I have, in developing my cook book, claimed not to eat Atlantic Salmon (although I did have to order it for the family Christmas dinner). Here are the reasons:
“Salmon: Clean, green super-food or battery hens of the sea?”, ABC News, 8 December, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/08/2765421.htm
It’s being served up on plates all the way from Sydney to Shanghai and the entrepreneurs driving the Tasmanian salmon industry have predicted it will become a billion dollar industry. It is amazing growth for a product that only started in Tasmania 20 years ago, when the first Atlantic salmon eggs were shipped in and hatched in local waters.
Salmon farmers have relied on marketing Tasmania’s clean, green image to spearhead their assault on mainland and overseas markets. Advertisers use phrases like “grown in the pristine oceans off Tasmania” and the industry has acknowledged that this association has been crucial to salmon’s success. But a growing number of critics say the marketing is a sham and that the waters of a salmon farm are more likely to be swirling with chemicals and waste.
Canadian environmentalist Dr David Suzuki is one of the industry’s detractors. Three years ago he fired the first shot in the salmon wars, berating the National Press Club for eating Tasmanian salmon during his speech. “You all sat and chowed down on farmed salmon and obviously you don’t give a shit about what you’re putting into your body,” he said. “You know what a farmed salmon is, it’s filled with toxic chemicals.” Dr Suzuki is continuing his campaign against farmed salmon, here and in Canada.
The allegations are fiercely contested by the Tasmanian salmon farmers who assure customers their product is the way of the future. “There are always critics out there and I guess our test will be ultimately whether we are sustainable or not, and we’re continuing to invest to make sure that we are,” Mr Ryan said.
The Australian Marine Conservation Society has been one of the most persistent critics. Marine campaigner Ben Birt says the society has consistently urged environmentally-conscious consumers to say no to Tasmanian farmed salmon.
“In order to feed the salmon to grow them you need to catch a lot of wild fish and, each year, millions of tonnes of smaller fish like anchovy and sardine are removed from the sea in order to be fed to the salmon,” he said. “This has potentially huge implications for the wild ecosystems.” The society says as many as four kilograms of wild fish need to be caught to raise one kilogram of Tasmanian salmon.
But perhaps the biggest PR problem for the industry has been its use of antibiotics to treat its fish. As many as 50,000 salmon are farmed inside each pen and keeping disease from spreading in these tight confines is a constant battle. Industry figures show that from 2006 to 2008 almost 18 tonnes of the antibiotics Oxytetracycline and Amoxicillin (also used to treat people) were fed to Tasmanian salmon.
The industry stresses that it flushes and tests the fish before they are sold to ensure there are no traces of antibiotics when they arrive on plates. However, critics like Tasmanian Greens MP Kim Booth says wild fish can eat the antibiotics which are given to the salmon in fish pellets.
“If they don’t deal with the issues of antibiotics and they don’t deal with the issues of the effluent that falls off these things into the bottom of the ocean they will end up … they’re being called the battery hens of the seas,” he said.
Figures obtained exclusively by the ABC suggest that the great majority of the antibiotics were used by Tassal. Tassal boss Mark Ryan refused to supply figures on his company’s antibiotic use to the ABC but said they were only used on animal welfare grounds to keep the fish healthy.
More information
- July 9 – “Norway, British Columbia IV (Farming Atlantic Salmon in the Pacific)” http://www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/070909.htm
- July 16 – “Norway, British Columbia V (“Organic” Salmon?)/ Co-operatives: Alternatives to Industrial Food VI” http://www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/071609.htm
- Tassal’s website is at http://www.tassal.com.au/
- Australian Marine Conservation Society, http://www.amcs.org.au/
