July 28, 2022 — The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) and National Aquaculture Association are not staying quiet about a recent story published by editorial giant TIME about farmed salmon.
The story in question is entitled “3 Reasons to Avoid Farmed Salmon,” and was written by investigative journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, a husband and wife team who recently published a book titled “Salmon Wars: The Dark Underbelly of our Favorite Fish.” The book claims that salmon are “crammed into parasite-plagued cages and fed a chemical-laced diet.” And in their story for TIME, the authors lead the reader to believe that farmed salmon is not healthy, not sustainable, and on top of that is harming the environment.
“A recent column in TIME about farmed salmon appears to have attracted little or no editorial oversight as it was rife with inaccuracies masquerading as opinion,” NFI said in response. “This is not the first time this once vaunted publication has botched reporting on seafood.”
There is a war being waged against science by activists that would prefer decisions be based on politics, anecdotes and shameless misrepresentations and the authors deliver on this approach by basing their arguments on false factoids pulled from the news or discredited old studies in place of real facts. Here are just a few examples:
FALSE: Salmon are raised in “crammed” cages.
FACT: Salmon are grown in sea cages that contain less than 4% fish and more than 96% water.
FALSE: Salmon are “doused with antibiotics”.
FACT: Salmon are raised with little or no antibiotics under the watch of veterinarians. Farmers have a stewardship responsibility to care for the animals they raise. Farm-raised salmon receive the least medicines out of all the most popular animal proteins we buy at the grocery store.
FALSE: “A single meal per month exceeds contaminant levels set by the World Health Organization”.
FACT: Farm-raised salmon is very low in contaminants and meets or exceeds standards established by the Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization. Salmon is one of the world’s best sources of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids and is welcome on the menu of every G7 country, the European Union and across North America.
FALSE: “A toxic stew [under farms] drives away marine life”.
FACT: Salmon farmers know that pristine marine cage conditions are essential for high-quality salmon. Farm locations are carefully selected to ensure the ocean bottom is protected from significant nutrient loading by placing the farm in deep and fast-moving water. Farmers use underwater cameras to properly disperse feed, they carefully monitor the ocean bottom, and, like a farmer’s field, sites are given time to rest before being used again.
FALSE: “Salmon die at a rate of 15 percent, much worse than 5 percent for chickens.”
FACT: Wild salmon have a 5% survival rate. Farm-raised salmon have an 85% survival rate over the two-year period in which they are raised. Broiler chickens live for less than two months before being placed on a rotisserie, making this comparison a misrepresentation at best.