Paxman attacks the ‘fraud’ of salmon farming
SALMON farming has done “enormous harm” to fish stocks and the environment, Jeremy Paxman has said, as he called for an overhaul of the industry to protect wildlife.
The presenter, a keen angler, said many fisheries traded on the image that salmon arrived at the table “fresh from the wild seas” when, in reality, most has been bred in cramped, filthy cages in the sea.
There are now 250 salmon farms on the western coast of Scotland, but the surge has coincided with a collapse in the number of wild salmon in the area.
Fish cages are mostly sited near the shore, or in estuaries for easy access, but the overcrowded conditions are a breeding ground for sea lice, which infect wild fish when they begin migrating from the sea up rivers.
Although consumers are left with the impression their salmon has been caught in wild lochs, the stock are actually kept in 40-metre cages of around 70,000 fish, Paxman warned in an editorial for the Financial Times Weekend section. “It’s like a series of floating battery hen sheds,” he said. “Salmon has long been sold on the prospect of cleanliness and health. The impression is fraudulent.
“Only a few decades ago you ate Atlantic salmon if you were lucky enough to be a toff, or one of his employees. Now it is ubiquitous, piled high in supermarket fridges or lying pink and flabby on plates at wedding receptions.
“Salmon and trout migrating to the sea or returning to their natural rivers to spawn must swim through clouds of sea lice. Salmon farms have done enormous harm.”
By 2015 the Scottish salmon industry was producing nearly 180,000 tons of salmon and hopes to double production by 2030. But Salmon & Trout Conservation UK (S&TC UK) say the upsurge has come at “considerable environmental cost,” by triggering a huge increase in sea lice that threaten trout as well as salmon.
The number of the parasites often exceed the industry’s recommended Code of Good Practice threshold for treatment. The sea louse problem has forced many fisheries to add chemicals to the holding cages. These are harmful to the environment, conservationists warned.
Dr Janina Grey, head of science with S&TC UK, believes it is time for a positive change: “The long-term goal has to be closed containment, which biologically separates the farmed fish from wild fish and the farms from the wider environment, preventing the spread of sea lice and other diseases.
“Supermarkets are failing in their environmental obligations by selling fish from regions of Scotland where sea lice are not being adequately controlled.”