We are … WILD FISHionados
Wild BC salmon is one of the best tasting, heart-healthy natural foods in our oceans and on our planet.
It is high in Omega-3, and a keystone fish that supports a wide variety of animals and plants – over 114 combined.
Unfortunately, some species of wild salmon have become extinct in many regions of the world. It is however, still available in the North Pacific ocean and its rivers.
Canada, USA, and Russia are the only countries left with sizeable natural wild runs. Some runs in these regions are still relatively healthy, but they are no longer even close to being large enough to meet global demand.
Wild salmon species in the Pacific are either gone completely, or dwindling at alarming rates. Wild salmon are so difficult to capture these days that the price has soared well beyond the cost that average consumers are able to pay. Some demographics, millenials for instance, have turned the purchase and eating of wild salmon into an event! They pace and restrict their seafood consumption and save for premium fish, which means they eat less.
Because real wild is out of reach for most seafood lovers, the next evolution in 2020 is moving towards “WILD-CAUGHT” in the ocean and then holistically raised on a land-based fish farm using WCA – Wild Caught Aquaculture methods. It’s still mostly a dream, but technology is getting close to turning it into a fisheries reality. When WCA becomes plug and play, maybe within a few years, fish farmers will proliferate close to inland markets, and the 100k/mile pledge will gain another ally.
You might be wincing because your experience with farmed salmon has not been stellar. Farmed salmon can sometimes have a jelly-like consistency, which is a parasite – kudoa thyrsites. It renders the flesh inedible.
Farmed salmon in open-net pens also often requires substantial doses of pesticides and antibiotics, which can linger in the flesh and pollute oceans.
Plus, and many haven’t put 2+2 together yet, open-net pen farmed fish live and grow in the same contaminated oceans as wild salmon, which means that wild and farmed salmon contain measurable and concerning levels of mercury, PCBs, and plastic. It’s another reason consumers are confused and balk at seafood, although this psychographic delineation is much smaller then the previous group who simply can’t afford it.
Fish farming in open-net pens in the ocean generates substantial pollution. Biologists allege it becomes a breeding ground for disease that can infect wild fish swimming by, although that allegation is hotly debated by fish farmers. Scientists are currently studying changes in virulence of parasites and other pathogens due to anthropogenic effects, which means that traditional fish farms could be breeding new and highly resistant or non-treatable strains.
Bottom line … the downsides of traditional open-net pen fish farming outweigh the benefits.
The UPSIDE … is that MODERN DAY FISH FARMING is a new animal that doesn’t have to suffer under yesterday’s challenges.
Land-based RAS IMTA aquaponics can produce fish that are even more pure than purely wild! And it can do it in an ecologically and environmentally friendly way that is good for oceans, fish, and consumers.
This site, WildSalmonCove.com used to be exclusively about wild salmon caught in the ocean, but times have changed and we’ve evolved to explore better options.
We now support not only wild, but also wild-caught fish that are captured in the ocean and grown out or on-grown in highly specialized and modern, contained or land-based fish farms. We explore plausible plans that reinvent fisheries, whether it is wild capture in the ocean, or land-based RAS IMTA aquaponics.
Check back occasionally for updates. We don’t publish a lot, but we do try and hit all the right fishing holes.
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Maurice Cardinal has been a fisheries marketing and communications advisor and writer in British Columbia for almost a decade and has worked with leading organisations, NGOs, and governments in Canada and abroad.
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