Fish Soup? Wild Salmon Recovery, Hatcheries and Fish Farms

Bellingham fisher Jeremy Brown, fvoneandall@hotmail.com, is a 2002 Food and Society Policy Fellow. This is a program of the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute in partnership with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information see: http://www.foodandsociety- fellows.org.

Editor’s Note: This is the first article in a series by Jeremy Brown about the unfolding salmon recovery debate.

A number of events in 2002 radically shifted the salmon recovery debate both locally and regionally. I have selected these events to show how apparently solitary, unconnected events can have a significant combined influence on salmon policy. To what degree there is any connection between these events, I offer my opinion, but the readers should draw their own conclusions.

In this article, I will show the context and connection between these events. In a second article to follow next month, I will discuss some of the more pertinent debate in depth.

The first significant event occurred in April, when the Provincial Government of British Columbia announced its intention to lift the moratorium on the issuance of commercial salmon farm licenses. It had imposed the moratorium in 1997 in response to public concerns over rapid and poorly regulated expansion of industrial salmon-growing operations in B.C.

On June 27, two little-known conservation groups called Washington Trout and the Native Fish Society filed a 60-day Notice of Intent to sue the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife under the Endangered Species Act. Their expressed intent was to close all the state-run Chinook salmon hatcheries in Puget Sound.

On August 13, the Whatcom County Council passed a resolution supporting a moratorium on commercial marine salmon net pens and supporting wild salmon fisheries. Although Washington has fewer salmon farms than British Columbia, Whatcom County residents expressed much the same concerns as their B.C. neighbors.

In September, the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is the agency within the Department of Commerce responsible for the management of federal waters1 and fisheries, closed the opportunity for public comment on its little-publicized “Code of Conduct for Responsible Aquaculture Development in the Exclusive Economic Zone.”

In November, an independent panel appointed by the Canadian Minister of Fisheries pointed a firm finger at an infestation of Sea Lice, magnified by the close confinement conditions in fish farms, as the likely cause of the total collapse of pink salmon runs in the Broughton Archipelago off northern Vancouver Island.

Finally, on December 7, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously to ban the presence of transgenic fish in Washington state.

Salmon recovery, quite simply, is a uniquely Northwestern, democratic, grassroots movement. Wild salmon are arguably the defining icon of our region. Before Europeans arrived, the entire economy, culture and sustenance of the region revolved around the seasonal salmon cycle. Salmon represent the unique spirit of this region as much as the rapidly disappearing old growth forests, but just as the trees did, salmon soon fell victim to the ruthless efficiency of European exploitation.

Just like logging and farming, salmon harvest can be conducted sustainably, yet all these activities lose that sustainability as they are industrialized. Fish stocks that could easily withstand harvesting by hundreds of family-operated, small fish boats soon fell victim to the huge corporate fish traps and the industrialization of entire river systems for hydro-electrical generation, irrigation and shipping.

The top-down solution has been to substitute lost natural spawning with hatchery production while simultaneously replacing the natural process with ocean ranching3 and later by domesticating the wild fish in net pens where the fish spend their entire lives in floating feedlots.

Thus another self-sustaining natural system, which supports artisanal harvest and provides local benefits, is discarded in favor of an industrial analogue that seeks to privatize the profit while socializing the costs.4

The top-down solution is actually a substitute, and it is at the grassroots level that one finds the effort to sustain salmon. What began in the late 1980s as mainly disillusioned fishers seeking to do a better job than government has blossomed into a broad-based movement embracing commercial, recreational and tribal fishers, environmentalists, landowners, farmers and just plain caring folk.

The uniting vision of this movement is that wild salmon are a part of our lives. We like to see them, catch them, eat them and simply know they are there in all their fabulous abundance because if things are well with the salmon they must be so too with our water, rivers, forests and oceans.

Rather than meet such expectations, industrialization of fish production offers us an alternative— we can have cheap power, pavement, prosperity and salmon, too! The region’s salmon experts at the University of Washington School of Fisheries immortalized the industrial paradigm with such quotes as “Salmon don’t need rivers” and “Tell us how many fish you want, and we’ll make them for you.”

The Atlantic salmon from these aquatic feedlots are no longer part of our cherished notions of a healthy environment; in fact, Atlantic salmon have become the opposite. These new salmon (which were raised on a diet laced with colorants and antibiotics) currently appearing at fish counters are agents in the degradation of the environment.5 But, as the fish-farming industry would say, at least those unsightly feedlots can now be hidden beyond the horizon, offshore.

By developing on the Continental Shelf, which is out at sea, local and state governments cease to have regulatory input. This is going on at the same time that the Bush Administration is contending that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA, which requires environmental impact statements prior to new activities) does not apply farther than three miles from shore!

This new industrial salmon is a poor substitute in another critical way. Much of the testimony presented to the Whatcom County Council addressed concerns with substituting a nutritionally inferior food for which there is no labeling to alert the consumer. For many the loss of food integrity is every bit as important as the loss to our environment when industrially raised fish replace wild fish on our plates and in the water.

The nutrition press is awash today in the health benefits of fish consumption. Oily fish, such as wild salmon, are a good source of a polyunsaturated fatty acid called omega-3. A diet rich in omega-3 has been shown to have benefits from lowering the risk of heart disease and depression to promoting fetal brain development.

Conversely, diets low in omega-3 seem to be connected to higher rates of premature delivery and low birth weight in babies. As our diets have increased in processed foods and fats, the amount of omega-3 we consume has diminished while the amount of omega-6 fatty acid has increased.6

Our diets today generally contain 16 times as much omega-6 as omega-3, whereas a century ago the amounts would have been about equal.7 Industrially raised fish, including salmon, with their diet high in soy, corn oils and animal byproducts, have a similar lack of omega-3 and a higher level of omega-6.

The concentration of ownership, the control over food production and the enclosure and privatizing of our marine commons would benefit only an elite few, so it stands to reason that they would have little chance against such a broad-based coalition like that which supports salmon recovery. Unfortunately, there is a useful “wedge issue8” to divide that coalition. The issue of fish hatcheries quickly fractures the united purpose of salmon recovery.

For some in the advocates of salmon camp, hatcheries just aren’t pure enough. Hatcheries deal with wild salmon, but the purists would say they represent too much of a detour down the industrial path and are indeed indistinguishable from fish farms themselves. In next month’s article, I will explain the reasons why this is a particularly mistaken assumption.

In this part we are considering the role of broad-based, popular support for salmon recovery and the consequences of this wedge issue to that coalition. Popular support for salmon recovery gets its strength from being inclusive, but it loses much of its strength each time a wedge issue is used to divide that unity.

For example, some sport fishers have twice sought to outlaw commercial fishing in order to reserve diminishing runs for themselves. Other groups have sought to overturn the landmark Boldt Decision, which affirmed Tribal Treaty rights and guaranteed tribal fishers an equitable share of the harvest. With each case, the cause of salmon recovery has been set back and popular support weakened. These are classic wedge tactics, used by opponents to divide diverse groups.

Ironically, the true benefactors of these wedges would not have been those who initiated them, since declines in fish would have continued apace. The real benefactors would be those to whom the very presence of wild salmon is an affront and impediment, in other words the abusers of the land and water.

Plenty of evidence exists to implicate several groups of developers and industrial corporations as being behind the scenes instigators of these wedge campaigns. The various attacks on hatcheries, such as Washington Trout’s threatened lawsuit, are simply a sophisticated use of that wedge. Washington Trout was duped into doing the bidding of development interests.

If salmon runs are abundant enough to support adequate harvest, then salmon recovery remains inclusive, since the objectives of all the members of the coalition are met by that level of recovery.

This obvious truth notwithstanding, some within a coalition can win without everyone else winning. In the case of Washington Trout, by seeking to eliminate hatcheries the group gambles that less than abundant runs would satisfy their own fishing objectives while discarding those of others. Their lawsuit would effectively set a compromise recovery standard, which has all the attractions that a compromise has politically, and achieve its own goals at the expense of the larger coalition and meaningful salmon recovery by eliminating hatcheries.

Washington Trout’s suit would close all state-run Chinook hatcheries in Puget Sound. Each hatchery has its own particular circumstances, but they all share the basic purpose of rebuilding salmon runs by supplementing natural spawning production. Let’s examine the local Kendall Hatchery on the Nooksack River.

Quite simply, the North Fork Spring Chinook Salmon in the Nooksack River, which are listed as threatened under the ESA, would likely be extinct were it not for the carefully run hatchery at Kendall Creek. Taking eggs and sperm from only native stock, the hatchery has scrupulously ensured its genetic integrity. The run has rebuilt from a lowly 10 spawning salmon in 1990 to more than 5,000 spawners in 2002.

The Washington Trout lawsuit would play a game of brinkmanship with the future of our native fish stocks. The gamble is that without hatcheries to boost the number of fish, so few fish would be remaining that all fishing when this stock of fish was present would have to cease. Since Nooksack Spring Chinook salmon have not been commercially fished for several decades, the fisheries primarily affected would be those with incidental catch, such as sport and tribal fishers.

The same would apply on other rivers throughout Puget Sound. Since there are other sport fishing opportunities, and plenty of other sports throughout the area, the heaviest impact would be felt by the Treaty Tribes. Whether this is indeed the ultimate intent must be left to speculation.

Why, we then have to ask, would Washington Trout, a group that espouses catch and release fly fishing, wish to halt all fishing? The answer is that they don’t. If Washington Trout’s suit is successful and the hatcheries are closed, salmon will not disappear overnight.

But without the help of hatchery supplementation, recovery will be so much slower. With small but rebuilding salmon runs that are able to sustain a low level of fishing pressure, Washington Trout will argue for the right for catch and release fishing to continue. The clear strategy here is to eliminate the opportunities for everyone else and so gain the spoils for their own use!

By coincidence, the fish farmers would also like to eliminate competition of wild salmon harvesters in the marketplace. Not only does wild salmon make their product look bad, but the seven transnational corporations (all foreign) that completely control salmon farming worldwide have only wild salmon between them and total market control.

“If there are plenty of salmon in the stores, why allow fishing in Puget Sound?” This is the question posed by both extreme preservationists and industrialized food producers. The one can argue that there are plenty of salmon in the stores, so why fish on runs we are trying to rebuild. The other can argue that they themselves can supply all the fish we want, so there is no need for wild salmon fisheries anyway.

The assumptions and expectations that bind this unlikely coalition are nonetheless tragically flawed.

•Assumption 1: “Catch-and-release is harmless.” After all, if you revere the fish as much as these folks do, what you do must be OK. Wrong. In single hooking encounters of salmon, the lowest possible mortality rate (survival of fish released) is 8 percent.9 This was an uncontrolled study in which those conducting the study had both the motive and opportunity to minimize results to their own benefit. Most other studies consistently put the mortality rate at over 30 percent.10 Remember; these figures only look at single hooking encounters. With repeat encounters these percentages become compounded!

•Assumption 2: “The consumer doesn’t care where the salmon comes from, or how it tastes, as long as it’s cheap.” Given the choice, chefs, diners and home grillers select wild salmon over farmed every time. No single public taste test has shown otherwise. However, this becomes moot if the consumer is simply denied that choice.

Thus we can see that the recovery of wild salmon, which most of us assume could only be a good thing, is viewed as a threat to the particular agenda of some who are therefore seeking to undermine the process. §