Canadian group begins farmed salmon boycott
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Chefs, scientists, fishing interests and conservation groups have begun a campaign to boycott farm-raised salmon from British Columbia. The campaign could aid Alaska's ongoing effort to market wild salmon, which has lost much of its market share to farmed fish.
In material sent to more than 2,100 retailers and restaurants in the United States, the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform asserted the pen-reared Atlantic salmon raised in B.C. waters pose potential health and environmental risks.
"Farmed salmon is produced using pesticides, antibiotics and chemical additives to alter the color of the fish, and most consumers know nothing about this," coalition spokeswoman Jennifer Lash said Tuesday.
She said 50 stores and restaurants have joined the boycott, including "white tablecloth" chefs in San Francisco and Portland, Ore.
Lash compared the campaign to an earlier effort by environmentalists to persuade businesses such as Home Depot not to sell wood from old-growth trees cut in British Columbia.
The British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association issued a statement saying that only a minuscule amount of antibiotics is given to farmed salmon and that both wild and farm salmon get their color from a substance called astaxanthin.
Wild salmon get astaxanthin by eating krill and crustaceans, and substance is added to the feed for farmed salmon, a technique also used for years at salmon hatcheries, the statement said.
Association Executive Director Mary Ellen Walling said the boycott campaign "certainly will directly impact the people in our coastal communities who depend on farming for their living."
Bob King, spokesman for Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles, said the boycott campaign will help Alaska's seafood industry.
"I'd call it a healthy sign that consumers are wising up to the adverse impacts of farmed salmon and hopefully, that will refocus their buying on wild salmon," King said today, pointing to a recent Newsweek article questioning the health value of farmed fish. "These education efforts have to be taken right to the store owners and the consumers themselves."
He said the governor also continues to talk to U.S. trade officials about what the state considers unfair dumping practices of Chilean fish farmers.
Empire writer Ed Schoenfeld contributed to this report.