Wild Chinook and Domesticated Salmon

[svsanchezbutler]

In the book Four Fish, Paul Greenberg talks about wild Chinook Salmon in the lower Yukon River. He journeys to a small village in Alaska to observe the fishing of Wild Chinook Salmon. He goes into a story of a day spent fishing for wild Chinook Salmon, they spent the whole day out there to only return with one and the rest were just dogs. That wild salmon was such a rarity that the family he was fishing with traded this great catch for just a bag or two of processed chicken parts. Then he goes into the decline of the wild Chinook Salmon populations. Which he then links to the rise of domesticated Salmon. He compares the difference and the uprise of domesticated salmon compared to wild Chinook Salmon. With the high rise in demand for salmon came the production of domesticated Salmon, domesticated Salmon have been genetically altered to be fed less for more meat. This chapter goes over the correlation between the two. The decline of wild Chinook Salmon and the rise of domesticated Salmon are related, because humans have created this need for fish that the wild populations can’t compete with, in result domesticated salmon being produced has spiked. These two things are linked, because with the rise of domesticated Salmon causes a decline in all wild Salmon due to diseases domesticated salmon carry, the major genetic differences between the two, food competition, and a number of other factors. With the demand for salmon rising and the population of domesticated salmon rising, people have overlooked the environmental problems that occur when domesticated salmon are brought into the picture, problems for the habitats, the populations of wild salmon decline, all the diseases that are brought along with it, and the stunning genetic differences, all for the convenience of being have to eat Salmon whenever the people want.

[mhhigdon]

Although people have created the domestic salmon to care for their needs, they could slightly change the salmons genetics and resilience that the wild salmon have, and so it wouldn’t affect the Chinook salmon like it did in the book. I agree that people are not thinking of the affects that the domestic salmon are causing for the environment and the wild salmon population.

[rmwilliams7]

Exactly, introducing these farmed fish is a big controversy. Its more important to keep wild populations stable and heathy, then to create new breeds of fish just for economic gain and production. There are many negatives in bringing these fish into the environments, well said.

[alwhitney2]

I agree with you that farming salmon that still maintain wild characteristics & overall hardiness would be nice, but I believe that is rather unrealistic. If they raised salmon that still had the wild resilience as wild salmon, they would be slower growing, and require more food per lb resulting in it becoming more expensive. The wild characteristics that make wild salmon so hardy are directly in conflict with the efficient, cheap characteristics of farmed salmon. I believe a better expectation would be to have stricter regulations for fish farmers, and expect them to prevent the escape of their farmed salmon. Greenburg says that farmed fish escape in the millions every year, and that just seems crazy. While it would be difficult to enforce regulation throughout many countries, at least here in the U.S. surely we could have high requirements for hatcheries pens to be escape proof.

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