Thursday, March 10, 2016

Chile's salmon fishery facing problems


I like sustainable fisheries where the fish aren't over-exploited.  So I usually support farmed salmon, and it's one of the fish I'm comfortable consuming.  The fact that it tastes great doesn't hurt in the slightest.

So I read this article about the problems the Chile salmon fishery is having with some trepidation.  It's not clear if they can recover it.  I'm hoping that they can.


Starting off the article:
"Earlier this year, warming ocean waters off the coast of southern Chile spurred an algal bloom that devastated salmon farms lining Patagonia’s picturesque fjords.

But what has international fish buyers most worried — and stock prices tumbling — is that the algal bloom appears to be ongoing. Salmon growers are still tallying their losses, and as of this week more than 20 million fish, representing 15 percent of Chile’s total annual salmon production, have been asphyxiated, or perhaps poisoned by the blooms (the jury is still out on that question). The figures are still climbing."
Further down in the article, it states that about a third of the U.S. imports of salmon have been from Chile.

So here's the other problem (aside from volcanoes and environmental abuses):
"But the biggest shakeup — aside from September’s 8.3 magnitude earthquake — came last July when U.S. retail giant Costco dropped the bulk of its Chilean contracts in favor of Norwegian-bred salmon, citing Chile’s heavy-handed use of antibiotics."
So, for several reasons, Chile needs to clean up its salmon fishery/industry.

Literally.



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