What do you think?
Rate this book
A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming
On the West Coast, few subjects are as controversial as salmon farming. Every week, new studies raise alarming questions about the safety of farmed fish and the risk farms pose to the environment. But federal, provincial and state governments continue to support expansion of fish farms all along the coast. People are justifiably confused. Just what is the case against this new ocean-based agri-biz, and how concerned should we be? "A Stain Upon the Sea" is an indispensable critique of fish farming practices used in British Columbia and abroad, featuring an all-star cast of contributors. Journalist Stephen Hume examines the industry through the eyes of the Nuxalk and Heiltsuk Nations and incorporates case studies from Ireland and Alaska. Historians Betty Keller and Rosella M. Leslie explain the development of the industry in BC, from small family operations to large chain farms owned by a handful of multinational conglomerates. Biologist Alexandra Morton analyzes the biology of sea lice in the pink salmon runs in the Broughton Archipelago. Former federal employee Otto Langer gives an in-depth account of the bureaucratic nightmare that exempted the industry from environmental review. And scientist Don Staniford analyzes the chemical stew that farmed fish are raised in and the health risk this poses to humans. "A Stain Upon the Sea" is a must-read for anyone concerned with the quality of the food they eat and the environmental health of the planet.
288 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 2004
48 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 25, 2014
Incredible explanation of salmon farming. While one might naturally think salmon farms help save wild salmon stocks, the reality is quite the opposite. Farming salmon (as currently practiced) is unsustainable, a risk to sea life, and a serious risk to human health. If you believe that you are what you eat... then you really want to avoid farmed salmon: it's farmed and dangerous!
September 14, 2023
A Stain Upon The Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming, by various authors
I must admit that I am no particular expert in salmon aquiculture. It must also be admitted that this particular book is no great friend to the endeavor in general, and in reading this book one reads the harshest condemnation that could be given to it from the point of view of environmentalists opposed to the corrupt dealings of bureaucracies captured by corrupt business elements, sports fisherman, and first peoples, all of whom find their interest in preserving a population of wild salmon for the purposes of independent and prudent harvesting thwarted by companies whose practices do not provide jobs, endanger the health of wild and farmed fish alike, as well as the whole marine ecosystem and the consumers of farm-raised salmon raised under ghastly conditions. Indeed, in reading this book I was struck with the question of why it is that this sort of aquiculture takes place in the first place given the inefficiency and destructiveness of the whole endeavor. What is it that allows destructive and frequently unprofitable corporate elements to capture bureaucracies in places like Canada, Norway, Scotland, and Ireland to permit salmon farming despite the horrific condition of the salmon and the dangers that they pose to everything involved in the marine food chain, ourselves included?
The core material of this book is about 240 pages or so, but it could have been much shorter, as a lot of this material is somewhat repetitively dealt with by several of its authors, who are part of an alliance of people who for a variety of reasons have sought to oppose the proliferation of salmon farming in British Columbia. As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, albeit no great fisherman myself, I am nonetheless friends to at least a few people who engage in sport fishing and can testify to the immense bounty of wild salmon in watersheds where salmon fishing has not destroyed the viability of local varieties of Pacific salmon. In a variety of ways, through entertaining and biting cartoons that paint salmon farming as one in a long line of disasters for Canada's first peoples, through discussion of the practices of salmon farming in Europe and Canada by explicitly comparing their own writings to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, through a discussion of the history of salmon farming in Canada, and a recounting of the frustrations that people have in leading to changes in unresponsive and unaccountable bureaucracies that have been captured by malign corporate elements engaged in classic cronyism. The book leaves the reader with the unpleasant question of what is to be done about the corrupt regulatory state in the contemporary West?
In reading this book, I was struck by the fact that the only conceivable motive I could figure out for the behavior of governments in seeking to avoid enforcing environmental sanctions on known and flagrant abusers like giant fish farmers were because the state itself supported the efforts of big pharma and big fish farming to create a captured food source that could poison the seas and poison the general population of the West. The lure of controlling the population by controlling the supply of seafood must be so powerful a motive on the part of governments around the West to support companies whose actions poison the seas with drugs and chemicals, bring about the proliferation of algae blooms and sea lice, tamper with the sex of fish with massive hormone baths to preserve the marketability of pink salmon whose color is often artificial in nature, and who are afflicted with all kinds of diseases, including the development of super pathogens through the indiscriminate and rampant use of antibiotics. Such thorough destructiveness of the viability of wild salmon stock, the interest of millions of sports fishermen, and the economic interests of local first peoples and seacoast communities must have a powerful motive in seeking to control the protein intake of ordinary people who are to be poisoned to death by companies aided and abetted by corrupt bureaucrats captured by evil corporate interests. This book does not explore those dark motives, which have proven themselves to be of immense problems in the Covid era, but it suggests that the problem has been a longstanding one that goes back for decades. If this book is certainly biased, it is biased against bad actors and it presents an important aspect of the part of corrupt Western governments to control the food supply of people and to allow no alternatives to its own toxic offerings.
I must admit that I am no particular expert in salmon aquiculture. It must also be admitted that this particular book is no great friend to the endeavor in general, and in reading this book one reads the harshest condemnation that could be given to it from the point of view of environmentalists opposed to the corrupt dealings of bureaucracies captured by corrupt business elements, sports fisherman, and first peoples, all of whom find their interest in preserving a population of wild salmon for the purposes of independent and prudent harvesting thwarted by companies whose practices do not provide jobs, endanger the health of wild and farmed fish alike, as well as the whole marine ecosystem and the consumers of farm-raised salmon raised under ghastly conditions. Indeed, in reading this book I was struck with the question of why it is that this sort of aquiculture takes place in the first place given the inefficiency and destructiveness of the whole endeavor. What is it that allows destructive and frequently unprofitable corporate elements to capture bureaucracies in places like Canada, Norway, Scotland, and Ireland to permit salmon farming despite the horrific condition of the salmon and the dangers that they pose to everything involved in the marine food chain, ourselves included?
The core material of this book is about 240 pages or so, but it could have been much shorter, as a lot of this material is somewhat repetitively dealt with by several of its authors, who are part of an alliance of people who for a variety of reasons have sought to oppose the proliferation of salmon farming in British Columbia. As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, albeit no great fisherman myself, I am nonetheless friends to at least a few people who engage in sport fishing and can testify to the immense bounty of wild salmon in watersheds where salmon fishing has not destroyed the viability of local varieties of Pacific salmon. In a variety of ways, through entertaining and biting cartoons that paint salmon farming as one in a long line of disasters for Canada's first peoples, through discussion of the practices of salmon farming in Europe and Canada by explicitly comparing their own writings to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, through a discussion of the history of salmon farming in Canada, and a recounting of the frustrations that people have in leading to changes in unresponsive and unaccountable bureaucracies that have been captured by malign corporate elements engaged in classic cronyism. The book leaves the reader with the unpleasant question of what is to be done about the corrupt regulatory state in the contemporary West?
In reading this book, I was struck by the fact that the only conceivable motive I could figure out for the behavior of governments in seeking to avoid enforcing environmental sanctions on known and flagrant abusers like giant fish farmers were because the state itself supported the efforts of big pharma and big fish farming to create a captured food source that could poison the seas and poison the general population of the West. The lure of controlling the population by controlling the supply of seafood must be so powerful a motive on the part of governments around the West to support companies whose actions poison the seas with drugs and chemicals, bring about the proliferation of algae blooms and sea lice, tamper with the sex of fish with massive hormone baths to preserve the marketability of pink salmon whose color is often artificial in nature, and who are afflicted with all kinds of diseases, including the development of super pathogens through the indiscriminate and rampant use of antibiotics. Such thorough destructiveness of the viability of wild salmon stock, the interest of millions of sports fishermen, and the economic interests of local first peoples and seacoast communities must have a powerful motive in seeking to control the protein intake of ordinary people who are to be poisoned to death by companies aided and abetted by corrupt bureaucrats captured by evil corporate interests. This book does not explore those dark motives, which have proven themselves to be of immense problems in the Covid era, but it suggests that the problem has been a longstanding one that goes back for decades. If this book is certainly biased, it is biased against bad actors and it presents an important aspect of the part of corrupt Western governments to control the food supply of people and to allow no alternatives to its own toxic offerings.
March 24, 2018
No question about it. All the excruciating detail about why farmed Salmon is bad for you, the environment and the eventual collapse of the business idea and the investors and workers. Scientific and anecdotal details are not spared. Tumors, leeches and all sorts of fun and disgusting attachments to the sedentary farm salmon that will possibly wipe out all the wild salmon to come.
February 21, 2022
I saw Alan Shore reading this book on an episode of Boston Legal. Wow! The information here is pretty scary. Why is salmon farming allowed after the results of this research?
This book contains maps, black and white photos, a list of abbreviations, charts, notes, a list of contributors, and an index along with the main text.
This book contains maps, black and white photos, a list of abbreviations, charts, notes, a list of contributors, and an index along with the main text.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews