Here are two papers which I wrote in the spring of 2010. These papers raise questions about whether the marketing campaign against farmed salmon is driven by sound science, or whether there is a marketing agenda that is driving the science.
- Research on PCBs in Farmed Salmon: Science or Marketing?
- Sea Lice Research and Its Publicity: Science or Marketing?
In the case of both PCBs in farmed salmon, and sea lice, the conclusion of my analysis, as presented in these papers, is that some of the research findings appear to have been falsely reported as part of a well-funded, marketing and media campaign to sway market share towards "wild" fish, most of which is Alaskan, by "demarketing" the competition: farmed fish. The punching bag, is farmed salmon but more broadly, this campaign creates a negative impression of aquaculture and farmed fish in general.
Note: The sea lice paper was written in the spring of 2010, well before last fall's spectacular return of more than 30 million wild, Fraser sockeye salmon. That was the highest return in nearly a hundred years and yet the Farmed and Dangerous campaign is still saying that sea lice from salmon farms put wild salmon at serious risk of extinction.
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These activists that are paid to attack farmed salmon are not held accountable. If they are ever right (which is rare), they make a point of telling the world. But if they are wrong, they will say "it's because we forced the changes that made the difference...good for us".
On both the PCB and sea lice issue they are dead wrong, but they will not apologize. Shameful really.
Posted by: Jacques Dumont | 01/27/2011 at 09:47 AM