Ridiculous arguments based on conjecture and (shudder) opinion. There are far too few wild salmon left to feed the people that want them. Farmed fish feed the market and are an excellent source of protein. Another advantage is shelf life, wild fish have more enzymes in them and deteriorate faster than farmed, which have about double the shelf life.
If I were the king, I would ban all fishing for all species in the inland sea from Puget Sound to Port Hardy for a minimum of 10 years. We over-fish all species and need to let them all recover.
Some fish farms have been bad but that is largely lack of oversight by our useless government; I have heard there is one conservation officer for the entire Sunshine Coast.
I've often wondered about this. Salmon are in short supply yet we can fish for them almost without limit. (Now, before the fishermen jump on me about the daily bag limits, I understand that. But those are daily bag limits.............
In the late 70's, early 80's I sport fished with literally hundreds of other boats around east point, Saturna. That was when the daily limit was 8 per person. At the same time the commercial fleet worked overtime as there were that many fish to be had. That sounds like overfishing, however!
Fishing went from abundant to nothing the next year of the day Mt. St. Helens blew. Fish stopped coming past east point or there were so few, No one knew what happened until tagged fish were caught migrating from the north end of Van Isle back to the Fraser. This trend continued until great fishing at Campbell river also declined.
The expected returns were no longer happening. The fish counters predictions based on fry leaving the spawning grounds were no longer anywhere near accurate.
Commercial fishing had more closure than open times, so people lost their boats and livelihood. Still it was not from overfishing on the inland waters.
I think it was 88 I went offshore 300 NM off Oregon (just because) to find an underwater mountain at 90 feet, as the target (can we do it was the challenge).
Well, we found it all right. At first there was a glow in the dark night sky, then as the horizon was within 3-5 NM it was like sailing into Vancouver harbour, the lights of the city. Soon (approx midnight) we were surround by lighted ships as we found our mark and 180 the hell out of there.
They were commercial freighters processing the catch of what seemed like hundreds of boats. This is but one such spot in the ocean. No one knows/knew where the salmon went for 3-5 years.
Overfishing is occurring offshore, most likely by foreign ships, beyond any regulations.
Another reason there remains a shortage is that fish hatcheries were not, maybe still are not running operations 24/7/365 to add to the normal process.
P.S. Cross thread points, we did not have radar or auto pilot.
