The real cost of salmon
Grey Coat | 05.04.2009 12:10 | Animal Liberation | Ecology | Ocean Defence
The salmon sold in every supermarket in the UK has a terrible hidden cost; thousands of seals are shot every year by the fish farmers. While puffins starve the fish their young could eat are fed to sick salmon brought up in cramped conditions more akin to a battery cage than the open ocean.
Fish farmers are raping the oceans of smaller fish to produce food for the millions of captive fish they keep in conditions that more resemble battery cages than the open ocean. These smaller fish that would never end up on a human dinner plate ad until recently weren't fished are vital for sea-birds such as puffins. The removal of these fish has meant many young puffins have starved to death.
The fish farms are a great breeding ground for disease which is then passed on to nearby wild fish stock.
The fish farms also are allowed to kill seals. This is in the UK, a country that condemns the canadian seal slaughter and yet we allow it to happen in our own country. Many thousands of seals are washed up on beaches havng been shot. The common seal population around the British isles (one of the most important seal populations in the world) has reduced by almost a third in recent years.
Stop the slaughter. We can all play our part and refuse to eat the produce of these hell-holes. The seals will not be killed if there is no profit to be made from the factory farmed fish.
The fish farms are a great breeding ground for disease which is then passed on to nearby wild fish stock.
The fish farms also are allowed to kill seals. This is in the UK, a country that condemns the canadian seal slaughter and yet we allow it to happen in our own country. Many thousands of seals are washed up on beaches havng been shot. The common seal population around the British isles (one of the most important seal populations in the world) has reduced by almost a third in recent years.
Stop the slaughter. We can all play our part and refuse to eat the produce of these hell-holes. The seals will not be killed if there is no profit to be made from the factory farmed fish.
Grey Coat
Additions
Food production in reverse
06.04.2009 21:26
A recent Radio 4 'Farming Today' program reported that, due to there being no money back home to pay for their catch, the Iceland fishing fleet are sailing their diesel CO2 emitting trawlers for 3 days to sell their fish in Grimsby. The telling quote is that, whilst the fish go for about £1.50 kg, this is the unprocessed price, "of course after the processing, removing the skin and bones etc, the yield is much less, no more than 47% of the original catch weight".
- Not only are they feeding fish with fish, thereby wasting much of the 'food' value through the energy burnt and crap discharged whilst alive, more than half is wasted in processing.
Another interesting quote from same prog as above, related to the farming of buffalo in the UK:
"... the modern Limousin and Canadienne [cattle] have to be kept going on cereals and concentrates" (rather than grazing on grass), again producing far less food than if the cereal and 'concentrates' were used for direct consumption.
It is surprising how many of the concerns raised by vegan and animal rights advocates are confirmed 'from the farmers mouth' on the 5.45AM broadcast - thank goodness for the podcast, only 14 mins a day from
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/farming/rss.xml
There's a fair bit at the moment about the Welsh badger cull too, which may begin next year.
- blame and kill badgers just in case they spread TB, which may infect to cows, which you'd then have to kill, preventing them from growing up ... to be killed.
- Not only are they feeding fish with fish, thereby wasting much of the 'food' value through the energy burnt and crap discharged whilst alive, more than half is wasted in processing.
Another interesting quote from same prog as above, related to the farming of buffalo in the UK:
"... the modern Limousin and Canadienne [cattle] have to be kept going on cereals and concentrates" (rather than grazing on grass), again producing far less food than if the cereal and 'concentrates' were used for direct consumption.
It is surprising how many of the concerns raised by vegan and animal rights advocates are confirmed 'from the farmers mouth' on the 5.45AM broadcast - thank goodness for the podcast, only 14 mins a day from
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/farming/rss.xml There's a fair bit at the moment about the Welsh badger cull too, which may begin next year.
- blame and kill badgers just in case they spread TB, which may infect to cows, which you'd then have to kill, preventing them from growing up ... to be killed.
Pat
Homepage:
http://www.veggies.org.uk