Rainbow/Steelhead Trout, What BC ??? Fisheries and the United States of the Americas Choose to Ignore; or Would Rather You Didn't Know.

Its OK to live and shop locally, 
even think globally;
but nature is the entire cosmos.
Sustainable fishery?
That depends on whether you're talking about a wild fish stock;
or a food industries, government/advertising/merchandising
(GAM) scam.

Recreational fishing for steelhead trout in British Columbia is world-renowned and in several rivers, cultured fish WILL represent a significant contribution to the catch.

The steelhead program of the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C., UNDER THE DIRECTION AND POLICY OF B.C.'S MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT,and in cooperation with several Federal Fisheries hatcheries, generates hatchery smolts for release. The resultant angling opportunities are  OPTIMISTICALLY ,AND MOST HOPEFULLY, IN FACT ,promoted as being of high value to the Provincial economy. NOT!
There is no doubt what ever; that the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. and the BC Ministry of Environment cater to the special interest,private celebrity, ownership interests from the United States of The Americas.

The use of hatchery steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and catch and release of wild steelhead do provide angling benefits, but may also impose dangerous and wholly unnecessary risks to wild stocks. 
In short; this, so called, "sustainable" fishery, may, WILL,very soon, cause any,still existent-if indeed it has not already happened-truly WILD stocks to become extinct. Hatchery raised Oncorhynchus mykiss ,with chemically manipulated flesh colour, are NOT and NEVER WILL BE "wild"steelhead TROUT.

Most rivers with steelhead present in B.C. ARE "classified"as wild but, farmed/hatchery fish are none the less routinely released into them and the farmed/hatchery fish can and do displace wild parr, consume wild fry. Some even survive the summer and winter to spawn with wild adults thus producing genetically impure mongrel fish stocks. That may not be adequately equipped to survive.

The presence of hatchery returns and restrictive catch-and-release regulations do probably serve to conserve some wild fish populations when the recruitment of wild fish is relatively abundant, i.e., in the routine management zone by providing marked hatchery fish to harvest and the release of captured wild adults but only if this release is properly and thoughtfully carried out. Most often(watch some of the fishing shows on TV) it is not. In order to hold a fish while removing a hook, many anglers will insert their fingers into the gills. This practice causes haemorrhaging which may-quite likely will- kill the fish and spread diseases.

Further Policy Precautions in Hatchery fish Culture and Liberation Include: random selection of wild natal broodstocks, and the placement of marked (adipose fin clip) hatchery smolts in the lower portions of rivers. The latter not only focuses the returning hatchery fish into the area of the sport

fishery, it also is supposed to insure that there is less interaction with the wild population,  again, however, both at release  and in the return many smolts fail to migrate, thus the potential reduction in fitness in wild fish when wild and hatchery fish spawn together).  

The overall purpose of the Provincial stream classification policy is to manage the risks in order to maintain healthy, self-sustaining wild steelhead stocks.???

Recently, Walters (2005) noted several internal and external differences between farmed or hatchery fish and wild stocks. Internal Differences : include larger spleen, liver, heart, and smaller brain)

External Differences: include body shape, fin erosion, and head size.

Then There are Morphological and Behavioural Differences (phenotypic divergence): between residualized hatchery smolts and wild smolts, and several potential life history, demographic, ecological and genetic impacts as a result of this residualism.

Despite a low-river release, downstream of the Keogh fish fence blocking upstream migration of these hatchery smolts for several weeks, several thousand of 20,000 to 30,000 hatchery smolts failed to migrate and became resident during summer. The residualism phenomenon has been observed in other Vancouver Island streams (Quinsam and Little Qualicum rivers), particularly in the spring drought of 2004. Several thousand residuals were observed in these two systems following their release from on-site hatchery rearing facilities. Regional biologists further reported this same behaviour in most rivers where hatchery smolts are released such as the lower Somass, Stamp and Sproat rivers near Port Alberni, and the Seymour and Chilliwack rivers on the Lower Mainland, after releases of hatchery steelhead smolts, at times swamping the wild parr in numbers, leaving little doubt of substantial density-dependent effects on wild steelhead (and others), particularly when wild recruitment is low. ?

Very little evidence is available to support the contention that hatchery steelhead can serve as a tool to re-build the wild population directly through the spawning of hatchery returns in wild rivers. Indeed, all available evidence suggests just the opposite . Because of , not despite the efforts of ,farming and hatcheries; pure WILD socks of most any type fish  are soon to become extinct, if indeed--they are not already.

Rainbow/Steelhead Trout, Female.

At the juvenile stage, there is no difference. Wild Steel Head or just a common Rainbow trout  depends  largely on where it is caught; and whether or not it has relatively easy access to salt water. Alberta and Saskatchewan are not considered easy access; otherwise, you just could find this  exact same fish (wild steelhead trout/USA salmon) in a beaver ponds, or dugout water reservoirs, throughout Saskatchewan or, maybe, in the Alberta Badlands. There is no, real, commercial steeelhead fishery; all the so called steel head found in a fish market or supermarket are farmed fish. If you are a recreational fisherman, the only "steel head" you are allowed to keep are farmed fish (fish with an adipose fin clip). Although it was, originally, recognised as a white fleshed fish; rainbow trout flesh can, now days, be white, pink, or even bright orange and is often said to have a delicate, almost nutty, flavour. This change is caused (very deliberately and as a marketing scam) by the food they eat (diet the fish are fed).

One almost never sees the term "fall bright used any more; so far as marketers are concerned, with good reason. The flesh of a fall bright Chinook salmon is generally white, you know, just like the flesh of a rainbow trout is generally white. The colour change is due, mainly-- more than salt water exposure-- to diet--what the fish has been feeding on; just as the change in FLESH colour of rainbow trout is due to what the fish has been fed in the hatchery.

Unlike salmon, rainbow trout or Steelhead, have a highly diverse life history, with greater variation in the number of years spent in both freshwater (1 to 5), and in saltwater (1 to 3), and ability to spawn repeatedly (usually 10% to 20% of returns are repeats, but it has been higher recently). Steelhead adults return in lower numbers than salmon and over a broader time frame, to spawn in the spring rather than the fall. Survival from egg to fry is higher than salmon, in general.

The typical steelhead life cycle, includes both freshwater and marine phases. Steelhead hatch in freshwater rivers or streams, remaining there for one to four years (Scott and Crossman 1973, Wooding 1994). They migrate to the ocean in spring and grow rapidly as they enter estuarine waters, doubling or tripling in size in approximately two weeks (Childerhose and Trim 1979).

Steelhead spend two to three years in the ocean, yet little is known about this phase of their lifecycle; they are regularly reported in Alaskan and Aleutian waters and may travel as far as Japan(Wooding 1994). For example, a steelhead caught in the Skagit River had been tagged six months earlier in the Sea of Japan (Ball 2006).

Like the Chinook salmon, two different types of steelhead are distinguished by the time at which they return to freshwater: winter run fish enter rivers and streams from November to May while summer run steelhead return between April and October. Both populations spawn in early spring (April to May), with eggs hatching four to seven weeks. Unlike Pacific salmon, adult steelhead may return to the ocean after spawning and spawn multiple times; up to 20% of steelhead are repeat spawners (Wooding 1994).

The scientific name of the rainbow trout is Oncorhynchus mykiss. The species was originally named by German naturalist and taxonomist Johann Julius Walbaum in 1792 based on type specimens from the Kamchatka Peninsula in Siberia. Walbaum's original species name, mykiss, was derived from the local Kamchatkan name used for the fish, mykizha. The name of the genus is from the Greek onkos ("hook") and rynchos ("nose"), in reference to the hooked jaws of males in the mating season (the "kype").

The oceangoing, (anadromous) form, including, those returning for spawning, are known as steelhead in Canada. In Tasmania, they are commercially propagated in sea cages and are known as ocean trout, although they are the same species.

Like salmon, arctic char; and also steelhead, return to their original hatching grounds to spawn. Similar to Atlantic salmon, but unlike their Pacific Oncorhynchus salmonid kin, arctic char and  steelhead are iteroparous (able to spawn several times, each time separated by several months) and make several spawning trips between fresh and salt water, although fewer than 10 percent of native spawning adults survive from one spawning to another.

The United States of The Americas much prefers; either to ignore the Arctic Char(a superior flavoured and textured fish) completely, or, to group it together with Rainbow /Steelhead trout, and market all as either "Alaska" Steelhead Salmon Or 'Washington State' Steelhead-You know, Like Alaska "KING" Salmon. 
Chinook Salmon of British Columbia, the actual, official name by the Fisheries Society, is derived from the aboriginal/indigenous, natives or an they were then known INDIANS; name that once lived along the Fraser River. 

Juvenile steelhead trout (wild or hatchery raised) are identical to rainbow trout until the period prior to their ocean migrations. Young trout and stunted adults have eight to thirteen Parr marks on their sides. There are five to ten Parr marks between the head and dorsal fin. Just prior to migrating to the sea, juvenile steelhead become very silvery and resemble miniature adults. They are called smolt during this life phase.

Spawning steelhead and rainbow, both, develop a distinct pink to red strip-like colouration that blends along the side, both above and below the lateral line. On steelhead, the rainbow trout colouration gradually fades following spawning to the more characteristic silvery colour that the fish display during their ocean journey. The distinct and beautiful colouration of steelhead during the freshwater spawning period is apparently important in regard to the mating and reproductive process

.

The above two fish images are PUBLIC DOMAIN because they were prepared by a

civil servant officer, or other employee, (perhaps the president) of the people (citizens) of The United States of the Americas, not AMERICA. 

Although it was, originally, recognised as a white fleshed fish; rainbow trout flesh can, now days, be white, pink, or even bright orange and is often said to have a delicate, almost nutty, flavour. 
Because Salmon and Steelhead are visualised as being much more exotic than a common rainbow “Pink” rainbow trout,  are often marketed (usually as Steelhead "Salmon",which they are definitely not) at a premium price. However, pink rainbow trout get their meat colour; and much of the “nutty flavour; from a synthetic carotenoid pigment that is added to the fish feed. Rainbow trout are now available year-round, primarily fresh, although it is also available frozen, smoked, and canned. Marketed forms include whole dressed trout, boned trout, skin-on pin bone-in fillets, & skin-on boneless fillets. According to some buyers, raceway-raised fish tends to have more consistent quality. Trout from pens or ponds that aren't managed properly may have an off flavour caused by algae, or even parasites,and bacterial infections. Fish escaping, or released, from such pens and or ponds, can and do, just like the insertion of ones fingers into the gills by practitioners of "catch and release", can and do, kill off many of our truewild fish stocks.

Buyer Beware: Just as most Canadian beef poultry and pork now contains up to 20% “Slime”; so do many fish products. And, many farmers(include farmed salmon, rainbow trout and supposed steelhead[so marketed but not necessarily ever gone into ocean water])add antibiotics to their feed so buyers who are concerned about this are advised to look for regional farmers who don’t use animal-based feeds, and limit or entirely avoid the use of antibiotics.

Here is a small scientific fact that you may, also, be interested in. Until 1988, steelhead (the anadromous form of rainbow trout) was classified in the ìgenus Salmoî along with Atlantic Salmon, brown trout, and several western trout species. With additional osteology and biochemistry data, biologists have now reclassified steelhead as members of the genus Oncorhynchus. The reason for this is that new information suggested that steelhead trout are more closely related to Pacific Salmon than to brown trout and Atlantic salmon.
As such, the United States of the Americans Fisheries Society/The United States of the Americas Society of Ichthyologists & Herpetologists Committee on Names of Fishes, voted unanimously to accept Oncorhynchus as the proper generic name.
The scientific name of steelhead was changed from Salmo gairdneri to Oncorhynchus mykiss. The generic names of other, North American varieties, golden, Mexican golden, Gila, and Apache trout were also changed to Oncorhynchus. Since all of these WESTERN trout including steelhead are biologically capable of repeat spawning and do not die after spawning, it has been suggested this group be called the Pacific trout.

Description

Like all trout, the steelhead is positively separated from the various salmon species by having eight to twelve rays in the anal fin. The rainbow trout/steelhead groups are then separated from the bull trout, brook trout, arctic char, lake trout, and Dolly Varden Char by the complete absence of teeth at the base of the tongue. Generally speaking, the steelhead is more slender and streamlined than resident rainbow. Like rainbow, the colouration on the back is basically blue-green shading to olive with black, regularly spaced spots. The black spots also cover both lobes of the tail. The black colouration fades over the lateral line to a silver white colouration blending more to white on the stomach. Steelhead trout from the ocean are much more silver than the resident rainbow trout. On steelhead the typical colours and spots of the trout appear to be coming from beneath a dominant silvery sheen. The silvery sheen, gradually, fades in fresh water, and steelhead become very, very difficult indeed to differentiate from resident rainbow trout as the spawning period approaches.

Steelhead and rainbow lack the red slash on the under jaw characteristic of cutthroat trout, but do have white leading edges on the anal, pectoral, and pelvic fins. 

Threats to Wild Rainbow Trout/Steelhead Fish Stocks

Rainbow/steelhead trout are the most widely known trout in the world and are highly sought after by anglers because of their strong fighting abilities. There are two commonly recognized forms of the rainbow trout and these sub-groupings or “forms” are based primarily on where they spend their time feeding and maturing.

The most common rainbow trout is the stream-resident form that lives its life entirely in freshwater with maybe short periods of time spent in estuarine or near-shore marine waters.

The second form is commonly known as steelhead and these rainbow trout leave freshwater as juveniles and migrate long distances in the ocean where they grow to maturity before migrating back to their original home waters.

Since rainbow and steelhead trout are the same species there are no major physical differences between them, however, the nature of their differing lifestyles has resulted in very subtle differences in colour, shape, size, and general appearance no fisherman will be able to differentiate, at least not while the fish is alive.

A 1996 Canadian study of all anadromous or ocean-going fish stocks in British Columbia and Yukon documented that 142 separate stocks or runs have already gone extinct out of a total of 9,662.

 In the United States, which has of course, as with most anything related to greed and/or monetary value; endured far more human impacts; Steelhead/ Salmon rivers and their watersheds, have lost over 400 indigenous stocks (29%) of the 1400 that originally existed. The majority of remaining native salmon and steelhead runs are endangered or highly threatened with vanishing forever.

The CANADIAN Skeena watershed represents one of the last true large river strongholds of wild, native Steelhead and salmon in all of North America.

While the Department of Fisheries began “stock enhancement” of the much-prized sockeye fishery in the Babine River in 1970, all of the Steelhead trout and four species of salmon represent the original genetic stocks that have evolved in these rivers for millions of years.

While the Skeena and its tributaries are recognized for their excellent water quality and habitat, these fragile fisheries are threatened by man’s activities(including Fisheries and Resource Management) that have DECIMATED NEARLY ALL OF THE WILD STEELHEAD AND SALMON FISHERIES ON THE CONTINENT: habitat degradation associated with logging, urbanization and hydropower, the poisoning of pristine water quality from mining, and overharvest from commercial and recreational fishing driven by short-term profit and greed.

No doubt about it; a fisherman’s BEST SHOT for tying into a huge wild steelhead is to head for the rivers of western Canada.

Storied rivers such as the Dean, Thompson, and Frazier are legendary; but, the mother of all B.C. rainbow/steelhead rivers is the Skeena.

One of the longest undammed rivers in the world, the Skeena begins high in the coastal mountains of the Spasizi Plateau and makes its way more than 350 miles to the ocean port of Prince Rupert. As this enormous drainage follows its course to the sea, it picks up more than 30 tributaries, some of which are sizable rivers in their own right. Three of these tributaries — the Bulkley, the Babine, and the Kispiox — account for the majority of the steelhead caught in the system because they afford the angler an incredible amount of fly-friendly water and support the highest number of returning fish. The prime fishing time for all three is early September through late October. During this period, the odds of hooking an once-in-a-lifetime steelhead are higher on these waters than they are anywhere else on the planet. How is it then that Washington state, in the United States of the Americas claims the steelhead as “their” state fish?

Commercial Over-Fishing and Steelhead Bycatch

The epic Steelhead runs of the Skeena are currently facing severe threats from the short-sighted, non-caring, Fisheries/Government policies, and overharvest, from commercial and especially “aboriginal/First nation”, fishermen targeting the Sockeye runs in the Skeena estuary. Using gill nets and purse seines, commercial fishermen incidentally harvest large numbers of Rainbow trout/Steelhead, Coho salmon and other non-targeted fish as they return from the ocean. In particular, the early run Steelhead that enters the rivers in August and the mid-season fish that enter the rivers in September have suffered significant mortality. This problem of fish “bycatch,” or nontargeted killing of fish, is a classic management problem confronting mix-stocked fisheries, or fisheries where fish of various species inhabit the same waters.

Fact: the Skeena Steelhead experienced severe declines in the early 1990s from commercial fishing in the estuary until the Canadian Department of Fisheries curtailed sockeye fishing in late August during this vulnerable time for the September Steelhead runs. But, increased lobbying pressure from private commercial fishing interests and Government, political decisions trumped proper ecosystem management of this valuable and diverse resource has threatened again the fragile Steelhead runs.

Mining, Oil & Gas Drilling, Pipelines and Poisoned Headwaters

In the Skeena headwaters, several energy companies are eying deposits of coal bed methane and oil and gas. There is a proposed Enbridge pipeline to transport the oil and gas deposits from Alberta through British Columbia to the Pacific coast for transport by oil and gas tankers.

Canada’s but now due to government policy, mostly China, or United States of the Americas owned; mining industry, whether for minerals, oil, gas or coal, has a terrible environmental legacy of poisoned water quality, polluted rivers and devastated mountain communities(why should they care, they don’t have to live here?) Historically, the United States of the Americas is not really known to care about much of anything; other than monetary gain,

From the thousands of poisoned miles of cold water rivers and streams in the coal country of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, to the killing of up to 90% of the fish life in the Cheakamus River in 2006 from a railroad crash carrying toxic chemicals, to the threat of cyanide leachate poisoning the headwaters of Bristol Bay in Alaska from the proposed Pebble Gold Mine, Government; government policy, environmental policy, resource management, mining  policies, are no friend to wild steelhead and/or salmon.

The building of roads on rugged terrain, and especially through National and/or Provincial Parks, often result in increased storm water runoff and increased sediment loading into streams. The tendency of a river to “blow out” and become muddy and unfishable is often determined by the amount of roads and mining or timbering activity in its headwaters.

The Skeena watershed represents one of the last remaining HEALTHY producers of wild steelhead and salmon in North America, retaining its complete assemblage of native fish, a rarity in the United States or anywhere else in the Americas.

Protection of its headwaters from ill-advised mining and energy extraction for short-term profit must be paramount in the management of this unique resource. However, the Skeena estuary is also facing a potential assault from factory fish farms. Eighteen (18) new aquaculture facilities have been cited for the mouth of the Skeena River, with three (3) near approvals from provincial government agencies.

Aquaculture net pens typically raise around 600,000 Atlantic salmon, derived from European hatchery stock. The dense concentration of fish creates several serious threats to wild steelhead and salmon. Scientific research has revealed that the most insidious threat of aquaculture fish is the dense concentrations of parasitic sea lice and other diseases that occur in the estuary as a result of this unnaturally high concentration of adult fish raised artificially in net pens.

In, and with, Nature, the two species of parasitic sea lice present almost no threat to smolts leaving the rivers for ocean feeding grounds. Normally, adult salmon and steelhead are located far away from the estuary at feeding grounds in the open ocean when smolt leave freshwater in spring. But with the artificial propagation of millions of adult fish in the estuary, smolts run a gauntlet of sea lice. The smolts are extremely vulnerable to these sea lice, and will die when only 1 or 2 sea lice attach themselves to a young fish’s gills.

Research published in 2004 and 2007 determined that entire populations of pink salmon and chum salmon smolts were killed in southern British Columbia waters because of aquaculture-induced infestations of sea lice at river mouths.

In 2007 the aquaculture of salmonids was worth US$10.7 billion. Salmonid aquaculture production grew over ten-fold during the 25 years from 1982 to 2007. Leading producers of farmed salmonids are Norway with 33 percent, Chile with 31 percent, and other European producers with 19 percent.

Conservation groups have demanded that aquaculture farming be banned from river mouths like the Skeena that produce millions of wild steelhead and salmon, either to off-shore locations or on dry land. Research has suggested that leaving aquaculture net pens fallow in spring temporarily reduces the high concentrations of sea lice and may reduce wild steelhead and salmon mortality.

The aquaculture or farming of salmonids can be contrasted with capturing wild salmonids using commercial fishing techniques. However, the concept of "wild" salmon as used by United States of the Americas; and especially the Alaska State Seafood Marketing Institute includes stock enhancement fish, produced in hatcheries, that have historically been considered ocean ranching;  are all marketed as "wild Alaska salmon".

The percentage of the Alaska salmonid harvest resulting from ocean ranching depends upon the species of salmon, trout, and, the location

There is currently, and most understandably, much controversy about the ecological and health impacts of intensive salmonid aquaculture.

There are particular concerns about the impacts on wild salmon and other marine life.

Some of this controversy is part of a major commercial competitive fight for market share and price between commercial salmonid fishermen and the rapidly evolving salmonid aquaculture industry.

Methods of salmonid aquaculture originated in late 18th century fertilization trials in Europe. In the late 19th century, salmon hatcheries were used in Europe as well as in North America. From the late 1950s, enhancement programs based on hatcheries were established in the United States, Canada, Japan and the USSR. It is generally agreed that contemporary techniques using floating sea cages originated in Norway in the late 1960s.

Salmonids are usually farmed in two stages and in some places maybe more. First, the salmon are hatched from eggs and raised on land in freshwater tanks. When they are twelve to eighteen months old, the smolt (juvenile salmon) are transferred to floating sea cages or net pens anchored in sheltered bays or fjords along a coast. This farming in a marine environment is known as mariculture. There they are fed pelleted feed for another twelve to twenty four months, then they are harvested

Norway still produces thirty three percent of the world's farmed salmonids, and Chile (America, South) produces thirty one percent. The coastlines of these countries have suitable water temperatures and many areas well protected from storms. Chile is close to large forage fisheries which supply fish meal for salmon aquaculture. Unfortunately, Scotland and Canada are also significant producers.

Modern salmonid farming systems are intensive. Their ownership is often under the control of huge INTERNATIONAL agribusiness corporations, operating mechanised assembly lines on an industrial scale.

In 2003, nearly half of the world’s farmed salmon were in fact produced by just five INTERNATIONAL companies.

In 1989 steelhead was a classified as Oncorhynchus mykiss, a Pacific trout. Steelhead are an anadromous form of rainbow trout that migrates between lakes and rivers and the ocean, and are also known as steelhead salmon or ocean trout.

Rainbow trout/Steelhead are raised in many countries throughout the world. Since the 1950s production has grown exponentially, particularly in Europe and recently in Chile. Worldwide, in 2007, 604,695 tonnes of farmed Steelhead were harvested with a value of $2.59 billion. The largest producer is Chile. In Chile and Norway, the ocean cage production of steelhead has expanded to supply export markets. Inland production of rainbow trout to supply domestic markets has increased strongly in countries such as Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, and Spain. Other significant producing countries include the United States, Iran, Germany, and the UK.[72]

Steelhead are often said to have tender flesh and a mild, somewhat nutty (iodine) flavour. Steelhead meat is pink like Arctic Char or salmon (carotene/iodine rich food supply, plus , most often, the injection of fish based, pink slime), and is more flavourful than the light-coloured meat of  non-manipulated, rainbow trout. Both are highly desired food. However, farmed trout (including those “hatchery” raised); taken from certain lakes have a pronounced earthy flavour which many people find unappealing; many shoppers therefore make an attempt  to ascertain (good luck in the attempt but, you are not going to find out, other than possibly that it is a “Sustainable Fishery)) the source of the fish before buying.

Steelhead that are truly wild and have lived on a diet of scuds (freshwater shrimp), insects such as flies, and crayfish are the most appealing but not keep able in BC. Dark red/orange meat indicates that it is either an farmed steelhead / rainbow trout given a supplemental diet with a high carotene/iodine content. The resulting pink flesh is marketed under such monikers (United States of the Americas origin) as Ruby Red (also grapefruit) or Carolina Red.

Feeding

Rainbow/Steelhead trout, like all Salmonids, are carnivorous; but Just as humans are now being fed huge quantities of potentially death causing “Pink Slime” they are currently being fed compound fish feeds containing fish meal and other feed ingredients, ranging from wheat by-products to soybean meal and feather meal. Being aquatic carnivores, salmonids don't tolerate or properly metabolize many plant based carbohydrates and use fats instead of carbohydrates as a primary energy source. With the amount of worldwide fish meal production being almost a constant amount for the last 30+ years and at maximum sustainable yield, much of the fish meal market has shifted from chicken and pig feed; to fish and shrimp feeds; as aquaculture has grown in this time period.Yes, due to the energetic—equally greedy- cooperation of our corrupt governments; work continues on substituting vegetable proteins and protein concentrates for fish meal in the farmed/hatchery salmonid diet.

 Many substitutions for fish meal are known and diets containing zero fish meal are possible. For example a planned closed containment salmon fish farm in Scotland uses ragworms, vegetable algae and amino acids as feed.

However, despite what you are told when viewing a “Blue Buffalo” or other such TV commercial; economic animal diets are determined by least cost, linear programming models that are effectively competing with similar models for chicken and pig feeds using the same feed ingredients, and these models show that fish meal is more useful in aquatic diets than in chicken  or human diets, where they can make the chickens taste like fish and beef taste like fish. Unfortunately, don’t tell the food industry, government, or Organic, Health Food Fanatics, this substitution can result in lower levels of the highly valued omega-3 content in the farmed product.

However, when vegetable oil is used in the growing diet as an energy source and a different finishing diet containing high omega-3 content fatty acids from either fish oil, algae oils or some vegetable oils are used a few months before harvest, this problem is eliminated.

Ever wonder what happened to the Cod or Halibut liver oil you were forced to take as a kid? At the present time, more than 50 percent of the world fish oil production is fed back to farmed fish. One highly profitable industry sacrificed for another, even more profitable one.

Farm raised salmonids are also fed the carotenoids astaxanthin and canthaxanthin, so that their flesh colour (ARTIFICIALLY DYED),matches wild salmon, which; or so the fish farmers, non-scrupled food industry, and “bought” politicians claim, also contain the same carotenoid pigments from their diet in the wild.

 On a dry-dry basis, it takes 2–4 kg of commercial fish food to produce one kg of fish flesh. Wild salmon require about 10 kg of forage fish to produce a kg of salmon flesh, as part of the normal trophic level energy transfer. The difference between the two numbers is related to farmed salmon feed containing other ingredients far and beyond fish meal and the fact that farmed fish don't spend a lot of metabolic energy catching a dinner that doesn't want to be caught.

The rainbow trout/steelhead is especially susceptible to enteric red mouth disease. There has been considerable research conducted on red mouth disease, as its implications for steelhead farmers are significant. The disease does not affect humans but may well cause the extinction of fish stocks, wild and farmed.

Hatcheries

Modern commercial hatcheries for supplying salmon smolts to aquaculture net pens have been shifting to Recirculating Aquaculture Systems-- where the water is recycled within the hatchery. This allows location of the hatchery to be independent of a significant fresh water supply and allows economical temperature control (Animal Manipulation) to both speed up and slow down the growth rate to match the needs of the net pens.

Conventional hatchery systems operate flow through where spring water or other water source flow into the hatchery. The eggs are then hatched in trays and the salmon smolts produced in raceways. The waste products from the growing salmon fry and the feed are usually discharged into the local river. Conventional flow through hatcheries, such as most of those found in British Columbia; use more than 100 tons of water to produce a kg of smolts.

An alternative method to hatching in freshwater tanks is to use spawning channels. These are artificial streams, usually parallel to an existing stream with concrete or rip-rap sides and gravel bottoms(very environmentally compatible, and, recreational fisherman friendly, wouldn’t you say). Water from the adjacent stream is piped into the top of the channel, sometimes via a header pond to settle out sediment. Spawning success is often much better in channels than in adjacent streams due to the control of floods which in some years can wash out the natural redds (pronounced same as the colour red) . Because of the lack of floods, spawning channels must sometimes be cleaned out to remove accumulated sediment. The same floods which destroy natural redds also clean them out. Spawning channels preserve the natural selection of natural streams as there is no temptation, as in hatcheries, to use prophylactic chemicals to control diseases. However, exposing fish to wild parasites and pathogens using uncontrolled water supplies, combined with “the high cost of spawning channels, makes this technology unsuitable for salmon aquaculture businesses. This type of technology is only useful for stock enhancement programs.”

Sea Cages

Sea cages, also called sea pens or net pens, are usually made of mesh framed with steel or plastic. They can be square or circular, 10 to 32 metres across and 10 metres deep, with volumes between 1,000 and 10,000 cubic metres. A large sea cage can house up to 90,000 fish.

They are usually placed side by side to form a system called a seafarm or seasite, with a floating wharf and walkways along the net boundaries. Aquaculture net pens typically raise around 600,000 Atlantic salmon, derived from European hatchery stock. Please, review previous paragraph beginning with the words: The dense concentration of fish creates several serious threats to wild steelhead and salmon… Additional nets can also surround the sea farm to keep out predatory marine mammals. Stocking densities range from 8 to 18 kilograms per cubic metre, for Atlantic salmon, and 5 to 10 kilograms per cubic metre, for Chinook salmon.

In contrast to closed or recirculating systems, the open net cages of salmonid farming lower production costs, but provide no effective barrier to the discharge of wastes, parasites and disease into the surrounding coastal waters. Farmed salmon in open net cages can and very often do, escape into wild habitats, for example, during storms. These escaped fish-especially Atlantic salmon which, according to Nature, do not belong on the Pacific coast in the first place, can and are driving wild stocks into extinction. An emerging wave in aquaculture is applying the same, amazingly catastrophically destructive, farming methods used for salmonids to other carnivorous finfish species, such as cod, bluefin tuna, halibut and snapper. However, or so our bureaucratic officials??? and corrupt ,”Sell-Out” government politicians would like us to believe “ this is unlikely to have the same environmental drawbacks as salmon farming.

Salmonid Production in Tonnes by Species

1982   2007

Species        Wild    Farmed         Wild    Farmed

Atlantic salmon     10,326          13,265          2,989 1,433,708

Steelhead                171,946                    604,695

Coho salmon          42,281          2,921 17,200          115,376

Chinook salmon     25,147                      8,906 11,542

Pink salmon            170,373                    495,986       

Chum salmon         182,561                    303,205       

Sockeye salmon    128,176                    164,222       

Total Salmonid Production

1982   2007

tonnes          percent        tonnes          percent

Wild        558,864    75       992,508        31

Farmed         188,132        25       2,165,321    69

Overall          746,996                    3,157,831   

© Al (Alex,Alexander) D. Girvan. All rights reserved.