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.
Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, shooting a handgun with precision requires balance, technique and practice. Even if you're an experienced shooter of long guns, shooting a handgun accurately requires a different set of skills. Read on for a basic primer on handgun safety and accuracy.
Be careful of all safety consideration while at the range. It is not only important to practice good gun safety, you must be aware of what those around you are doing. *Many beginners struggle pulling the slide back with a semi-automatic with just their thumb and forefinger, especially if the handgun has a strong spring or your hands are sweaty. If you need to use the palm of your hand (or your whole hand) to pull back the slide, turn your body sideways to the weapon and keep it pointed downrange*.
Open your dominant hand (the hand you write with) to expose the webbing between your index finger and thumb. Taking the pistol in your other hand, insert the grip (handle) of the pistol into the web of your dominant hand. With your thumb on one side of the grip, keep your middle, ring, and pinky fingers curled securely around the other side just below the trigger guard.
Make sure all fingers are clear of the slide or hammer. Some older semi-automatics have a habit of 'biting' the web between your index finger and thumb. Getting "bitten" by the slide can be very painful as well as dangerous because you don't want to react to pain and risk dropping a loaded and cocked gun with the safety off.
