Farmed salmon, Waitrose, sophable and her dh

[Heathcliffscathy]

I don't know how many of you were following the live webchat yesterday. Mrsophable has been following with increasing distress the catastrophe that is unfolding (ever faster) in our oceans since I've known him (12 years now).

The issue of farmed salmon is one of a number of areas that he has been concerned about for years. I've been listening to this for a long time.

So when he couldn't make the webchat yesterday due to work, I rolled my sleeves up and tried my best to ask the questions and make the points that I felt he would have specifically with regard to farmed salmon (as that is the one that I have most concern about because of ds and therefore know the most about).

I felt a bit dissatisfied with the response from Quentin the Waitrose chief fish buyer, whilst acknowledging that credit is due to Waitrose for at least engaging with this crucial debate.

I'd really appreciate you all reading the post the MrSophable took the trouble to write late last night:

fishie: whitebait is bad news...just like the killing of juvenile fish to feed farmed salmon, hoovering up young fish before they have a chance to breed has a knock on effect on the wild fish (and sea birds and sea mammals) which depend on them.

farmed trout(as caught in stocked fisheries): not such an environmental impact because they are often raised in closed containment systems so not polluting sensitive acquatic environments..but they still need to be fed.

i dont knwo anythign about it
and dont REALly care tbh
but omg a trip

fishie, ds ate sardine eyes on saturday. he felt most bear grylls.

fishie: my 5 year old boy gobbled down half a dozen cooked sardine eyes last weekend

you are incorrigible squid. (imagining your house as a kind of simpsons nuclear green anti environmental glowing thing).

x posts

Swedes- its interesting how anyone who sees at first hand the industrial fish farms run by marine harvest and their few equally huge competitors tends not to choose farmed fish from the menu.

Thanks MrS, I can absolutely appreciate your point. I think I will buy the MCS guide as presumably that lists ratings by population and not just by species/family.

Perhaps MN would pay for Sophable, if Waitrose are paying for MrSophable? It would be tremendous publicity for Mumsnet.

Ahem. DP worked for four days for a salmon farm when he lived in the highlands. It was pretty gruesome. A couple of examples:

The presence of the fish attracted large numbers of seals. The population, which had previously been stable, doubled when the fish farm arrived. This obviously has a knock-on effect for local small-scale 'proper' fishermen, and as a result someone took it upon themselves to cull the seals. On the QT, since I imagine this is illegal.

Because of the intensive nature of the farming practices, infection among the fish is rife (the lice have been mentioned I think. The slaughtering practices were, to put it mildly, somewhat medieval, and involved scooping out a bunch of salmon and sending them down a chute to be battered with clubs. This was a few years ago now, so husbandry practices may have improved, I don't know, but altogether a depressing old business.

On a more general note, the EU fishing policies must in some way be held to blame for the desperate effect on fish stocks. Trawlers have to stick rigidly to quotas and are therefore oblighed to throw back tons of (dead) fish as they cannot land more than their quota. Which, if nothing else, is a scandalous waste of food.

Midnight there was something about this on country file not so long ago.

The taste of farmed salmon is far inferior to wild salmon. The flavour is in the well honed muscle, and it would seem that no amount of "wave" machines for the salmon to exercise, can replicate the taste of a muscular and healthy wild salmon who has been jumping up waterfalls going upriver.

Or R4, can't remember which sorry.

I'd like to look after Master Sophable, I'd try and get in a good supply of fish eyes.

x-psts with mrsophable while I was on my high horse...

So is it fine to eat lots of mackerel then?

I tend to give dcs more mackerel and tuna than salmon anyway but they do have farmed salmon occasionally. I am wavering about this after these threads I must say.

I often make fishcakes and fish pie from tinned wild salmon and sometimes buy the big bags of wild fillets.

Do waitrose do fish eyes Swedes? In little tubs, at the deli counter.

awww swedes..x

and dcs love whitebait too. Are they bad? We only have them once a year when we're camping!

Oh and also incredibly lucky in that I also know the scallop divers (have been out on their boat) so we can buy hand dived scallops, very cheaply. They measure and throw back what is too small. They have just stopped traling for scallops in Lyme Bay because of the damage to the sea bed.

actually I have cooked them at home too, but the fish shop usually has sprats rather than whitebait.

midnightexpress- i believe a belated but nonetheless heartfelt and massive thank you for rescuing our holiday in the outer hebrides by saving Sophables bags from BA -lost baggage doom! how can we ever repay that?

your point about EU quotas is spot on. EU fiheries 'management' forces fishermen to continually waste a huge quantity of fish. the quotas are often far too high and ineffectively enforced...and meanwhile the EU still subsidies fishermen to build bigger fishing boats...which then have to forage further afield , exporting the problem.

its the fact that the EU 'manages' fisheries so badly that makes me sceptical about the value of the Waitrose claim that they only sourc fish from fisheries under scientific management.

Tuna is managed by an organsiation called ICCAT - the International Commission for Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (they also 'look after' swordfish. Under their 'scientific management' bluefin have been driven to the brink of extinction. the organisation has been nicknamed the International Conspiracy to catch All Tuna..

Dont you think it would help if England made it illegal to dump fish in its waters like other European countries have done? English fishermen are dumping tons of fish fished in Norwegian zone in English zone because it is legal there. And with such small nets they catch lots they dont want, including very young fihs. They catch a lot of coalfish wich we like to eat here and which is served as a delicacy, but because it is not enjoyed by the British, they dump it. Not related to salmon, but policy in general, though.

Aww shucks MrSophable, you already did .

heh heh I already emailed Justine to hint that they might encourage Waitrose or find an alternative source of funding?

I do think mr and mrs sophable should be our official MN fish people.