Salmon is one of the most popular fish consumed around the world prized for its flavor and nutritional benefits. However concerns over sustainability, contaminants, and farming practices have many consumers questioning the safety of their salmon. This is especially true when it comes to farmed salmon and unfamiliar varieties like Jail Island salmon. But is this salmon farmed sustainably or should it be avoided? Let’s find out.
What is Jail Island Salmon?
Jail Island salmon refers to Atlantic salmon farmed around Jail Island in Sayward, British Columbia, Canada. It is raised by Cermaq, one of the major salmon farming companies in Canada. Located off the coast of Vancouver Island, the Jail Island salmon farm utilizes net pens in the marine environment.
The name “Jail Island” salmon comes from the island’s historical use as a First Nations prison prior to becoming a salmon farm in the 1980s. Today Jail Island salmon are marketed as a sustainable seafood choice. But some have questioned whether these farmed fish are actually safe and eco-friendly.
Is Farmed Salmon Safe to Eat?
Salmon raised in crowded pens can have higher contamination risks compared to wild salmon. However, modern aquaculture regulations and improved farming practices have made farmed salmon much safer over recent years.
Here are some key benefits of eating farmed salmon like Jail Island salmon:
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Regularly tested for contaminants – Farms must test for heavy metals, pesticides and pathogens. Fish with unsafe levels are not processed for sale.
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Given vaccines and antibiotics judiciously – Vaccines prevent diseases while antibiotics are limited to treat illnesses. No contamination remains.
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Contains healthy omega-3s – Farmed salmon have comparable or higher omega-3 levels to wild due to fish feed. Omega-3s support heart health.
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Low mercury levels – Salmon accumulate less mercury than larger predator fish. Both wild and farmed salmon are low mercury choices.
So when responsibly farmed under regulations, salmon like Jail Island salmon is very safe for consumption and offers excellent nutrition.
What Makes Jail Island Salmon Sustainable?
With wild Atlantic salmon populations in decline, well-managed salmon farms help meet consumer demand sustainably. Here’s how Jail Island salmon ranks among the most eco-friendly farmed salmon:
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Highest sustainability certification – Jail Island is rated 4-stars Best Aquaculture Practices, the highest environmental standard for salmon farms globally.
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Rigorous third-party audits – Annual audits ensure the farm meets strict criteria for impacts on wildlife, water resources and fish health.
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Fortified fish feed – Salmon are fed a nutritious diet fortified with omega-3s, vitamins and minerals for optimal nutrition.
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Strict regulations – The farm follows Canadian regulations for veterinary drug use, water quality monitoring and more.
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Preventing escapes – Physical barriers and routine net inspections help prevent accidental release of fish.
Thanks to leading sustainability practices, Jail Island salmon comes from one of the most environmentally responsible salmon farming operations.
Potential Concerns About Jail Island Salmon
While Jail Island appears to follow best practices for mitigating risks, here are a few potential concerns to be aware of:
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Net pen farming – Open net pens pose some risk of fish escapes and spread of disease/parasites to wild fish. Land-based closed systems are considered superior.
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Fishmeal diet – Salmon feed contains fishmeal made from wild-caught fish like anchovies which contributes to overfishing. Vegetable alternatives are increasing.
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Chemical use – Antibiotics, pesticides and anti-foulant chemicals may be used in salmon farming and have environmental impacts if not contained properly.
However, strict regulations and auditing help minimize these risks considerably. And the farm’s BAP 4-star certification verifies these factors are responsibly managed.
How to Choose the Most Responsible Farmed Salmon
If seeking the most eco-friendly salmon options, here are some buying guidelines:
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Look for trusted sustainability certifications like Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) or Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) seals.
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Check for independent audits to verify responsible practices are truly being followed.
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Opt for brands that use fish feed containing omega-3s from algae or plant sources, not wild fish.
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Choose salmon farmed in closed, land-based systems which eliminate many ocean-environment impacts.
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Support brands invested in improving sustainability standards across their supply chain.
While not perfect, the salmon farming industry has made significant improvements in recent years toward more responsible practices.
The Verdict on Jail Island Salmon
When it comes to farmed Atlantic salmon, Jail Island salmon is indeed one of the better options available today. With its 4-star BAP certification and third-party audited operations, this salmon comes from a producer utilizing leading sustainability practices that mitigate many environmental risks. While not 100% risk-free, Jail Island salmon is responsibly farmed and remains an eco-friendlier choice. Choosing certified sustainable brands like Jail Island is an effective way to support the ongoing progress toward more responsible salmon farming.
The democratisation of luxury
The first caged salmon could not be sold whole, only as steaks. Because the fish were so badly hurt as they desperately tried to escape the cage to follow their genetic programming and migrate, biting pieces off of each other as they tried to get away.
(But they’re just fish! It’s much more important to make sure that rich people can cook smoked salmon too!)
Three or four generations later, the urge to migrate is bred out of them. So why do I say these non-salmonid salmon are shityoudon’tneed?.
Salmon are “farmed” in huge nets that are tethered to the water. Since they can’t swim around and eat on their own, they need to be fed. They’re carnivorous, so other fish are ‘harvested’ to feed the salmon. Anchovy, herring and sardine shoals from other seas are thus depleted. Oh the bitter, bitter irony, that fish farming should contribute to overfishing!.
When the food is dropped into the net, the salmon don’t always eat it all. Then it falls through the net’s holes and lands on the seabed below, where it rots.
A company called Protix is breeding insects to replace fish meal, but this doesn’t replace the fish oils also needed. Research is going on in this area by other companies.
The food they are given is different from the crustaceans they should normally feed on – and which gave them their marvellous pink flesh. In nets, that flesh just turns a sort of grey. So they are fed with dyes, otherwise people wouldn’t believe they were purchasing salmon. And some of that dye ends up on the seabed too.
When salmon noodle around in nets instead of powering through wild, cold seas, they acquire sea lice. These feed on the head, skin and blood of the fish. Yes, lice are flesh eaters. Fish with sea lice must be treated with chemicals because a) they can die if they get too many and b) most people don’t like fish with sea lice.
Guess what? Some of those chemicals sink to the sea bed too. Oh, and since great populations of fish crowded into nets are ideal breeding grounds for sea lice and other parasites, the actual population of sea lice has gone through the roof, particularly in Scotland, so the wild fish in the area become infested too.
Oh, and where do the dead lice end up? Rotting on the sea bed. Hmmm, it’s quite a graveyard, that ol’ seabed.
Incidentally, Steinsvik are developing a drug free system to get rid of sea lice called the Thermolicer. The little critters don’t like sudden changes of temperature, so the fish are bathed briefly in lukewarm water and the lice fall off. All well and good. But how stressful is it for the poor goddammed fish…?
The site says, “The fish are crowded together and pumped through the thermolyzer. They are then put back in the same cage or to an empty cage.” ”.
Have I put you off yet? It gets more unpleasant still. Salmon crowded into nets also get diseases, ulcers and tapeworms amongst a list of unpleasant conditions, so antibiotics and other therapeutants are used to combat this. Antifoulants and disinfectants too…
It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to realise that this cocktail of…
- rotting food
- chemicals
- dye
- dead sea lice
- antibiotics
- disinfectants
- faeces (whoops… did I mention that salmon need to poo?)
…is a pretty toxic combination. It smothers the seabed below and all around, and gradually kills everything … all the kelp, starfish, bottom feeders, crabs, flatfish, scallops, anemones etc that make up the incredibly complex and beautiful ecosystem that is a seabed.
Yep, salmon farming is not only unusually cruel, but it pollutes like billy-oh.
Do the fish suffer? Do they feel pain? It certainly suits us to think they don’t.
The scientific jury is out on the subject, but fish certainly respond to stress in a way that suggests they feel pain. Dr. Lynne Sneddon’s work at the University of Liverpool has ensured that scientific opinion is beginning to drift towards the conclusion that they do feel pain.
Most of the stocks of “Atlantic” salmon have actually been crossbred – Scottish salmon with Norway salmon. Jeez, we can’t help messing around with genetics, can we?
Just a thought… can they actually be described as “Scottish”? Hmmm…
As if this wasn’t enough, sometimes the nets don’t hold. A violent storm, human error, some faulty equipment perhaps… the nets break open and suddenly the area is flooded with thousands and thousands of fish that compete for food with the wild fish, so food stocks are depleted leading to underwater famine.
The situation gets worse: these farmed salmon that get away can breed with real wild salmon, which changes the genetic information. This ugly mismatch gives birth to a grilse salmon, which is a year old fish that knows it has to go somewhere but doesn’t know where. It gets lost. One more nail in the coffin for true wild salmon.
Edit – dated 17. 05. 19: Reader Eoghan Brady wrote, “Just to be clear, a grilse is an adult salmon that comes back after a year and is small. A smolt is a young salmon that is going to sea and is usually two to three years old. A parr is a young fish before they become smolts.” ” Thanks, Eoghan.
Oh, and seals get caught up in the nets sometimes. So they get shot. More than 40 licences to shoot seals are issued in Scotland every single year to salmon farmers.
Before salmon farming, there was a lovely little industry in the Highlands and the West of Ireland. A bunch of little B Gillies, who were truly locals who knew the area and salmon habits inside and out, led them to the best places to catch their fish.
Gillies are proud of their art – and it is an art. Some vegetarians may not agree, but the fisherman and gillies I’ve met all loved and respected the salmon and would never want to hurt it. They were only trying to get a few from nature because they were one of the best foods people could eat.
The B Hot baths, hot whiskies, hot meals… and a cracking breakfast before the next day’s rigours. The angling industry has supported thousands and thousands of jobs.
That’s all going and it is also a part of the ecosystem. Salmon farming doesn’t bring local employment. A skeleton staff can operate a salmon farm owned and run for the profit of companies in London and Oslo etc. Actually, campaigners claim that 99% of Scottish Salmon farms are marketed and branded as “Scottish” but are actually owned abroad. What do these foreign consortia care if they destroy a species?
It is no longer a matter of question as to whether salmon farming is causing the extinction of wild salmon. The collapse in numbers of salmon returning home to spawn is terrifying – both in Ireland and Scotland. And farmed salmon themselves are not safe – just a day ago, hundreds of thousands died from an outbreak of algae on Loch Fyne. All those corpses to dispose of safely… hmmm…
Salmon farming in open nets really is the devil’s own work. No thanks, I don’t like battery chickens. But at least a farmer who runs a battery chicken business can just spread the chicken poop on his fields instead of buying expensive fertilizers.
The democratisation of luxury should be regarded with a very wary eye. Salmon was never made cheap and available so that the poor were able to join in the fun. It was farmed solely to make some rich people even richer. Certain foods should always be luxury foods. Caviare, saffron, crab, Bar-le-Duc jelly, for instance. Salmon should be on that list.
But I buy organic…!
Ah… did you think you were in the clear, buying organic farmed salmon…? Yeah. So did I. What an eejit I am. Look, the subject of salmon farming is enormous and hugely complex. I’m very likely to bore you to death, and my sister Anne has told me that my pieces are too long. Let me just say this: I will talk to you again about organically farmed salmon. Rest assured, however, it’s not great.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll think about buying less salmon, or even better, no salmon at all, smoked or not.
Here is a picture of my dog. I need cheering up. And so do you, I shouldn’t wonder.
Please forward this and tell your friends about my blog, particularly this piece. If I’ve published your photo and haven’t paid, please get in touch and I am happy to discuss terms or remove them if the price is too high. And thanks to Caroline Attwood on Unsplash for the photo at the top.
Scared Sustainable: Jail Island Salmon
FAQ
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What is Jail Island Salmon?
Straight from the natural ocean environment of Atlantic Canada, chefs and restaurateurs can count on Jail Island Salmon to deliver exceptional Canadian quality, freshness, and taste – Just like nature intended. Jail Island Salmon are sustainably raised in the cold, clean waters of the North Atlantic off the East Coast of Canada.
Is Jail Island a good place to eat salmon?
With a delicate flavor and refined texture, Jail Island offers a truly delicious Canadian Atlantic Salmon. This Salmon is harvested responsibly to preserve a healthy marine habitat, hand selected and graded, and then carefully placed in sustainable packaging.
Where are Jail Island salmon raised?
Jail Island Salmon are sustainably raised in the cold, clean waters of the North Atlantic off the East Coast of Canada. These are the very same waters that have seen countless generations of wild Atlantic Salmon on their epic journey out to sea and back.
How long does it take to get jail Island Salmon?
Hand-graded for consistent quality year-round, Jail Island Salmon is delivered to Samuels Seafood in as little as 48 hours from harvest for peak freshness. From East Coast Canada to East Coast USA – it is not a long journey. The journey is, however, completely traceable, from egg to plate.