Aquaculture of salmonids

Salmon farms are a special form of aquaculture for the production of salmon under controlled conditions.

They include a brood production and rearing of seedlings using the same methods as in the pond economic recovery of trout and other salmonids. Further cultivation of seedlings to edible fish for salmon requires an attitude in sea water or brackish water. For this purpose one spends the fish cage system, as they are found in the Norwegian fjords and in front of the Chilean coast often.

The diet of salmon is done with artificial diet, usually with pellets on the basis of pressed fish meal. As in other aquaculture areas this results in a problem of environmental pollution caused by a local eutrophication of the fjords and marine regions.

Another typical problem arises from the factory farming that comes usually with the need for treatment with drugs against parasites (eg sea lice ) and bacterial infections.

In addition, there may be a Faunenverfälschung when mix salmon escaped from a source other with the locally encountered salmon from net pens. In many Norwegian salmon rivers is therefore considered an extended fishing season, you can go fishing in the exclusively on fish farm in order to curb their proliferation.

Meanwhile, in Europe there are numerous organic salmon farms. Especially Scotland and Ireland are active here. In Scotland, the Orkney and Shetland organic salmon is in the Outer Hebrides, grown according to the guidelines of the British SOIL Association.

To mitigate the known from conventional breeding problems, there are clear guidelines for raising organic salmon:

• Controlled stocking density (10 kg / m³ water)
• The fish meal used in feed should come from catches were caught for human consumption. Some use fish meal manufacturer for the organic feed in the meantime fish from sustainably certified fisheries, such as MSC ( Marine Stewardship Council),
• The vegetarian ingredients in the food are sourced from certified organic agriculture,
• The use of anti-fouling agents on the networks of enclosure is prohibited.

It can not be assumed that the ecological problems of salmon farming has already been addressed sufficiently by these certifications. For the European, Canadian and South American salmon farming extensive problems with viral infections are known to have led to a massive decline in wild salmon.