Deep inside a Norwegian fjord, a dream of farming salmon sustainably
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2024
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
The industry is touted as a key producer of sustainable, low carbon footprint protein. But there are still negative environmental impacts. Each year, an average of 200,000 farmed salmon escape from their open net pens and breed with wild salmon.
Interbreeding with these escaped salmon passes on significant genetic changes to wild salmon, changes that make them less likely to survive in the wild.
NPR's Rob Schmitz traveled the country's west coast, visiting fishing villages and fish farms to see how the growth of salmon farming is affecting the wild population.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you eat salmon, odds are that it comes from a salmon farm. These farms are typically massive cylindrical pens made from nylon netting, holding up to a few hundred thousand salmon each. |
| 0:14.0 | Norway is the world's largest exporter of salmon. |
| 0:17.0 | A fifth of the salmon that Americans eat comes from there. |
| 0:21.0 | I recently had a chance to visit Norway's west coast. It's lined with |
| 0:25.2 | jagged, steep fjords, fishing villages, and salmon farms. One of the best ways to |
| 0:31.2 | see it all is by boat. |
| 0:33.0 | That's not a good sound. |
| 0:38.0 | Yurgan-Vengard manages to start his boat on the second try, and we skim |
| 0:44.3 | skim across the calm 2,000 feet deep waters of Hardangles Fjord. |
| 0:49.1 | The Norwegian coastline is actually perfect for forming Atlantic salmon. |
| 0:54.0 | So we have the optimal temperature, we have good oxygen levels, we have the right salinity. |
| 1:02.0 | All the boat is just for... have the right salinity. |
| 1:07.0 | Vanguard listens to Coast Guard Alert says he weaves the boat around islands. |
| 1:10.0 | He also points out local oddities. |
| 1:12.0 | And I've been told that in this very place, they used to burn witches |
| 1:17.0 | 500 years ago. |
| 1:19.0 | The boat glides to a |
| 1:24.0 | floating walkways surrounding two areas of open water 50 feet wide |
| 1:25.0 | lined with yellow nylon netting, |
| 1:27.0 | a salmon farm run by the company Lingelox. |
| 1:31.0 | Vengard, who's worked much of his life on salmon farms, is a tour guide here. |
| 1:34.9 | We have two pens with 15,000 in each, which actually might sound a lot, but on a regular-sized |
... |
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