Farmed salmon: ‘the fish finger of the 21st century’

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This was published 2 years ago

Farmed salmon: ‘the fish finger of the 21st century’

Richard Flanagan understands why Tasmanians weren’t wise to the environmental threat posed by the salmon industry when it began in the state in the mid-1980s. The consequences of the pollution it caused to Tasmanian waterways were far less visible then, he says, building up insidiously over time. But as the industry “went into hyperdrive” a handful of years ago, and Flanagan saw what was happening in the sea near Bruny Island, where he had long retreated to a family shack to write, the full picture came into view.

“I witnessed the slow sickening and dying of an entire marine ecosystem,” the Hobart-based Booker Prize winner says. “What was once rich and full of marine life began to empty. The crayfish went. The abalone went. The penguins went. More and more things disappeared. Slime began to appear. Algae began to appear. And at the same time these farms – which were initially small – grew and grew in size. They began to become heavy industrial facilities.”

As he researched what would become his latest book, the non-fiction Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmanian Salmon Industry, Flanagan began to see farmed salmon as the battery hens of the sea. “Open sea salmon pens are just floating feed lots,” he says. “You’ve got the salmon – hundreds of thousands – swimming around in a toxic toilet of shit and ammonia, and that drops to the sea floor. Every farm is like a little town, spewing sewage out.”

Flanagan was speaking on the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks with journalist Gabriella Coslovich, who researched the issue at length for this week’s sobering cover story: What lies beneath: Acclaimed author Richard Flanagan’s fight to clean up fish farms.

Like many Australians, Coslovich had little understanding of the salmon industry before moving to Hobart in 2018. “I was blissfully unaware,” she says. “I was a salmon eater – I loved the stuff. It was always my first choice if I was at a restaurant.” As the topic began to emerge in conversations in her new place of residence, that changed. “I haven’t had a fillet of salmon since.”

With moderation from Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland, the podcast episode canvasses everything from animal cruelty to the global supply chains required to sustain the industry, to the possibility of moving salmon farming out of the sea and into land-based pens.

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Flanagan says there’s an onus on retailers and consumers to help bring about change – by asking more questions about what we’re buying, and looking to other fish options when planning dinner. “[Farmed Atlantic salmon] contains petrochemical dye, and a petrochemical stabiliser used to stop rubber tyres from cracking. It has half the omega three levels it once had. It’s more fatty,” he says. “It’s the pink fish finger of the 21st century. I’d rather eat something that I thought was a fish.”

Good Weekend Talks offers readers the chance to delve even deeper each week into Good Weekend’s most intriguing stories, with lively insight from writers, editors and experts.

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For the full feature story, see Saturday’s Good Weekend, or visit The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.

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