SPECIAL REPORTS

The Wild Salmon Debate

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Pictured Recipe: Plank-Grilled Sweet Soy Salmon

The promising part—there is hope here—is that forsaking farmed salmon for wild might actually press the salmon aquaculture industry to change. The technology exists now to raise farmed salmon in floating, solid-sided tanks—a container more floating aquarium than net—that avoid almost all the drawbacks of net pens. The fish can’t escape; pests can’t enter or escape; water can be filtered and cleaned of waste.

This low-impact solution would realize aquaculture’s true potential, just as good catfish operations do. Companies in British Columbia, Iceland and Norway are testing prototypes. The catch is that even if they work, they’ll be costly, producing fish pricier than other farmed fish (though possibly cheaper than wild), and it’s not clear whether consumers will pay the premium. Yet investors might find the necessary courage if enough consumers stop buying conventionally farmed salmon.

The consumers, of course: that would be you and me. Holding out for lower-impact farmed salmon—and eating only wild salmon in the meantime—is a sacrifice of sorts. It means eating fresh salmon seasonally and paying more for it when you do. It means eating fish that, because they come from various places and live varying lives, will be less consistent in flavor than farmed salmon are; sometimes they’ll taste better, sometimes not. But in the realm of things, that set of trade-offs sounds pretty good to me. I’d even say it sounds OK.

—David Dobbs writes on science, culture and the environment for The New York Times Magazine, Audubon and other publications.

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