Quote:
Wild salmon tastier than farmed, poll says
Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun
Monday, April 19, 2004
Stuart Dahlke, owner of Save on Seafood at 43 West Hastings in Vancouver, holds a nine-pound troll caught wild coho salmon.
CREDIT: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
Sixty-nine per cent of British Columbians prefer the taste of wild salmon over farm-raised, and 72 per cent believe that eating the wild product is better for the environment than eating the farmed, according to a public opinion poll released today.
While British Columbians overwhelmingly prefer wild fish on environmental and taste grounds, a lesser number, 53 per cent, consider farmed salmon a "major environmental hazard" while 56 per cent believe they pose a "major risk to wild stocks of salmon."
Among those consumers worried about buying farmed salmon, chemicals, toxins, including antibiotics and PCPs, are listed as the main concerns.
Fifty-three per cent of British Columbians also believe that restaurants that serve only wild salmon have higher quality compared with 50 per cent for grocery stores that only sell wild.
"More people are worried about it, more people are making decisions ... not to purchase farmed salmon," said Jennifer Lash, executive director of the Living Oceans Society, the environmental group that commissioned the poll. "Information is getting through to consumers, it's starting to come up on their radar screen."
The Living Oceans Society says it only supports salmon farming that employs the best technology to protect human health and the environment.
Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, said she had not seen the poll details, but didn't want to get into a public relations war with the wild industry.
Instead, she would prefer that wild and farmed-salmon camps work together to encourage Canadians to eat more salmon, be it wild fresh in season or farmed at other times of the year.
"There's a big opportunity to work toward common goals," said Walling, noting that nationally, 61 per cent of Canadians are maintaining or increasing their consumption of farmed salmon. "We've got a great product, so does the wild capture fishery."
In B.C., whose citizens are more attuned to salmon issues, one in five, or 21 per cent, plan to eat less farmed salmon in the next year.
The polling company Synovate randomly questioned 1001 adult Canadians between Feb. 18 and 22. The results are considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
© The Vancouver Sun 2004
