The Decline of Wild Salmon and the Industrialization of Aquaculture

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Wild Atlantic and Pacific salmon, along with many wild fish, have been reduced to remnant populations. Rather than address the root of this crisis, which appears to be overfishing, salmon aquaculture offers technological solutions of increasing sophistication. Modern salmon farming is a resource-intensive, unsustainable industry that creates more problems than it solves. Yet, more technological fixes are on the horizon. Aqua Bounty Technologies, a private biotechnology company, has engineered the world's first transgenic salmon. These super fast-growing fish promise to bring aquaculture to a new level. The likelihood of their escape, however, poses uncertain yet profound threats to the few remaining wild salmon. The aquaculture industry plans to move out into the open ocean. Their ultimate vision for the future includes gigantic, drifting, robotically-controlled sea cages full of transgenic fish. This vision, an impending reality, is poised to replace the historical memory of abundant wild salmon populations that is fading fast from our collective consciousness. In the end, by taking aquaculture to its extreme, we could drive the last of the wild salmon to extinction.