The Environmentalist Case for Fish Farms
As California's drought decimates wild fish populations, America should take the lead to ensure an expansion of aquaculture protects marine systems rather than destroying them.
Chinook salmon, starting life on the farm.
Photographer: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFPThis summer, tens of millions of salmon have been cooked in California in their own native habitat. Record-breaking heat and drought have drawn down the water flows and turned up the temperatures of the state’s streams and rivers. The heat shock, along with the impacts of parasites and fungal blights that are fueled by warmer waters, has decimated the wild salmon populations.
To stem the crisis, scientists have literally gone above and beyond, hurling salmon over dams via pneumatic cannons and trucking millions of fish to the Pacific Ocean to bypass unlivable rivers. Meanwhile, with support from the Biden Administration, policy makers and water managers have diverted precious water resources from farms and cities to stem the salmon die-off. Even so, iconic salmon species such as Chinook could be wiped out along the U.S. West Coast as drought persists.