Want Good Fish? Think Salmon.
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 06.30.07
Sport fishing ought to be a big input for any locally produced, 100-mile (or any other radius) diet. It's been seldom discussed here; but we aim to correct that. Now...it's true that there are many water bodies from which no fish should be eaten due to pollution. It's also true that there are several species of sport fish that, with perhaps some few exceptions, should just not be eaten at all, such as carp. But the fact of the matter is that the bulk of the sport fish are just fine.
Every time you happen to turn on the local news you're going to see car crashes and home fires. Every time. So does that mean you should sleep out on the lawn and refuse to drive ever again? Of course not. Fishing is good!
Some sport fishers have all the luck, "limiting out" on every other fishing expedition. Others are especially blessed by virtue of where they live. Take TreeHugger writer Tim for example. He's living the fly fishing capital of the universe: Montana. God's country. However, if there's one place to be where locally caught fish reign supreme, and pose a very low risk of contamination, it's the US Pacific Northwest. Think Salmon makes me soooo hungry.
Wish that the USA had a VP who loved salmon as much as political power.
Image credit: Will's Save the Salmon poster, Flickr, Think Salmon.
What's with the Pepsi logo in the picture? I don't get that being in the picture.
I disagree with the 100-mile diet when it comes to salmon. Wild Alaskan salmon is the best this country has to offer, and there aren't enough Alaskans to eat it. It provides jobs to many living in the Pacific Northwest, so it's good for the local economy here, too.
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There's nothing to disagree with here. I wasn't arguing that only persons living in the Pacific Northwest should eat locally produced salmon. I was saying that those who do live there should relish the opportunity and those who don't should be so lucky. Exclusivity was not part of the equation.
I'm a salmon lover and fish and eat them myself. But let's keep in mind the need to worry about overfishing and endangered fish, and also the problem that most catchable salmon in Oregon and Washington come from fish hatcheries (fish farms that let the fish go so we can catch them a while later).
The mythology of "wild" salmon is not matched by the reality. Even "wild" Alaska salmon might be spawned in a bucket, hatched in a tray, and raised in a concrete pond for a year or more before being released for you (or someone else) to catch it. What are the odds? Stop by blogfish for answers
http://blogfishx.blogspot.com/2007/05/premium-wild-salmon-raised-in-fish-farm.html
I love salmon, and as such I don't like the idea of killing them for sport or food or any other reason. Derrick Jensen writes in at teast one of his books about the salmon runs when Europeans first got here, and described them as rivers and streams so heavy with salmon that people were afraid they might tip the boats. Do you really think we can work our way back to anything close to that by encouraging fishing? I for one prefer humane education, teaching people both fascination with and respect for the lives of all animals. Animals are people too.
I can explain the Pepsi can in the picture. It was created by my 7 yr old. It is upside down with a straw in it. He added it to represent how garbage is polluting our oceans and threatening the salmon.
Hope that answers your question.