The siting of salmon farms is often problematic, particularly if it does not adequately take into account the proximity to wild salmon migration routes, water flow and circulation patterns, the fate of waste materials, the number of facilities already in an area and aesthetic concerns. According to some, the development of genetically engineered salmon for farming is proceeding without concern for the consequences of inevitable escapes into coastal waters inhabited by wild salmon. The Context Populations of salmon in the western North Atlantic have recently plummeted for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, in the eastern Pacific, more than 100 populations have disappeared and salmon are extinct in 40 percent of the rivers where they once spawned along the North American Pacific coast. The potential for interactions with farmed fish and transmission of disease from farmed to wild salmon is especially threatening in the context of these declines.
Governments typically encourage aquaculture because it is viewed as economic development.
This often leads to the intensive, large-scale farming methods most often associated with environmental damage. The market price of farmed salmon is artificially low. Because the costs of environmental damage are not borne by the industry, nor are the value of ecosystem services factored into the cost of production, there is no pressure on the industry to operate in environmentally sound ways.