In Norway, where as many as 1.3 million salmon escape from farms each year, one-third of the salmon spawning in coastal rivers are not wild but escaped salmon. Besides competing for food and spawning habitat, escaped salmon may interbreed with wild salmon, reducing the latter's fitness. The flesh of farmed salmon is a pale color that is unappealing to consumers. The dyes canthaxanthin or astaxanthin or both are added to the feed of farmed salmon to improve its appearance. Wild Salmon Unlike farmed fish, wild salmon are harvested when they are mature, after their feeding cycle has ended, when their flesh is firm and their migration has begun.
Wild salmon are crucial to the health of our rivers.
They carry nutrients from the river to the sea and back again, entering the food chain as a vital feast for wildlife and fertilizing rivers and forests after they spawn, die and decompose. Wild salmon are one of the Northwest's greatest renewable resources. Careful monitoring of wild runs, their watersheds and the ecosystems that support them ensure economic and environmental sustainability, healthy economic returns for future generations and the preservation of pristine habitat. Wild salmon have higher levels of oil content than farmed salmon due to thousands of years of natural selection providing them with the fat reserves necessary to migrate and spawn thousands of miles. The high levels of oil are the key to the salmon's revered flavor, which is preferred by discerning chefs and consumers throughout the country.