Richard Flanagan is a wonderful writer. When he turns his attention to non fiction the results are extraordinary.
I'm 100 pages into his book Toxic the rotting under belly of the Tasmanian Salmon Industry and I feel gut punched.
The list of issues with this industry is long. The environmental, social, financial and health consequences are so shocking.
Some of these issues:
- Salmon pens are creating biological dead zones around them because of enormous amounts of fish and food pellet waste
- 1.7kg of fish meal creates 1 kg of salmon. We'd be better off eating the original sardines that make up the fish food/meal
- Fish are feed fishmeal that comes from depleting international fishstocks
- Fish meal contains additives that prevent combustion (catching fire) and are toxic
- Fish food contains ground up factory farmed chickens and other livestock (and plastic and metal rubbish)
- Because farmed fish aren't eating seafood their flesh is grey so they are fed colouring additives which are also toxic
- Farmed Salmon has very small amounts of omega 3 as they are not eating a natural diet
- Soy beans are a large proportion fish feed pellets and are contributing to the deforestation of South America.
And just when it seems it couldn't get worse guess what. It does. This nutrient overloaded ecosystem is creating jellyfish population explosions and this is not good as they wipe out lots of native species.
On and on. The other victim of this industry is the fur seal. They are smart animals that like to eat fish. They are an endangered species but salmon farmers don't care or share. So they kill, scare or relocate them on a very large scale.
The Tasmanian Government, past and present, appear corrupt in the regulation of this industry.
Tasmania's reputation as green and clean is a joke.
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