Wild salmon are going extinct at an alarming rate thanks to the practices of a lucrative and unconcerned fish farming industry. The farmed salmon we find in the supermarkets today are naturally gray but usually modified to look pinker. Wild salmon is pink/red in color. To make their fish more attractive, salmon farmers resort to cosmetics and, as well as these chemicals, farmed salmon are loaded with dioxins, PCBs, anti-biotic and other nasties. Unlike the wild variety, the health advisors say you cannot risk eating farmed salmon any more than once every two months, and not a big portion either.Unlike the wild variety, the health advisors say you cannot risk eating farmed salmon any more than once every two months, and not a big portion either.

Now industry is going in for the krill. Described as "pink gold", krill is a very lucrative commodity and there are fears it will soon be mined to hell. This will hit wild salmon, as well as other wildlife such as penguins that rely upon this food source.

Farmed salmon are often raised in crowded underwater pens. Of all the fish to choose, salmon are particularly unsuited to this habitat. Such treatment is both cruel and idiotic. Think of the natural life cycle of the salmon, in which the young swim down rivers to the ocean and, as adults, return to their spawning grounds undergoing the trial of flinging themselves upstream in rapidly flowing water, ensuring only the strongest survive to keep the species healthy. They are a far cry from the degenerate and flabby domesticated salmon.

The toxic soup in which the farmed fish are raised has, unsurprisingly, allowed a deadly virus to emerge, that is quickly wiping out salmon in Chile. Domesticated salmon are also teeming with sea lice. Mother Nature, in all her wisdom, ensured that baby wild salmon were not infected, since adults die before infestation could take hold and be carried back to the ocean. Now, thanks to the wonder of modern food production, the young wild salmon must run a gauntlet of infected farmed fish. This is an explanation for the crashing salmon stocks in Ireland, Scotland, Norway and the Chinook salmon in California, with Canada following close behind.

But the lice and the virus are not the only threats. Millions of farmed salmon have escaped, and their inferior genetic quality is having a horrific effect on wild populations. Perhaps because of the parallels regarding human bad breeding, this is not a story we hear much about.

In Autumn 2006, the estimation was that up to 90% of salmon returning to some rivers in Canada, Scotland, Ireland, the Faero Islands and Norway are in fact of farmed origin. These are not the same strains of salmon as the wild ones, and 70% of the hybrid offspring die in the first few weeks due to genetic incompatibilities. The first hybrid generation seem just fine, and anglers are thrilled with the bigger fish. ("Isn't out breeding wonderful?") but then the population collapse occurs in the next generation. Farmed salmon have a success rate in the wild of 2% that of a pure wild salmon.

Incredibly, some brands of farmed salmon are labeled "organic". Comparing the farmed "organic" with the wild variety, you notice not only the gray shade, but the mesh of creamy fatty veins and the floppy muscle tone similar to a twenty stone couch potato. When fried, it falls apart quicker than a pair of paper underpants, and has been described as tasting watery and bland, compared with the sweet juiciness of the wild version. This makes a mockery of organic standards. Farmed salmon is a completely unsustainable and destructive industry and we should boycott its produce. Also needed is an all out ban on salmon fishing until stocks recover. But don't hold your breath.