“Corporations have attempted to farm salmon in open-net pens for as long as
we’ve been a company. For those five decades, we’ve defended wild fish. We’ll continue that fight until the vermin-infested, ocean-polluting open-net pen industry goes belly up.” - Patagonia
A single ocean net pen site can often contain around a million fish. The feed contains antibiotics and even pesticides in attempt to control deadly infectious viruses and sea lice. Also added to the feed is a synthetic form of a red pigment* called astaxanthin, this chemical colourant is used to make the flesh pink, otherwise, due to its unnatural diet the flesh would be grey. All this is dumped into the open ocean unfiltered along with their fish faeces which is equivalent to the sewage of a small city - devastating marine habitat, fouling shorelines and putting wild species at risk. Around the globe these multi-billion multi-national fish ‘farmers’ are being mandated out of public waters. Thank you Patagonia for taking a stand and spreading awareness.
*The industry uses semantics in order to manufacture doubt and confuse consumers insisting they don't *dye* the fish. Astaxanthin is a red pigment. The words pigment and dye in general terms are interchangeable, they are both COLOURANTS. Whether you call it a PIGMENT or a DYE, to be clear- astaxanthin is a food colourant. Here's an excerpt on the definition of astaxanthin from Wikepedia:
