Kenny Torella

What's going on at your typical fish farm?

Yeah, so I'll talk about salmon farms specifically, although they're all pretty similar.

They're raised by the hundreds of thousands or even millions in floating cages in the ocean just offshore.

And it's worth noting that this type of salmon farming and just fish farming in general has a relatively small carbon footprint compared to other meats, which has been a big selling point in its global ascendance over the last few decades.

But salmon farming has also become a flashpoint among environmentalists in Norway, Canada, in the UK, even in the US.

Washington state banned salmon farming earlier this year.

Because when you cram so many animals into the ocean and all of their waste, it leads to a lot of pollution.

You know, salmon farmers are often trying to treat or prevent various diseases, which means that they're dumping a lot of chemicals into the water that can hurt other marine life.

And this has actually even pitted salmon farmers against the wild catch fishermen who say that the salmon farms are polluting and killing off the wild fish populations that they depend on for their livelihoods.

I think there's one other reason why the fight over salmon farms have become so symbolic in the environmental movement.

And it's because in the wild, there are these carnivorous hunters who migrate thousands of miles from freshwater rivers out into the salty Atlantic Ocean.

But on salmon farms, they're reduced to swimming in tiny circles for years and eating small man-made pellets.

And so I think for a lot of environmentalists and naturalists, it's seen almost as a crime against nature.

You know, one researcher I talked to compared it to trying to farm tigers, which was a

Pretty illuminating analogy to me.

Yeah, it is.

In the second half of the show, we're going to get into some detail about what exposés have found on fish farms.

It is not for the weak of heart, but if you are a salmon farmer, how do you make the argument for what you do?

Well, the first part has to do with how, like I mentioned earlier, salmon and fish in general tend to have a low carbon footprint compared to, say, beef or pork.

Right.