Kenny Torella

But the other counterargument is essentially that if people want to eat a lot of salmon, and they do, and there aren't a lot left in the wild, we have no choice but to farm them.

Has farming salmon actually helped the numbers of wild salmon rebound?

I mean, if overfishing was the initial problem and the solution is, OK, we're going to farm salmon and let the guys out in the wild do their thing.

Was the solution really a solution?

Likely not.

Big picture research has suggested that there's little to no evidence that farming fish has helped wild populations rebound.

And that's largely because a lot of the fish that are caught in the ocean are fed back to farmed fish.

But looking specifically just at salmon, farming them is actually hurting wild populations in a way that really surprised me as I worked on this story.

So since the 1970s, tens of millions of farmed salmon have managed to escape their cages and make their way into the ocean.

And when they escape, they either compete for resources with wild salmon or they mate with them, leading to what experts call genetic pollution that has resulted in a whole new hybrid line of salmon, which have a harder time surviving in the wild.

And what that means is that the farming of salmon, which was intended to give wild salmon populations a break, actually created this new challenge for them.

All right.

So the initial problem that was meant to be solved by salmon farming has not actually been solved.

And then, Kenny, as you're reporting later discovered, scientists have been making some really, really interesting discoveries about what fish actually feel.

You want to stick around?

We'll talk about that next.

Let's do it.

Whether it's finding the right gift or the right outfit, Saks is where you can find everything, like a Chloe bag.

What does that look like?

Maybe you could buy something for Noelle, because she likes fancy stuff.