Get the facts
Maine has very few wild salmon left, and the current population is dwindling rapidly. Meanwhile, industrial-scale salmon feedlot operations, all owned by a foreign company, persist.
More than 600 acres of the Maine ocean have been leased by the State to a foreign-owned company to grow salmon in Maine waters. Pollution and fish escapes run the risk of harming our clean marine environment and weakening our wild salmon stocks.
- Lobstermen and Harvesters depend on clean water to make a living.
The issues
Industrial salmon feedlots are a risky business. Without meaningful regulation, such operations can:
- wreak havoc on the marine environment,
- hurt poorer nations;
- have severe costs for the planet in terms of resources and carbon use;
- facilitate the immense suffering of millions of fish.
These issues apply to all types of salmon raised in concentrated feedlots, whether they are certified, so-called ‘organic’, sold fresh or smoked. Certification ‘standards’ are often so weak as to be meaningless. Breaches of their standards are frequently ignored, and almost never result in a loss of accreditation for the farm.
Environmental Concerns
Open net pen salmon feedlots can damage the marine environment.
Salmon feedlots are large net pens where salmon are intensively fed and fattened on a high-energy diet to gain weight quickly for slaughter. These operations concentrate fish, feed, and fish waste, leading to high animal density, accumulation of waste below the net pen, and nitrogen effluent.
Salmon feedlots are often plagued by parasitic sea lice, which disperse from farms and run the risk of infecting and killing wild salmon and trout.
Chemicals used on salmon farms can be lethal to other types of sea life – in particular lobsters, crabs and prawns. In Maine, the largest farmed salmon producer was taken to court because of this.
More than five times the amount of antibiotics stipulated by industry targets were used on Scottish salmon farms in 2020.
The Conservation Law Foundation is suing Cooke Aquaculture for damaging the ocean environment – see the suit (PDF).
Worldwide, reports of salmon feedlots plagued by parasitic sea lice are common. Sea lice from feedlots disperse into the marine environment and run the risk of infecting and killing wild fish species, such as wild salmon and trout. In Maine, the largest grower of feedlot-raised salmon has stated in its lease renewal application sea lice is a problem (PDF).
Sustainability & Fish Welfare
Worldwide, feedlot-grown salmon comes at a significant price for poorer nations.
Farmed salmon are carnivorous fish. Many salmon farms around the world use smaller “forage fish,” such as anchovies and mackerel to make fish meal for their feedlot operations. It’s estimated that three pounds of forage fish are necessary to produce one pound of farmed salmon. This inefficient salmon production process takes food that people from poorer nations rely on for their diet to raise salmon for consumers in wealthier nations.
Concentrated feedlot operations use cruel practices that cause salmon pain.
Millions of farmed fish are subjected to conditions at industrial aquaculture facilities like the one we investigated
Mike Wolf, Compassion Over Killing
Salmon have similar ability to feel pain as mammals and other animals.
Cooke Aquaculture, the Canadian-based company that leases more than 600 acres of Maine waters, was the subject of an investigation concerning allegations of animal abuse at one of its facilities in Maine.
In the last two years, Cooke has had significant salmon die offs at its Black Island site in 2021 and again in 2024 near Beals Island, Maine. At the Black Island site, 116,000 farmed salmon died from a lack of oxygen. Maine regulators renewed Cooke’s lease for 20 years 3 months later.
In 2024, off Beals Island, there was another massive die off.
In Maine, farm-raised salmon are grown in crowded cages ridden with diseases and parasites like sea lice.
Conservation Law Foundation
