To the natural world, salmon play roles as keystone species in eco-systems ranging from small freshwater streams to the vastness that is the Pacific Ocean. These eco-systems, with their various trophic level members, have come to depend on salmon as a crucial food resource. Terrestrial predators like the North American brown bear Ursus arctos and marine mid-level consumers like seals prey largely on adult salmon (Hilderbrandt et. al, 1999) (Olesiuk, 1993). Still further is the fact that salmon carcasses provide essential nutrients to low-level trophic members: the microbial community.
To humans, salmon are simultaneously cultural icons representing fundamental deity figures for First Nation peoples in North America (Montgomery, 2003) and crucial export products that generate millions of pounds in revenue for countries like Scotland (Scottish Gov., 2015). Before the arrival of European settlers in the 18thcentury, salmon was the most crucial food resource for 100,000 First Nations peoples (National Resource Council, 1996), and even today hundreds of thousands rely on the salmon industry for work. These large global roles are complemented by salmon’s presence in everyday life as a food resource for sustenance and luxury; culinary dishes from Western Europe to East Asia utilize the fish in countless forms, illustrating its global popularity.
There is little doubt then that the disappearance of this fish is a significant issue. Global wild salmon populations had fallen to alarmingly low levels by the 19th century due to overfishing, habitat destruction, and dam construction. Today, the Atlantic Salmon is listed as an endangered species in the U.S., and wild Pacific salmon species are fighting a battle against an increasing world demand for fish. In the effort to save salmon, experts are increasingly acknowledging the effectiveness of a balanced political ecology approach.
Peterson defines political ecology as “…an approach that combines the concerns of ecology and political economy to represent an ever-changing dynamic tension between ecological and human change, and between diverse groups within society at scales from the local individual to the Earth as a whole” (Peterson, 2000). In outlining each of the parties involved in management and how they are involved, his attention to detail to the human and nature aspects of salmon management gives him an insight into when and how to enact change in this particular context. Truly, salmon is deeply connected with and represents the struggles of both people and nature, and a proper analysis of salmon conservation would be incomplete without its political, cultural, economic, and ecological aspects. While salmon conservation relies on the sound management of wild stocks of fish, an increasingly prominent role in salmon conservation lies in aquaculture and hatcheries.
Aquaculture is a form of farming and food production that has recently grown to encompass a broad spectrum of marine and freshwater species. According to NOAA Fisheries, aquaculture also includes activities like wild fish stock restoration or enhancement. Within this growing industry is salmon aquaculture. Overfishing and exploitation have depleted many of the most prominent wild salmon stocks (Allendorf et. al 1997), and this has propelled governments to create programs such as the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation (Brown et. al 1994). These programs utilize innovations in hatchery technology to boost wild salmon stocks through introducing farmed juvenile salmon (Hilborn et. al 2000). Efforts of hatchery programs across the globe have proved promising for reversing overall salmon population declines and for satisfying a growing demand for salmon in global markets, but aquaculture comes with its own set of problems. Major issues salmon farmers face include system efficiency, economic viability, interference of wild salmon fitness (Skiftesvik et. al 2013) (Krkošek et. al 2007) (Knapp et. al, 2007) and pest control (Butler 2002), and viable solutions to these problems should be outlined before aquaculture’s continued and possibly permanent application to salmon conservation.
I aim to acquire an understanding of a balanced political ecology of salmon management in various key geographic areas of the world. Furthermore, I aim to acquaint myself with current research regarding salmon aquaculture to gain a modern perspective of how technological advances in aquatic farming is contributing and can feasibly contribute to salmon conservation. With a sound understanding of both context-specific PE and aquaculture, I hope to ultimately highlight feasible measures for the conservation of salmon on a place-by-place basis.
In order to gain a broad understanding of salmon aquaculture and PE, I aim to situate (but will not restrict) my concentration in three geographic locations 1) Western Europe, esp. Scotland 2) West Coast of North America esp. PNW, Canada, Alaska and 3) Eastern Asia esp. Japan. These areas and their associated countries are crucial to salmon research, farming, and/or conservation, yet each area addresses salmon conservation differently. For instance In Scotland, the SSPO oversees intensive research of pest control (Butler, 2002) (Lees et. al 2008) and environmental responsibility of salmon farming. While the Atlantic Salmon is now considered an endangered species in the U.S., salmon is still the number one export of Scotland, and this speaks to the region’s intensive salmon farming efforts. Indeed, in Scotland, salmon represents the struggle among fishermen, the government, and the public over the country’s highest export. In Alaska and North America in contrast, research and debates revolve around hatcheries and their role in wild fish stock conservation and global supply of salmon (Hilborn et. al 2000). Sport and commercial fishermen have contributed to the enormous salmon industry in Alaska. In addition, the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Alaska’s First Nations people place a cultural significance and importance on salmon, adding to the complexity of and the need to enact effective salmon management (Montgomery, 2003). Japan has its own extensive salmon hatchery programs, and with a population that relies heavily on a fish-based diet, the imbalanced emphasis here is on maximizing catches of Pacific salmon (Morita et. al 2006) and less about conserving the integrity of wild salmon genes. This is a cause for concern, given wild salmon’s negative effects on gene integrity of wild salmon (Knapp et. al, 2007).
- Allendorf, Fred W., David Bayles, Daniel L. Bottom, Kenneth P. Currens, Christopher A. Frissell, David Hankin, James A. Lichatowich, Willa Nehlsen, Patrick C. Trotter, and Thomas H. Williams. 1997. “Prioritizing Pacific Salmon Stocks for Conservation.” Conservation Biology 11 (1): 140–52.
- Brown, Larry R., Peter B. Moyle, and Ronald M. Yoshiyama. 1994. “Historical Decline and Current Status of Coho Salmon in California.” North American Journal of Fisheries Management 14 (2): 237–61. doi:10.1577/1548-8675(1994)014<0237:HDACSO>2.3.CO;2.
- Butler, James R A. 2002. “Wild Salmonids and Sea Louse Infestations on the West Coast of Scotland: Sources of Infection and Implications for the Management of Marine Salmon Farms.” Pest Management Science 58 (6): 595–608. doi:10.1002/ps.490.
- Hilderbrand, G V, C C Schwartz, C T Robbins, M E Jacoby, T A Hanley, S M Arthur, and C Servheen. 1999. “The Importance of Meat, Particularly Salmon, to Body Size, Population Productivity, and Conservation of North American Brown Bears.” Canadian Journal of Zoology 77 (1): 132–38. doi:10.1139/z98-195.
- Hilborn, Ray, and Doug Eggers. 2000. “A Review of the Hatchery Programs for Pink Salmon in Prince William Sound and Kodiak Island, Alaska.” Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 129 (2): 333–50. doi:10.1577/1548-8659(2000)129<0333:AROTHP>2.0.CO;2.
- Knapp, Gunnar., Roheim, Cathy A, and Anderson, James L. The Great Salmon Run : Competition between Wild and Farmed Salmon. Washington DC: TRAFFIC North America, 2007.
- Krkošek, Martin, Jennifer S. Ford, Alexandra Morton, Subhash Lele, Ransom A. Myers, and Mark A. Lewis. 2007. “Declining Wild Salmon Populations in Relation to Parasites from Farm Salmon.” Science 318 (5857): 1772–75. doi:10.1126/science.1148744.
- Lees, Fiona, Mark Baillie, George Gettinby, and Crawford W. Revie. 2008. “The Efficacy of Emamectin Benzoate against Infestations of Lepeophtheirus Salmonis on Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar L) in Scotland, 2002–2006.” PLoS ONE 3 (2): e1549. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001549.
- Montgomery, David R. King of Fish : The Thousand-year Run of Salmon. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003.
- Morita, Kentaro, Toshihiko Saito, Yasuyuki Miyakoshi, Masa-aki Fukuwaka, Toru Nagasawa, and Masahide Kaeriyama. 2006. “A Review of Pacific Salmon Hatchery Programmes on Hokkaido Island, Japan.” ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal Du Conseil 63 (7): 1353–63. doi:10.1016/j.icesjms.2006.03.024.
- National Resource Council. 1996. Upstream: Salmon and Society in the Pacific Northwest. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/4976.
- Olesiuk, P.F. (1993) Annual prey consumption by harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia. Fishery Bull. 91 : 491–515.
- Peterson, Garry. 2000. “Political Ecology and Ecological Resilience:: An Integration of Human and Ecological Dynamics.” Ecological Economics, no. 3: 323–36.
- Scottish Government, St Andrew’s House. 2015. “Scottish Fish Farm Production Survey 2014.” Statistics Publication. September 8. http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/09/6580.
- Skiftesvik, Anne Berit, Reidun M. Bjelland, Caroline M. F. Durif, Inger S. Johansen, and Howard I. Browman. 2013. “Delousing of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar) by Cultured vs. Wild Ballan Wrasse (Labrus Bergylta).” Aquaculture 402–403 (July): 113–18. doi:10.1016/j.aquaculture.2013.03.032.
- Stokes, Dale.The Fish in the Forest: Salmon and the Web of Life. University of California Press, 2014.
Questions
- Descriptive: What are the recent trends in salmon population? What does salmon political ecology look like across the globe? How extensive is salmon aquaculture today?
- Explanatory: What is contributing to salmon population changes – both positive and negative? Why is salmon aquaculture viewed as a promising option for salmon conservation? Why is it not?
- Evaluative: What are the implications of salmon’s changing populations to its eco-systems and human politics/culture? To what extent are challenges to salmon aquaculture – pests, environmental impacts, financial – barring the path to aquaculture? To what extent have salmon populations been affected by land use, fishing, aquaculture, and other human activities?
- Instrumental: Can aquaculture play a larger role in curtailing pressures on wild fish stocks? Or is it better to leave aquaculture out because of its potential negative consequences? What are the solutions – cleaner fish, system tweaking, others – to aquaculture’s financial and environmental problems? How viable and effective are restoration programs in alleviating problems arising from salmon spawning grounds and migratory route destruction? Can a balanced political ecology knowledge of salmon contribute to better salmon management?
Concentration courses
- GEOL 270 (Issues in Oceanography, 5 Credits), Spring 2016 GEOL 270 will help me understand the world in which salmon – my concentration – lives within. As I further my understanding in salmon evolutionary history (reading the book “King of Fish”), I see how crucial it is to develop a working knowledge of how geological/topographical changes affect salmon, and this course will address these gaps in my knowledge.
- BIOL 335 (Ecology, 5 credits), Spring 2016 This course will help me understand population dynamics, communities, and eco-system dynamics to a higher level, which is crucial for a sound approach to salmon management. Furthermore, the course will introduce me to higher-level bioscience studies; this will help me critique and understand more complicated natural science literature.
- BIOL 375 (Comparative Physiology, 5 Credits) Fall 2017 This course will give me the framework to understanding how salmon function as organisms and how they can react to changing environmental conditions. Because aquaculture often involves creating an artificial environment for aquatic species to grow, this course will allow me to critique the range of aquaculture management decisions through a scientific lense.
- ENVS 499 (Independent Study, 4 credits), spring 2017 I plan to take this course to act as a complement to the specifics that I propose in my concentration; for example, my current focus is on salmon species in several geographic regions, but my independent study can expand that focus to include shellfish or other finfish species. Alternatively, I can involve myself with the Salmon Safe Certification program on campus. Lastly, I will likely be holding several bio-science positions in future summers with federal agencies such as the USFS, NPS, USGS and/or USFWS.
- IA 330 (Global Security, 4 Credits), Fall 2017 While salmon conservation is a big issue, it is fruitless to begin forming or critiquing policies without a bigger picture of other problems that countries across the globe face. By taking this course, I will gain a better understanding of what problems are on the agendas of various countries, and through this, I hope to be able to identify conservation practices that make sense in each context.
- MATH 123 (Calculus and Statistics for the Life Sciences, 4 credits), Fall 2015 The current course I am taking now applies directly to the application of key mathematical concepts and skills in biological science research. Direct relationships to my concentration include population dynamics and modeling.
- No Course Code (Dynamics of Modern Japan), Fall 2016 This upper-level course, which I will take abroad at Osaka Kansai Gaidai next fall, will help further my understanding of how environmental issues fit in with other priorities in Japan’s current agenda.
- GEOL 340 (Spatial Problems in Earth System Science, 5 Credits), Fall 2017 This 300 level course will help me further understand, interpret, and create spatial data. These skills are critical in understanding and analyzing data/results in aquatic and terrestrial research, and I hope that I will be able to apply more hard science criticism in my concentration. GEOL 340 will either be taken, or it will be replaced by a BIO 300 level course depending on BIO 300 pre-req clearance. As of now, I have acquired instructor consent to register for BIOL 352 and 335 IF they are not filled by the first class day.
Arts and humanities courses
- HIST 261 (Global Environmental History, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- RELS 242 (East Asian Religions, 4 credits), Fall 2015. RELS 242 relates to two parts of my concentration: 1) Good political ecology studies of salmon, especially in the PNW, Western Canada, and AK, involve cultural aspects, and understanding the human backgrounds of the people living in my situated contexts will help me round out the cultural aspect of PE. 2) one of my situated contexts will undoubtedly be Japan, which is one large area of study in RELS 242; indeed, RELS 242 will help me better understand the context in which conservation in Japan is enacted.