SPECIAL REPORTS

The Wild Salmon Debate

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Pictured Recipe: Salmon Burgers with Green Goddess Sauce

Weighing the Many Variables

From these life histories devolve all variables relevant to the “OK?” question. How much does the fish cost? How easily can I get it? How do farmed and wild fish differ in taste, chemical load and nutrition value? What is the fish’s relation to local, regional and global environments and economies?

Over the last 20 years these questions have been asked in many different forums—papers in scholarly journals like Aquaculture and Fisheries Research; government reports; articles in Audubon, The Economist and EatingWell; at fish markets and dinner parties; in puzzled phone calls. Some of the answers change little. For instance, wild Atlantic salmon populations, despite millions spent on dam removal and habitat improvement, remain deeply in trouble. Every year only a few hundred return to the New England rivers that once had millions, and in Canada thousands swim where tens of millions once teemed. Pacific species are doing better, and in fact are increasing in some areas. They’re doing splendidly in Alaska, with record catches and population estimates.

As for taste: flavor varies more in wild fish than in farmed, for wild Pacific fish differ more in their life histories and physiology and fat content than do Atlantics, which are genetically more alike and which all eat similar diets heavy on fish oil. Young Pacific chum, for instance, generally aren’t as fatty and tasty as Atlantics, while sockeye and chinooks with long or arduous spawning runs offer extraordinary flavor.

The markets, meanwhile, remain steady. For nearly a decade, wild Pacific salmon, for instance, have cost about two to three times the $6 or $7 a pound that Atlantic costs. You can pay well north of $20 for wild Pacific, too, if you want your salmon overnighted from Alaska.

Availability is similarly plain. While you can get Atlantics anywhere year-round, wild fish availability is more exacting. For starters, wild salmon are seasonal, with the huge majority of fresh fish available between May and October, when fishermen can capitalize on the predictable concentration of fish as they move toward the coast to spawn. A few online sites offer it later in the season, and many offer frozen throughout the winter months. But in general, eating a fresh wild salmon means eating it in summer or fall.

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