Most summers, Washington’s Southern Resident orcas round Vancouver Island and follow the Haro Strait, just west of the San Juan Islands, chasing after home-migrating Fraser River salmon.

But as hungry orcas hunt the western Salish Sea, some salmon runs flow east, through areas where the families of the Lummi Nation have fished for generations. 

It’s a heartbreaking fact that the Salish Sea’s salmon runs aren’t nearly as abundant as they once were, along with the orcas that eat them. For some, that prompts talk of simply shutting down commercial salmon fisheries. But according to Ellie Kinley, a lifelong fisher and Lummi Nation citizen, that sort of sweeping action helps neither salmon nor orcas.

“I think there’s a lot of miscommunication out there when it comes to buying and eating salmon,” says Kinley. “We’re catching salmon in a terminal area. They’ve already passed through where our Southern Residents can eat them.” 

Instead, Kinley says, people should be celebrating the salmon that her family sells through brands like Lummi Island Wild and Salish Select. If you can find these salmon products at stores, she says, then you know that it comes from a fishery that is strictly managed to meet escapement goals. That means that before any fishing season opens for her family, several international agencies must first agree that enough spawning salmon have entered the Fraser River to maintain population targets.

“The beauty of fishing [like we do] is that we never get to fish unless enough fish go up the river,” Kinley says.

But multi-agency sign-off is just one reason why Kinley feels that conscientious diners should seek out her salmon. There’s also her family’s leading role in helping to drive a resurgence, here near Lummi Island, of reef net fishing: a traditional selective fishing technique that the Kinleys and others are now using as a way to harvest more abundant returning sockeye and pink salmon runs without harming vulnerable stocks—like the Fraser River Chinook that comprise a large part of the diet of Southern Residents orcas. 

For millennia prior to Western contact, Coast Salish families fished river systems like the Fraser, Nooksack, and Skagit with selective fishing techniques like pound nets, weirs, wheels, and beach seines. Specific reef net sites, generally located near river mouths, were handed down through generations of families living on or near the San Juan Islands and north to the Saanich Peninsula. 

“The Coast Salish people invented reef netting,” says Riley Starks, the founder of the 15-year-old seafood processor Lummi Island Wild and a lifelong crab and salmon fisher. “It’s a very humane and kind way to catch salmon.”

The technique, Starks explains, is a simple one—two boats anchored in the water, holding a large, submerged net between them at the lip of an artificial reef—traditionally made of stinging nettle bush and wild grasses. The reef passively funnels fish up and over to the net, and into the view of the fishers in the boats. Once fish are spotted, the net is lifted to just below the water line, and fishers hand-sort the catch.

“As a fisherman, when you want fish for yourself, you only want the highest quality,” says Starks. “With reef netting I could see how they handled the fish: you pick them up one at a time, you bleed them, you put them on ice right away. There’s very little trauma, there’s no unwanted mortality.”

By the early 1990s, Starks had bought his own reef net. Soon after, he met Ellie Kinley’s late husband Larry Kinley, a Lummi Nation elder with a vision for reconnecting his community with reef netting. Once the dominant fishing technique in these waters, traditional reef netting had been largely abandoned by Coast Salish families over the past several generations—and not by choice. 

That’s because back in 1897, California canning bosses convinced the Washington State Legislature to make reef nets illegal. These bosses quickly built canneries and pound nets near reef net sites managed by Coast Salish families for millennia, and zealously enforced the new reef net restrictions.

This pressure forced Indigenous communities to adopt different techniques to continue their fishing way of life. Today, for example, Ellie Kinley’s sons and other relatives help crew a family purse seiner and gillnet boat; reef netting, for them, is a new practice, one that they’re improving with modern fish tracking technology and other tools.

“Before he died three years ago, Larry Kinley said that ‘reef netting is the center of our culture and we must reclaim it,’” Starks said. “My guess is that in the next 20 years we’ll see more and more reef nets pop up. It’ll happen in the very slow, methodical way that Indigenous communities work.”

Helping to boost the use of reef nets are new fishing businesses that focus on revitalizing these traditional practices, including Lummi Island Wild and, now, Salish Select. Together, the companies work with about 12 reef nets—one of them owned by the Kinleys—and also partner with the Snohomish Tribe and Upper Skagit Tribe to source salmon selectively harvested via other traditional practices, like beach seining.

And demand is surging from vendors like New Seasons, where Lummi Island Wild smoked sockeye sells out fast. Patagonia Provisions, another big retailer, keeps upping its annual orders of Lummi Island reef netted pink and sockeye salmon. The purveyor, which has built its brand on sourcing and processing only regenerative, organic, and sustainable foodstuffs, is clearly a fan; product descriptions for its Lummi Island-sourced products—like pouched black pepper wild pink salmon and lightly smoked wild sockeye—open by proudly highlighting that they’re responsibly harvested.

But reef netting is still a small fishing community. Between that limited capacity and the fishing pressure on salmon runs further out at sea in mixed-stock fisheries, Lummi Island’s reef netters can’t always fill the orders they receive. The answer, Starks says, is reviving the Indigenous selective fishing practices that were once so widespread here, and helped maintain healthy fish populations for millennia.

“Twelve reef nets—it’s not enough,” Starks says. “This should again be the dominant fishing technique in the Salish Sea. The more I’ve seen what’s happened in the Salish Sea, the more I realize that reef netting has to be the future or we’re not going to be able to have a salmon fishery here.”

It’s a move that might make for many happy customers in the future, including those hungry Southern Resident orcas circling just a few clicks west.

WHAT IT IS: Reef netted wild pink, chum (keta), and sockeye salmon is harvested by a small community of Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishers near Lummi Island in the northeastern Salish Sea.

WHY IT’S KEY: Once the dominant fishing practice of Coast Salish people near Lummi Island, reef nets allow fishers to selectively harvest only target runs and release bycatch with minimal trauma and zero time out of water.

WHERE TO FIND: Reef netted Lummi Island salmon products are offered through brands like Lummi Island Wild and Salish Select and retailed by purveyors including New Seasons and Patagonia Provisions.

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If your first thought about wild salmon is “delicious,” your next might be the image of big silver fish netted out at sea. It’s a common train of thought in marketing. If fresh is best, the concept goes, then surely what you want is a plump ocean salmon, caught before the rigors of home river migration.

But according to celebrated British Columbia chef Rob Clark, that idea misses the boat. And not just when it comes to sustainable seafood. It’s also about flavor.

“The world perceives ocean-caught salmon as somehow better than river salmon,” says Clark, the now-retired head chef of such past and present Vancouver seafood institutions as C Restaurant, Raincity Grill, and the Fish Counter. “But the strength of wild Pacific salmon are the varieties and textures from river to river. For a chef, it’s like working with a full palate.”

And that culinary nuance gets lost at sea. Marine fishers operate in “mixed-stock” fisheries, where countless migrating salmon stocks mingle before heading to home rivers up and down the Pacific coast. 

Contrast that with rivers, where fishers can gauge exactly which salmon runs they’re catching. Here, selective fishing gear types like pound nets and fish weirs are gaining traction. In-river “terminal fisheries” create an opportunity for chefs like Clark to showcase, say, sockeye salmon returning to Lake Babine versus the Fraser. And there’s an environmental justice piece to shifting commercial fisheries inland, where the fishing traditions of Indigenous salmon communities like the Sts’ailes First Nation of the lower Fraser River valley have been restricted—even criminalized—for generations.

“My goal now is to help every river product, especially one harvested in a sustainable way, earn the respect it deserves,” says Clark. “And I could not make a better product to embody this approach than Harrison River beach-seined keta.”

My goal now is to help every river product, especially one harvested in a sustainable way, earn the respect it deserves. And I could not make a better product to embody this approach than Harrison River beach-seined keta.”

Beach seining dates back thousands of years on B.C. rivers like the Koeye. And while it doesn’t appear in the fishing stories of Sts’ailes elders—unlike fish weirs, spears, and gaffs—it does have new formal approval from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans as a selective fishing practice.

“Beach seining is a new method for us. We’ve evolved, kept up with the tools that are used nowadays,” says Sts’ailes Chief Ralph Leon (Sah-ahkw). Though, he adds, “the nets are really tough on your hands.” 

An upside is that it brings his community together, literally. Operating a beach seine takes a village, of sorts: first to drop a broad net into a churning pool of fish, and then to pull it like hell to the shallows, where bycatch fish like steelhead can be safely netted and released.

Operating a beach seine takes a village: first to drop a broad net into a churning pool of fish, and then to pull it like hell to the shallows, where bycatch fish like steelhead can be safely netted and released.

“Back in the day, we were able to pick and choose what species we wanted. Our grandparents would tell us what to catch, and we’d get scolded if we brought home the wrong kind, because our elders knew what was going on with the salmon,” says Chief Leon. “Those were the glory days. It was a time when our people were very healthy. Now, we’ve got to work together to save our chum. The health of my grandkids depends on it.”

Chum salmon—often sold in stores as keta—is a productive run on the Harrison River, a wide, slow, glacier-fed tributary of the lower Fraser. For the past few years, the Sts’ailes and Scowlitz First Nations have brought that run to market with River Select, a seafood processor and retailer that works exclusively with First Nations-operated selective, terminal fisheries. Harrison Select, the brand name of their fresh, canned, and candied keta salmon, brings in revenue for the Sts’ailes and Scowlitz communities. More importantly, it’s an opportunity to renew their historic stewardship of the river.

It’s early days for this young venture, says Sts’ailes Councilman Kelsey Charlie (Tixweltel), and his community is still debating the merits of launching a commercial fishery—especially with the strain on salmon runs throughout the North Pacific. 

But if there is one clear message that Charlie would send out into the world, it would be that the Sts’ailes First Nation has salmon stewardship woven into its DNA. Who better to manage this precious resource than the people who have done so successfully for thousands of years?

“Our law that has governed this land for so many years, we still honor it. We still carry out all the ceremonies and rituals that have so much meaning for us,” says Charlie. “We are still stewards of the land. It plays an integral role not just in our everyday lives, but in our potlatches and the food we share. It all comes from this land.”

For Chief Leon, it’s heartbreaking that many of the salmon his community honors every year, starting with the first salmon, spring Chinook, never make it home to the Harrison. While the Harrison’s chum runs might be fairly healthy, not all salmon bound for the Fraser River watershed are so lucky. Fraser spring Chinook in particular are at risk, due to factors that include predators, pollutants, and poorly monitored fisheries.

With selective fishing practices, these runs can be protected. Chef Clark visited a Harrison River beach seine a few years back and has vivid memories of the day’s bycatch: two wriggling steelhead that he helped to release back into the river, unharmed. 

“It doesn’t get more beautiful than that,” Clark says. And he and Chief Leon also agree on another point: this river fish is delicious.

“The chum that we fish are phenomenal for smoking, or canning, or for making candy,” says Chief Leon. “You can watch football or hockey and eat that candy all day.”

Clark would add another recipe to that list. “I’ve made fish and chips out of every salmon species out there, and the Harrison River keta is the best you’ll ever have—meaty like halibut, but with a lot more taste.”

Before he retired from Vancouver’s Fish Counter, Clark upgraded the restaurant’s fish and chips to keta and saw demand soar for this crowd-pleasing comfort food. Now in his home kitchen, he’s still experimenting with flavors, in his lifelong quest to expand the palates and passions of diners.

“River salmon just needs someone to highlight its qualities, and chefs play that role as food influencers, over and over,” Clark says, and laughs. “Otherwise, we’d all still be eating iceberg lettuce, right?”

River salmon just needs someone to highlight its qualities, and chefs play that role as food influencers, over and over. Otherwise, we’d all still be eating iceberg lettuce, right?”

WHAT IT IS: Harrison Select Beach-Seined Keta is the market name for chum salmon products harvested by the Sts’ailes and Scowlitz First Nations of British Columbia and processed and retailed by River Select.

WHY IT’S KEY: In-river “terminal fisheries” allow fishers to know what they’re catching and use selective fishing methods that minimize harm to vulnerable or endangered species. Beach seining, a selective fishing practice approved by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is used by the Sts’ailes and Scowlitz First Nations in their Harrison River fishery.

WHERE TO FIND: River Select products are available for online purchase. Look soon for new Spring 2021 products from a range of First Nations selective terminal fisheries, including smoked canned keta and candied pink salmon from Harrison Select.

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Two decades ago, Rich Meyer helped make farm-to-table cooking synonymous with Portland, Oregon. As chef de cuisine at Higgins, a fine-dining restaurant still renowned today for hyperlocal Northwest cuisine, Meyer built menus around the very best seasonal ingredients available from small farmers, foragers, and fishers.

Back then, Meyer says, his motives were simple. “It was for no other reason than flavor,” he explained. “I didn’t serve farm-raised fish because it wasn’t something I personally ate or fed my family.”

Nowadays, Meyer’s thought process is more nuanced—as is his job. As head chef for the Thorns and Timbers—Portland’s National Women’s Soccer League and Major League Soccer teams, respectively—Meyer now feeds pro athletes like Tobin Heath and Sebastian Blanco. That means his breakfast and lunch menus must balance flavor with additional factors, like nutrition, performance, and caloric needs. A professional dietitian helps Meyer with those abstractions. And yet, Meyer says his food sourcing has never felt more personal. Case in point: Bristol Bay sockeye, a centerpiece of his lunchtime smorgasbord.

“When I have a product like Bristol Bay sockeye, why would I ever buy Atlantic farmed salmon?” said Meyer. “I’ve explained to everyone here what I know about it: that it comes from a pristine part of Alaska, that it’s a well-managed fishery. I’m proud to serve it, and everyone loves it.”

Lately, Meyer’s enthusiasm for this wild salmon (grilled, say, with an aji dulce coulis) comes with a side of frustration. Alaska’s Bristol Bay is home to the largest wild sockeye runs left on earth, supporting both a thriving $1.5 billion fishing economy and the subsistence culture of some 25 federally recognized Tribes. Its healthy, productive foodwebs are extolled by celebrities like chef Alice Waters, bestselling author Paul Greenberg, and actor Leonardo DiCaprio. So why, Meyer asks, would anyone put an open pit mine there?

Meyer learned about Pebble Mine through his salmon purveyor at Iliamna Fish Co. The proposal, first floated by a Canadian company in 2006, would build one of the world’s largest pit mines right on Bristol Bay’s headwaters. Pebble was nearly stopped by the Obama Administration, but it didn’t die. Now, thanks to millions of lobbying dollars and a few private handshakes, Pebble’s supporters have not only resurrected this plan—they’re getting it fast-tracked.

“It’s shameful,” said Meyer. “I thought we got out from behind that years ago.”

Those fighting Pebble aren’t keeping quiet, especially with polls showing that the majority of Alaskans oppose the mine. A recent Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Pebble from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers drew sharp criticism from the Trump Administration’s own EPA and Interior scientists. (US Fish & Wildlife called the document so incomplete “it precludes meaningful analysis.”) In an October hearing in Congress, Representative Peter Defazio, chair of the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, called Pebble a “shell company” and decried “the sham review process currently underway.”

The mine’s sudden fast-tracking also faces growing legal challenges. Following EPA leadership’s abrupt decision in August to drop its own proposed Clean Water Act protections for Bristol Bay—a decision apparently made the day after Alaska’s pro-Pebble governor privately met with President Trump—multiple independent lawsuits were filed by Bristol Bay Tribes, fishing organizations, and conservation organizations including Wild Salmon Center.

“I’m not against resource extraction, but this is the wrong place; it’s very, very wet, and water is impossible to contain,” said Reid Ten Kley of Iliamna Fish Co., a family operation that has fished Bristol Bay since the 1940s. “These projects permit a certain amount of pollution—it’s not that you can’t pollute at all. People are interested in eating healthy, clean, wild fish, so it’s a huge marketing problem for us even without a catastrophe.”

I’m not against resource extraction, but this is the wrong place,” says Ten Kley. “It’s very, very wet, and water is impossible to contain.”

While Ten Kley prays that “level heads” will prevail, he’s not waiting around—he’s writing Congress and telling anyone who will listen that Bristol Bay is too valuable to risk. He and his sister represent their family’s third generation to fish here, a way of life Ten Kley wants to pass on to his three young children.

Meyer says that for him, the Pebble Mine threat is about more than replacing a favorite entrée. Like people living across the Pacific Rim, Meyer connects wild salmon with regional identity and community. When we’re good stewards of wild salmon, he says, we’re really taking care of our friends and family.

“Sustainable to me means that the salmon we eat today, we’ll still be eating a hundred years from now,” Meyer said. “It would be painful for me to see it disappear, as a chef, and as a parent.”

WHAT IT IS: The sockeye that annually return to the untouched rivers and lakes feeding into Bristol Bay, Alaska, represent one of the last, great wild salmon fisheries left on earth.

WHY IT’S KEY: At the headwaters of Bristol Bay, a Canadian company is fast-tracking a proposal to build one of the world’s largest open pit mines, complete with pipelines, roads, barge systems, and a massive toxic waste storage facility that would need oversight—forever.

WHERE TO FIND: Many Bristol Bay fishing companies—like Iliamna Fish Co, which offers direct-to-consumer shares in a community supported fishery model—sell wild sockeye to grocers, retailers, and individual buyers across the U.S.

When we’re good stewards of wild salmon, Meyer says, we’re really taking care of our friends and family. “Sustainable to me means that the salmon we eat today, we’ll still be eating a hundred years from now.”

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Last summer, Seattle restaurateur Renee Erickson yanked Chinook from her menus.

“I didn’t see any good reason to keep serving it,” said the James Beard Award-winning chef, whose empire includes Barnacle, the Walrus and the Carpenter, and the Whale Wins. “There’s a chunk of me, like many people, that wonders whether we should be eating salmon at all.”

Erickson’s decision followed national news coverage of Tahlequah, a Southern Resident orca off the Washington Coast who carried her dead calf—likely starved—for a heartbreaking 17 days.

Erickson isn’t alone in wondering what salmon she could, or should, be serving. As wild salmon runs decline around the North Pacific, the impacts are real for the 137 species (like Southern Resident orcas) that rely on them. For conservation-minded chefs and diners, it can be hard to know which fisheries are sustainable, who to trust, and what to make of ever-shifting marketplace lingo like “wild-caught.” Consumer seafood guides can help. But saying “I’ll have the salmon” can still sometimes feel like a fraught black box of, just, no.

And yet, roughly one year after giving up Chinook, Erickson’s saying yes to coho—boxes of it, caught at an experimental fish trap being tested three hours south of Seattle on the Columbia River.

“It redefined what we can serve people,” says Erickson. “The trap avoids all the noise, the engines, the plastic, the nets.”

Erickson first learned of Columbia River trap-caught coho through the Wild Fish Conservancy, a nonprofit that, with the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, is running the first fish trap on the Columbia River in 85 years. (Wild Salmon Center is a supporting partner of the project.)

Fish traps, also called pound nets, were once widespread along the West Coast. According to WFC biologist Adrian Tuohy, the traps’ appeal (and ultimate downfall) was their efficiency at catching fish. During the Great Depression, wildly successful fish traps—often owned by corporate cannery operators—became targets for competing gillnetters and sport fishermen. Traps were outlawed in Washington in 1934; Oregon followed in 1948. At statehood in 1959, Alaska wrote a ban into its own constitution.

Fast forward to 2016, when WFC brokered a deal with the state of Washington to begin testing local fisherman Blair Peterson’s prototype trap as a tool for saving wild salmon. Because of the trap’s passive engineering—it’s essentially a watery, non-threatening corral—Peterson and WFC argued it could solve a key need for the Columbia River’s fisheries: finding a way to catch abundant hatchery fish without killing the river’s threatened wild salmon and steelhead stocks in the process.

This summer, data published by the Wild Fish Conservancy proved the experiment successful, with studies showing the trap can operate with near zero mortality for wild salmon and other bycatch. It’s also orca-safe by default, located well above the river mouth. Says Tuohy, “the orcas already had their chance” to catch these fish in the ocean. The next step is to convince Washington State to lift its ban on traps, and then, hopefully, convert others.

It redefined what we can serve people,” says Erickson. “The trap avoids all the noise, the engines, the plastic, the nets.”

For chefs like Erickson, there’s admittedly another incentive: this fish is delicious. Tuohy says his team can move a coho from water to net to ice locker, fully bled, in nine seconds or less. That means minimal handling and stress: no bruising, scale loss, or lactic buildup in its flesh. And because it’s just one river mile to the seafood processor, Erickson can get her coho within three hours, still in full rigor, as fresh as it gets.

“Fish out of a trap is remarkable; it’s untouched, pristine,” says Erickson. “We roast it in butter, cure it. There’s very little you should do to it when it’s so fresh and perfect.”

WHAT IT IS: Columbia River Trap-Caught Coho is the market name for hatchery coho harvested in an experimental fish trap on the lower Columbia River.

WHY IT’S KEY: The trap—the first in Washington state since a 1934 ban—is being tested as a selective fishing gear type, one that can harvest hatchery salmon while allowing safe passage for wild salmon and other bycatch.

WHERE TO FIND: If Washington legalizes fish traps, fresh Columbia River Trap-Caught Coho might make it to local fish markets as soon as summer 2020; till then, a few lucky buyers are snapping up the fish trap’s limited harvest from C&H Classic Smoked Fish.

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They’re two of the most frequent questions we get from people: should I eat salmon? And if so, which kind? The short answer is YES, but like any food derived from the wild, it’s part of a complex ecological web and has to be approached with care.

Here at Wild Salmon Center our mission is based on ensuring the long-term health of wild salmon populations, and we believe being a conscious consumer of wild salmon is an important part of the species’ conservation. Here’s why:

• When you protect salmon, you protect a whole watershed and everything in it. The most beautiful rivers of the Pacific all depend on salmon;
• Eating and purchasing wild salmon fuels a $3 billion fishing industry, provides thousands of jobs, and supports countless communities across the Pacific; and
• Salmon are a superfood, packed with essential nutrients, and one of our last wild proteins.

We’ve partnered with Portland-based and James Beard award-winning cookbook author, Diane Morgan, to give you a guide to eating and cooking salmon, along with two recipes from her new cookbook, Salmon: Everything You Need to Know + 45 Recipes. By knowing two things – where your salmon comes from and what species it is – you can be a better steward while enjoying these delicious and healthy fish.

See more from our Eat This Salmon series.

We’ve provided a lot of useful information below, but if you need a quick answer and fall back, here’s one: go with wild Alaskan salmon.

Wild versus Farmed Salmon: What’s the difference?

Wild-Caught
The term “wild caught” means that the salmon was caught in the wild. Some wild-caught salmon originate from hatcheries to supplement wild stocks. As long as these hatcheries are managed to have a minimum impact on wild populations, wild-caught is your best bet when purchasing salmon. These fish matured to adulthood in the wild, at a natural pace, and ate a wild, marine diet. Unlike Atlantic salmon, there are still healthy wild stocks of Pacific salmon. Alaska for example, ranks as one of the world’s healthiest and best managed fisheries due to management based on sustainable yield – the idea that you harvest only the amount that doesn’t jeopardize the long term health of fish stocks.

We suggest buying wild-caught Alaskan salmon.

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Top Three Ways to Make Sure Your “Wild Salmon” isn’t a Fraud

There’s been a lot of documentation lately of seafood being mislabeled. To ensure that the salmon you are purchasing is truly “as advertised,” take these precautions:

1. Purchase salmon with recognized certification labels of sustainability like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Better yet, purchase straight from the source – either from the processor or a community supported fishery.
2. Any fish marketed as both “fresh” and “wild” in the winter months is likely a fraud. Either it is farmed, or it is wild and has been flash-frozen – which is a completely acceptable option in the non-season months.
3. If it seems too good to be true (i.e. low price for premium fish), it probably is.

Farmed Salmon
Farmed salmon are commercially raised fish in some form of an enclosure. Fish farms do vary but, in terms of what to look for as a consumer, they can be divided into two categories: open net pens and closed-containment systems.

Open Net Pens
Open net pens are usually located in coastal waters in a cage or net system, such as the salmon farms off the coast of British Columbia. Evidence points to these open net pens still not being a good choice.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Fish escaping is a big problem. When farmed salmon escape into the wild and breed with wild fish it reduces the genetic diversity and fitness of wild populations. Escaped fish also spread parasites and diseases.
• Over-crowding breeds diseases and requires chemical interventions. Many net pens rapidly spread diseases and sea lice, requiring farmed fish to be treated with chemicals. Sea lice, while rarely found on juvenile fish in the wild are increasingly seen on juveniles in areas where net pens are located.
• Pigment coloring is not an uncommon practice. Some farms use synthetic carotenoid pigments to give the farmed fish the ‘natural’ color of their wild counterparts.
• Pollution is common. Uneaten feed and feces accumulate at the bottom of the pens, creating large concentrations of pollutants in the surrounding water, depleting oxygen levels, and releasing noxious gases into the water and atmosphere.

Closed-Containment Systems
Closed-containment systems utilize an impenetrable barrier that separates the farmed fish from the outside environment. A closed system prevents the transmission of diseases and parasites, eliminates issues with escapement, requires fewer chemicals, and uses less feed. Another benefit is the waste gets treated within the system instead of being pumped into the ocean. Living Oceans has been engaged in the development of sustainable standards for aquaculture practices and says that while this type of system is on the rise, its use is limited due to its high cost of investment and the production costs per fish.

We suggest you avoid purchasing farmed salmon from open net pen farms due to their negative environmental impacts and health drawbacks. If sustainably-caught wild salmon is not an option, we suggest you only choose salmon farmed in a closed-containment system, and from a reputable source with a recognized certification program.

Types of Salmon: What are my choices?

There are six species of salmon that you are likely to encounter at the fish market or backyard barbecue.

Chinook (King) O. tshawytscha
Wild Sources: CA, OR, WA, B.C., AK. Some populations in CA, OR, and WA are listed as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)
Fresh Seasonal Availability: April through September.
Qualities: Has the highest amount of Omega-3 fatty acids of all the salmon species. Flesh ranges from off white to red/orange.

Coho (Silver) O.kisutch
Wild Sources: CA, OR, WA, B.C., AK. CA and OR stocks are classified as Threatened under the E.S.A.
Fresh Seasonal Availability: July through October.
Qualities: Similar to Chinook in flavor, their flesh is firmly textured and ranges from deep red to pinkish orange.

Sockeye (Red) O. nerka
Wild Sources: B.C., AK. Alaska accounts for 73% of all sockeye salmon caught.
Fresh Seasonal Availability: May through September.
Qualities: Bright, deep orange flesh with high fat content. Very popular for canning and smoking.

Pink (Humpback) O. gorbuscha
Wild Sources: Commercially fished from Washington up to Alaska.
Fresh Seasonal Availability: July and August.
Qualities: Milder in flavor, the flesh is pink, lean, and finely textured. Widely used for canning or sold whole at bargain prices.

Chum (Keta or Dog) O. keta
Wild Sources: Commercially fished from Washington up to Alaska.
Fresh Seasonal Availability: June through October.
Qualities: Sometimes labelled as “Keta.” If caught in the ocean, they will have reddish flesh and be called “silver brites” which are higher in price than those labelled “semi-brites” or “darks” which have paler flesh. Usually sold as salmon burgers or sausages.

Steelhead (Chrome) O. mykiss
Wild Sources: Avoid purchasing steelhead marketed as “wild.” Most, if not all steelhead found in markets is farmed. Some farmed steelhead have chemicals added to their feed and get their meat color from synthetic carotenoid pigment.
Fresh Seasonal Availability: Farmed year round.
Qualities: The flesh is usually bright red and rich or pink to white, depending on their diet.

What about GMO Salmon?

While the World Health Organization, American Medical Association, and National Academy of Sciences have all determined that GMO food is not hazardous to human health, eat GMO salmon at your own risk. Wild Salmon Center is concerned about the environmental risks and implications of genetically modified salmon in the wild. And that is why we do favor labeling GMO foods.

Eating Salmon: What are the health benefits?

Salmon is a mighty powerful superfood. Packed with marine-derived Omega-3s, salmon also contains significant amounts of vitamin D, A, E, B6 and B12, niacin, and riboflavin. The American Heart Association recommends eating fish (particularly fatty fish) at least two times a week.

Salmon can contribute to a healthy heart by:

• Lowering triglycerides and cholesterol levels
• Contributing Omega-3s to maintain healthy arteries and veins
• Strengthening cardiac muscles and repairing cardiovascular tissues

Salmon can contribute to a healthy brain by:

• Promoting mood related signals and optimal brain function
• Reducing the risk of depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and dementia

Wild Salmon Recipes

Here are two recipes from award-winning cookbook author Diane Morgan and her book Salmon: Everything You Need to Know + 45 Recipes. Click the recipe titles for the downloadable PDF versions. 

Salmon a La Plancha with Citrus-Dill-Vodka Marinade

• 1 whole side of salmon, about
• 3 lb [1.4 kg], skin on and scaled, pin bones removed
• 1/4 cup [60 ml] extra-virgin
• olive oil, plus more for rubbing
• 2 Tbsp vodka
• Grated zest of 1 lemon, plus
• 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• You will also need:
• Plancha (large, rectangular griddle)

Remove the salmon from the refrigerator 30 minutes before grilling to bring it to room temperature. Pat dry  with paper towels.

Prepare a medium-hot fire  in a charcoal grill or preheat a gas grill to medium-high.In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, vodka, lemon zest, lemon juice, dill, salt, and pepper and mix  well  to form a marinade.

Place the salmon, flesh-side down, on  a large, rimmed baking sheet. Rub the skin generously with olive oil. Turn the salmon over, flesh-side up, and pour the marinade evenly over the top. Set  aside while the grill heats.

When ready to grill, place the plancha on  the grill grate directly over the fire  and cover the grill. After 10 minutes, the plancha should be smoking hot. (If your plancha is well seasoned, there is no need to oil the surface. If it is new, brush it with oil to be sure the skin of the fish won’t stick.) Uncover the grill, transfer the salmon, skin-side down, to the plancha, and re-cover the grill. Grill  the salmon, without turning it, until it is almost opaque throughout but still very  moist, or an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers 115° to 120°F [45° to 49°C], 15 to 20 minutes, depending on  the thickness of the fillet.

Using two  long spatulas, transfer the salmon to a warmed platter. Serve the whole side of salmon on  the platter family- style, or cut the salmon into individual portions and transfer to warmed dinner plates. (I let the plancha cool down in place,or use tongs, heatproof gloves, or the spatulas to move the plancha to a heatproof surface to cool.)

Broiled Sesame Salmon Bibimap

SALMON

• One 12-oz [340-g] salmon fillet, skin on and scaled, pin bones removed
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup [60 ml] mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine)
• 1 tsp peeled and finely grated fresh ginger
• 1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
• 1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

VEGETABLES

• Fine sea salt
• 4 oz [115 g] bean sprouts
• 8 oz [230 g] baby spinach
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp Asian sesame oil
• 2 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
• 4 tsp grapeseed or other neutral oil
• 8 oz [230 g] shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps cut into thin strips
• 4 tsp mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine)
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks

BIBIMBAP SAUCE

• 1/4 cup [60 ml] gochujang (Korean chile bean sauce) or Chinese chile bean sauce
• 2 Tbsp water
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 4 tsp Asian sesame oil
• 2 tsp unseasoned rice vinegar
• 4 cups hot steamed rice
• wok-fried eggs (optional)

1. TO PREPARE THE SALMON: Place the fillet in a nonreactive pan just large enough to hold it. In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, vinegar, mirin, ginger, sesame seeds, and pepper and mix well. Pour the marinade over the salmon, then turn the salmon to coat all sides. (Alternatively, place the salmon in a freezer-strength lock-top plastic bag, pour in the marinade, press to remove any air from the bag, and seal tightly. Turn the bag to coat the salmon on all sides with the marinade.) Marinate the salmon at room temperature for at least 30 min­utes but no more than 1 hour.
2. MEANWHILE, PREPARE THE VEGETABLES: Fill a large saucepan two-thirds full of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add 1 tsp salt and then add the bean sprouts and cook for 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the sprouts to a colander to drain. Blot the sprouts with paper towels and transfer to a small bowl.
3. Add the spinach to the same boiling water and cook just until bright green and wilted, about 1 minute. Drain the spinach in the colander and place under cold running water to stop the cooking. Shake off the excess water. When the spinach is cool, squeeze out the excess liquid and transfer the spinach to a medium bowl.
4. Toss the sprouts with 1/2 tsp of the soy sauce and 1/4 tsp of the sesame oil. Set aside. Toss the spinach with 1 tsp of the soy sauce, 1/4 tsp of the sesame oil, and the sesame seeds. Set aside.
5. In a wok or a large, deep frying pan, heat 2 tsp of the grapeseed oil over high heat and swirl to coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Add the mushrooms and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add 2 tsp of the mirin, 1/4 tsp of the sesame oil, and the remaining 1/2 tsp soy sauce. Stir-fry until the mushrooms are browned and softened, about 2 minutes longer. Transfer to a plate. Add the remaining 2 tsp grapeseed oil to the pan over high heat and swirl to coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Add the carrots and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt and the remaining 2 tsp mirin and 1/4 tsp sesame oil. Stir-fry until crisp-tender, about 1 minute longer. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
6. TO MAKE THE SAUCE: In a small bowl, combine the gochujang, water, sugar, sesame oil, and vinegar and mix well. Set aside until ready to serve.
7. Position an oven rack 3 to 4 in [7.5 to 10 cm] from the heat source and preheat the broiler. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Remove the salmon from the marinade, wiping off any excess. Place the salmon, skin-side down, on the prepared baking sheet.
8. Broil the salmon until it begins to color, about 3 minutes. Turn the salmon skin-side up and cook until almost opaque throughout but still very moist, or an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers 115° to 120°F [45° to 49°C], 3 to 4 minutes longer. (Don’t worry if the skin starts to char; it will be removed before serving.)
9. Remove the salmon from the broiler. Lift off the skin and discard it or chop some of the crispy pieces and reserve for garnishing the bowls. Cut the salmon into four equal portions.
10. Divide the rice evenly among warmed bowls. Top each serving of rice with a portion of salmon, arranging it to one side of the bowl. Arrange the vegetables—bean sprouts, spinach, mush­rooms, carrots—in individual mounds around the sides of the bowl. Slip in a wok-fried egg, if desired. Spoon some of the sauce onto the center of each bowl and garnish with some crisp salmon skin, if you like. Serve immediately.

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