The SALMON FARM PROTEST GROUP Press Release TUESDAY 15th October 2002

The SALMON FARM PROTEST GROUP

IMMEDIATE RELEASE (TUESDAY 15th October 2002):

The Salmon Farm Protest Group (SFPG) today (Tuesday 15th October) unveiled a new web-site - 'The Salmon Farm Monitor' – providing public information (including photos, posters and articles) on factory farmed salmon:
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/

See below for full press release: "Catch the Salmon Farm Protest on the Net - Web site launched for protest on 26th October outside over 200 supermarkets in 80 towns, villages and cities across Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland"

1) Catch the Salmon Farm Protest on the Net - Web site launched for protest on 26th October outside over 200 supermarkets in 80 towns, villages and cities across Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland:
Salmon Farm Protest Group, 15th October
2) Murky fish: The Observer Food Monthly, October
3) United front is lifeline for fish farmers: Scotland on Sunday, 13th October
4) Row over fish farm protest: The Press and Journal, 7th October
5) Farmed salmon can't beat wild: USA Today, 7th October
6) Research commentary - two studies compare levels of contaminants in farmed versus wild salmon: The Ribbon, Early Fall 2002
7) Frankenfish - the trouble with engineered salmon: Minneapolis Star Tribune, 28th September
8) Fish food: WCBS, 18th September

"Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents most of Scotland's fish farmers, is drawing up plans to hit back against the protest....A spokesman for the SQS said: 'Fish farmers are already on the defensive over the latest report to hit the industry, claiming sea lice from salmon cages were infecting wild stocks. We are planning what to do about the protest, but we refute the allegations extremely strongly'." (From the Press and Journal, 7th October: 'Row Over Fish-Farming Protest')

Immediate Release from The Salmon Farm Protest Group, Tuesday 15th October 2002

Catch the Salmon Farm Protest on the Net

Web site launched for protest on 26th October outside over 200 supermarkets in 80 towns, villages and cities across Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland

The Salmon Farm Protest Group (SFPG) today (Tuesday 15th October) unveiled a new web-site - 'The Salmon Farm Monitor' – providing public information (including photos, posters and articles) on factory farmed salmon:
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/

The launch follows a flood of public support for a farmed salmon protest on Saturday 26th October outside over 200 supermarkets (including Tesco, Sainsbury's, Marks and Spencer and Safeway) in over 80 towns and cities across Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland (see below for the latest list).
Bruce Sandison (photo available on the web-site), chairman of the SFPG and organiser of the protest, said:

"Offers of support are still flooding in from across Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland and from as far away as Canada, Iceland, Germany and Chile. The Salmon Farm Protest on Saturday 26th October in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness, Oxford, London, Dublin and around 80 other towns, villages and cities is hopefully only the start of an international boycott of farmed salmon. Anglers, environmentalists and consumers have all had enough of supermarkets making vast profits out of unsafe, unhealthy, unlabelled farmed salmon"

The Salmon Farm Monitor web-site (http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org) contains:

A poster on "Why you shouldn't eat farmed salmon" (can be downloaded directly)

A mission statement by Bruce Sandison (pictured outside Marks and Spencer’s in Inverness)

Questions and answers on salmon farming problems (including: "Is it true that supermarket salmon can contain pesticide residues?", "How do fish farmers make farm salmon flesh pink?" and "What is the difference between wild and farmed salmon?")

Links including Ecotrust's new cartoon book "What's behind that farmed salmon steak?"

Forthcoming additions will include news links, press articles and exact details of
supermarkets to be targeted on Saturday 26th October. The latest list includes:
Aberdeen, Aberfeldy, Aultbea, Aberwstyth, Avoch, Ayr,
Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bishopbriggs, Blackburn, Boat of Garten, Bognar Regis, Bowling, Bristol, Broadford, Bury, Camborne, Castleton, Chelmsford, Chepstow, Clydebank, Colinsbugh, Colne,

Darlington, Dover,Dublin, Dumfries, Dumbarton, Dunfermline, Edinburgh, Elgin,
Forfar, FortWilliam,
Gairloch, Glasgow, Grantown on Spey, Guisburn, ,
Hamilton, Harrow,
Inverness,
Keighly, Kirkwall, Kirriemuir,
Lerwick, Langholm, Leicester, London,
Manningtree, Milngavie, Morcambe, Muir of Ord,
Nelson, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newport, Newton Stewart,
Oxford,
Peebles, Penicuik, Pershore, Pontefract, Portree, Plymouth,
Reading, Runcorn, Rutherglen,
St Asaph, Salisbury, Sheffield, Skipton, Sonning, Stirling, Stromness, Swindon,
Telford, Tetsworth, Thurso, Troon,
Ullapool,
Waterville, Westerfield, Wick, Widnes, Woodbridge,
York.

To register support (a message board will be posted later this week), to be put in touch with contacts in your local area (locations of protests so far are detailed above),

or for further information please contact the Salmon Farm Protest Group:
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/contact.html

The Observer Food Monthly, October 2002

Caroline Boucher on....murky fish
Hundreds of anglers will be handing out leaflets outside supermarkets on 26 October explaining why you shouldn't buy farmed salmon. Apart from the slimy texture and lack of taste, salmon reared on fish farms are kept in such cramped conditions they are often surrounded by their own excrement and covered in sea lice.

When they escape into the wild they take their parasites with them and, by crossbreeding with the wild salmon, they cause genetic pollution by decreasing the fitness of the wild population.