DATE & TIME

Monday July 25th, 2022
6 pm PDT | 9 pm EST

VIRTUAL EVENT HOSTED BY

Elliot Bay Book Company, elliottbaybookcompany.com

The event is FREE to attend. Click below to register and receive a Zoom link to join the event or to purchase a hardcopy of ‘Salmon Wars’ from Elliott Bay Book Company.

Interested in purchasing ‘Salmon Wars’ as an ebook or audiobook?

EVENT INFORMATION

You’re invited! Next week, Wild Fish Conservancy is thrilled to be leading a discussion with award-winning journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, authors of the newly published book, ‘Salmon Wars: The Dark Underbelly of Our Favorite Fish’; a deep dive into the murky waters of the international salmon farming industry.

Frantz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent, and Collins, a former private investigator, began work on this book after learning about the environmental danger of ocean salmon farming at a public meeting near their home in Nova Scotia. Through stories, fact-based research, and previously undisclosed documents, Frantz and Collins’ newest book does an exceptional job illustrating the ecological harm caused by commercial open water net pen aquaculture, demonstrating the systemic failure of governments around the world to safely regulate this industry, and exposing industry propaganda and efforts to discredit critics and undermine environmentalists.

Global seafood giant Cooke Aquaculture is prominently featured throughout the book as a case study for the industry, highlighting the company’s poor environmental record throughout the world. The book devotes several chapters to Cooke’s history of violations here in Washington State, including the catastrophic Cypress Island collapse event that released 260,000 nonnative, viral-infected fish into Puget Sound in 2017.

Monday’s discussion on the book will be led by Wild Fish Conservancy’s co-founder Kurt Beardslee who was interviewed for the book and had the opportunity to share the history of this harmful industry in Washington State, including WFC’s lawsuit holding Cooke accountable for $2.75 million in Clean Water Act Violations, Washington’s landmark law banning nonnative finfish aquaculture, and the inspiring and effective social movement being led by the public to protect Puget Sound and end this harmful practice in our public waters.

We could not be more thankful to Doug and Catherine for this inspiring, well-researched, and refreshingly honest book sharing stories from communities around the world fighting tooth and nail to protect their marine ecosystems from this dangerous industry. The book, published last week, is already receiving critical acclaim, including being nominated by Bloomberg as a top 10 best book for your summer reading list. ‘Salmon Wars’ will undoubtedly play a major role in raising awareness about the alarming truths underpinning the salmon farming industry, galvanizing global communities to get involved in local efforts to protect their homewaters, and will help guide the public to make healthier and environmental sound consumer choices.

We would encourage all our supporters to consider attending this upcoming event and to share information about this book with others in your community who care about wild fish and the health of our oceans.

Join WFC and Elliott Bay Book Company next Monday July 25th at 6 pm PST (9 pm EST) for a virtual discussion with Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins by registering for this free event below.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins have written books together about topics ranging from Disney’s planned utopia in Florida and the Holocaust at sea to nuclear weapons trafficking. None was more important than Salmon Wars, an urgent plea for consumers and governments to respond to the health and environmental consequences resulting from the industrialization of Atlantic salmon.

 Frantz spent 37 years as a newspaper editor and reporter, sharing a Pulitzer Prize at The New York Times and serving as managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. After leaving journalism, he was chief investigator for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama administration, and Deputy Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Collins was a reporter and prize-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and contributed to The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Upon leaving her newspaper career, she became a private investigator specializing in international financial fraud and corruption.

They began work on Salmon Wars in January 2020 after hearing about the environmental dangers of salmon farming at a public meeting near their home in Nova Scotia. In two years of intensive research that followed, they uncovered new documents illustrating the danger posed by open-net salmon farms to wild salmon and other marine life. They peeled away the industry propaganda to disclose campaigns to discredit critics and undermine environmentalists. They interviewed scientists and medical practitioners who detailed the health risks from eating farmed salmon, particularly for children and pregnant women. And, in a hopeful development, they met people trying to raise salmon in sustainable, environmentally friendly ways on land. Salmon Wars is about more than just a fish. It is about how the choices we make affect our health and the health of our oceans.

“Erin Brockovich meets Wicked Tuna in this searing exposé…. This stellar investigation is the rare one that has the power to impact policymakers and consumers alike.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“We have been growing crops unsustainably on the land for at least 100 years. Now we are making the same mistakes with agriculture in our oceans. The criminal multinational fishing corporations and their complicit politicians are actively harming the marine environment and pushing their toxic product to unaware consumers. After reading Salmon Wars, I doubt you will choose to eat net pen farmed salmon again.”

Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia

“Salmon Wars is a deep dive into the damage caused by current fish-farming methods to ocean environments, wild fish and their habitats, and the farmed fish themselves. It is also an account of the dismal failure of governments to stop such practices. Salmon farming needs reform. Until it gets it, read this book, and you will never eat farmed salmon again.”

Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, emerita, at New York University and author of What to Eat