mmccombs's review
It was just getting overly repetitive and it was almost due at the library so… maybe I’ll return to it but probably not.
lunmione's review
informative
medium-paced
3.0
at one point this book includes the extremely unfounded and harmful idea that eating farm salmon can cause autism. so there's that!
in the spirit of fairness i will say that this book has a lot of well made points and helpful information, and the writing makes what can be a hard and dense subject understandable and interesting. despite that, the inclusion of the autism thing really downgrades any credibility i might have given it before. also, while i don't think bias in reporting is always a bad thing (false equivalency is a serious issue) i think this book could benefit from toning down how aggressive it is in it's beginning. ease ppl into a thing. there is also a certain amount of repetition.
in the spirit of fairness i will say that this book has a lot of well made points and helpful information, and the writing makes what can be a hard and dense subject understandable and interesting. despite that, the inclusion of the autism thing really downgrades any credibility i might have given it before. also, while i don't think bias in reporting is always a bad thing (false equivalency is a serious issue) i think this book could benefit from toning down how aggressive it is in it's beginning. ease ppl into a thing. there is also a certain amount of repetition.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Animal cruelty
johnsonsm1's review against another edition
I need to read the physical copy so I can actually pay attention.
ava23's review
5.0
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book via Goodreads giveaway.
I'm blown away by the amount of information I learned from this book. I had briefly heard about the problems with the salmon farming industry over the last few years, most recently while watching Boston Legal on Hulu. When I read the description for this book, I was hooked and immediately wanted to read it.
My copy of this book is marked up with green highlighter. There's so much information to unpack while reading. There was no way I could have gotten through without marking up the important parts.
It's disturbing to read about the inhumane treatment of animals, including fish. This book did a great job of exposing the horrific lives farmed salmon lead. The authors did this in a way so as not to harp too much on whether or not their treatment is ethical. They give you the facts. Even though I believe that fish shouldn't be farmed in this way at all, and I am completely against factory farms, I enjoyed the way the authors laid out the facts without getting muddled in personal preferences. They backed up any opinions they did share with studies. I also appreciate that when describing the physical deformities these fish can have, the authors didn't include photos. I don't think I would have been able to get through the book had that been included.
At times, I couldn't (and didn't want to) believe what I was reading. It terrifies me to know that I've blindly consumed salmon for years and had no idea about the harmful chemicals that came with those meals. And yes, you can go into a supermarket and find salmon that is marked as "organic." But did you know what the US has no standard for what that entails? It seems that any company can claim their salmon is organic regardless of what it was fed, where it was raised, or what chemicals were used on it. And yes, you can find salmon that is labeled as "wild caught." However, studies have shown that most of this salmon is actually produced in salmon farms. Only 10% of salmon is actually wild.
I learned so much from this book. If you're on the fence about whether to pick up a copy, I would suggest reading it. Unless you've done extensive research on salmon farming, I'm sure there's something you will learn in this book.
No, I will not be eating salmon in the near future. There will have to be major changes in this industry before I go near salmon again.
I'm blown away by the amount of information I learned from this book. I had briefly heard about the problems with the salmon farming industry over the last few years, most recently while watching Boston Legal on Hulu. When I read the description for this book, I was hooked and immediately wanted to read it.
My copy of this book is marked up with green highlighter. There's so much information to unpack while reading. There was no way I could have gotten through without marking up the important parts.
It's disturbing to read about the inhumane treatment of animals, including fish. This book did a great job of exposing the horrific lives farmed salmon lead. The authors did this in a way so as not to harp too much on whether or not their treatment is ethical. They give you the facts. Even though I believe that fish shouldn't be farmed in this way at all, and I am completely against factory farms, I enjoyed the way the authors laid out the facts without getting muddled in personal preferences. They backed up any opinions they did share with studies. I also appreciate that when describing the physical deformities these fish can have, the authors didn't include photos. I don't think I would have been able to get through the book had that been included.
At times, I couldn't (and didn't want to) believe what I was reading. It terrifies me to know that I've blindly consumed salmon for years and had no idea about the harmful chemicals that came with those meals. And yes, you can go into a supermarket and find salmon that is marked as "organic." But did you know what the US has no standard for what that entails? It seems that any company can claim their salmon is organic regardless of what it was fed, where it was raised, or what chemicals were used on it. And yes, you can find salmon that is labeled as "wild caught." However, studies have shown that most of this salmon is actually produced in salmon farms. Only 10% of salmon is actually wild.
I learned so much from this book. If you're on the fence about whether to pick up a copy, I would suggest reading it. Unless you've done extensive research on salmon farming, I'm sure there's something you will learn in this book.
No, I will not be eating salmon in the near future. There will have to be major changes in this industry before I go near salmon again.
carabones's review
informative
slow-paced
3.75
I won this book in a giveaway and stuck with reading it, despite some early apprehensions about the reporting style and repetitiveness. SALMON WARS addresses the global industry of open-net farming for Atlantic salmon, which the authors call "America's favorite fish." Being from the PNW, where we are lucky to have access to sustainably fished wild-caught Pacific salmon, I don't often think about Atlantic salmon, but I was interested to read about how this issue has even come to Puget Sound, where salmon farms are now banned after previous disasters. Despite lots of info in this book, I came away feeling that many of the big-picture issues were glossed over in favor of a series of case studies -- not my personal favorite style of nonfiction, but it works for this important exposé.
More...