Salmon farming affects the fatty acid composition and taste of wild saithe Pollachius virens L.

• Main Authors: Tor-Einar Skog, Ketil Hylland, Bente E Torstensen, Marc H G Berntssen
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Norway; Northern Norway
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1088.1224; http://www.acc.umu.se/%7Esvanberg/skrifter/Salmon%20farming%20affects%20the%20fatty%20acid%20composition%20and%20taste%20of%20wild%20saithe%20Pollachius%20virens%20L.pdf

Abstract There is an ongoing controversy on whether ¢sh farming a¡ects the quality of wild ¢sh in fjords. In northern Norway, local people prefer not to eat saithe, Pollachius virens L., from areas in the vicinity of ¢sh farms because they say the taste is inferior to saithe from other areas. To address this issue, saithe were collected in the vicinity of a salmon ¢sh farm in a fjord in northern Norway and in two reference areas: one site 6 km away from the nearest ¢sh farm in the same fjord, and the other in a fjord nearby with no ¢sh farms. The objective of this study was to clarify whether the physiology or taste of saithe near ¢sh farms di¡ers from saithe in areas with no or limited in£uence from ¢sh farms. The ¢sh collected near farms were larger than those from control sites of the same age and had been eating pellets. Analysis of fatty acid composition of the ¢llet indicated that ¢sh collected near the farms had fatty acid pro¢les that resembled that of pellets more than ¢sh from reference sites. The results suggest that there were individual di¡erences in the time spent near cages for saithe collected near the farm, and that saithe collected at the reference area in the same fjord had also been eating pellets, i.e. had visited at least one of the ¢sh farms in the fjord. In a sensory test, the test panel found that saithe from the fjord without ¢sh farms tasted better than saithe collected near the cages. The test panel found no clear di¡erences in taste between saithe collected near the ¢sh farm and saithe from the same fjord, but 6 km from the nearest ¢sh farm.