Salmon, Sea Lice and Boston Legal

I didn't get a chance to watch last night's episode of Boston Legal (which addressed salmon farming and sea lice infestations of wild salmon caused by farming) -- thanks to Michelle Novi at the National Environmental Trust for tipping me off to it, and for passing along news on the reactions to it:

Tonight's episode of Boston Legal continues to make waves first in Canada and now here at home.

The Canadian government has pulled print ads promoting tourism to British Columbia in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

And now, the industry trade association for farmed salmon, Salmon of the Americas (SOTA), has half-page ads scheduled to appear tomorrow in the New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, and the San Francisco Chronicle. View the ad here. The ad incorrectly claims wild salmon population are rising, yet their very own web site says differently:

Wild Pacific and Atlantic salmon in the lower 48 states and Canada have seen significant declines over the last several decades, starting long before salmon farming operations occurred. All the evidence points to the fact that the declines were caused by a combination of climate change, over-fishing and freshwater-habitat destruction.

An article appearing in today's Intrafish reports on this ad blitz. In the article, Alex Trent, Executive Director of SOTA said, "what we care about in this show is not so much the direct impact on consumers. The show, after all, is fiction. What weÂ’re really most concerned about is the thousand or so viewers who are food influencers or journalists who might take this message and put it together with other inaccurate information and rebroadcast."

So instead they're repackaging with their own inaccurate information and rebroadcasting it to the press.

Anyone catch the show last night? Reactions?

Categories: television, boston legal, salmon, farming, sea lice