Feedlots of the Sea: Movement Frames and Activist Claims in the Protest over Salmon Farming in the Pacific Northwest

In the face of declining oceanic fisheries throughout the world, industrial aquaculture and corporate fish farming have become the fastest growing sector of the global food industry, accounting for nearly half of all the fish and shellfish consumed by humans today. Despite its contribution to food production, however, the rapid growth of aquaculture has launched an anti-fish farming movement composed of scientists, environmental NGOs, fishers, native peoples, and coastal residents who oppose the industry's negative socio-environmental effects on marine habitats, indigenous fish stocks and cultures, as well as commercial and recreational fisheries. This article examines the growing environmental controversy over the collapse of wild salmon populations and the rise of salmon farming production in the Pacific Northwest, as well as the negative impacts of the aquaculture industry on the region. Drawing on movement literature and documents, as well as interviews with local stakeholder activists in Washington State and British Columbia, I provide a qualitative analysis of the collective action frames of the anti-salmon farming movement and the degree to which the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames identified in movement discourse are aligned with the individual frames of movement activists. I conclude with some sociological implications of these findings for the usefulness of frame analysis research, the dynamics of the protest over salmon farming, and the future direction of ocean aquaculture and wild salmon.