Forty-thousand young salmon are swimming free in San Francisco Bay this week after someone cut the netting of their cramped holding pens.

© Robert Koopmans | iStockphoto.com

The salmon were being held in 25-foot-by-16-foot-by-8-foot pens, and with 20,000 to a pen, this means that there were more than six 10-inch fish per cubic foot. Fish kept in such crowded conditions often suffer from severe injuries, and in such filthy conditions they are also susceptible to parasites that can eat their faces down to the bone. On fish farms, as many as 40 percent of the fish die before they are even scheduled for slaughter.

Farming salmon—for commercial use or for enhanced angling opportunities—also depletes the ocean of other fish. It can take more than 5 pounds of ocean fish to produce just 1 pound of salmon.

Do fish a favor, and leave them in the water where they belong. Enjoy a day on a boat or hiking near a creek without hurting animals, and leave fish off your plate with delicious faux-seafood recipes.

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan

A new bill in Congress would allow the National Marine Fisheries Service to shoot any sea lion they spot doing the unthinkable—eating. When salmon migrate up the Columbia River from Oregon to Washington, some sea lions use the opportunity to grab a couple of meals. That doesn't sit well with anglers and the fishing industry, who want to grab more than a couple, so both states started "removing" the sea lions in 2007 until a lawsuit filed by animal protectionists put a stop to those shenanigans. Now sea lions are facing the firing squad again, although human beings are still allowed to catch salmon from the Columbia River.

Salmon have been driven to the brink of extinction not by sea lions but by humans, who continue to gobble up fish despite the widespread collapse of fish populations. During the past 50 years, 90 percent of fish populations worldwide have been decimated, thanks to the increasing use of factory fishing trawlers that vacuum up everything—and everyone—in their path. It is estimated that the oceans' fish stocks will be completely depleted by 2050. Fish farms aren't the answer, either, since it takes 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce 1 pound of farmed fish and the pollution and cruelty of these factory fish farms are now well known.

You can help by keeping salmon and other fish off your plate and by contacting your legislators and asking them not to support legislation allowing the killing of sea lions.

Written by Michelle Sherrow