S3E7: Navigating Salmon

Salmon are increasingly intensively farmed and implicated in biosecurity concerns, but they are also animals with amazing biological and social worlds who can achieve incredible feats pf strength and navigation. This content was originally aired in Season 5 of The Animal Turn Podcast.

 Featured: 

• Politics of Domestication with Chi Mao Wang on The Animal Turn.
• Shoalmates with Jonathan Balcombe on The Animal Turn. 
• What a Fish Knows by Jonathan Balcombe
• Super Fly by Jonathan Balcombe
• Kontihnawa:ra: Atlantic Salmon on Stones 
• Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate by Mark Kurlansky 
• Collective Navigation can Facilitate Passage Through Human-Made Barriers by Homeward Migrating Pacific Salmon by Connie Okasaki et al 
• Breeding with Farmed Fish is Changing the Life Cycle of Wild Salmon by Adam Vaughan
• Seaspiracy

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, producer and host 
• Amanda Bunten-Walberg, co-host
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer 
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here. 

Support the podcast via: 

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn 
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• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/ 

Sponsor:

Thank you to the sponsors of the fifth season of The Animal Turn podcast, “Animals and Biosecurity,” where this animal highlight was originally a

A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

Biosecurities Research Collective
The Biosecurities and Urban Governance Research brings together scholars interested in biosecurity.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:26 What a Fish Knows
• 3:05 Salmon and Biosecurity
• 4:10 Salmon Navigators
• 8:00 Adaptable Salmon
• 15:47 Credits

Transcript

00:00 - Introduction 

• Welcome to Season 3 of The Animal Highlight, extracted from Season 5 of The Animal Turn Podcast (focused on Animals and Biosecurity). 
• We are focused on the animals that are caught up in biosecurity dramas. 
• My co-host this season is Amanda Bunten-Walberg who at the time of the recording was a PhD candidate at Queen’s University interested in questions related more-than-human ethics especially in contagion contexts, using bats and COVID19 as her focus.  
• Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law, and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) and the Biosecurities and Urban Governance Research Collective sponsored the season of The Animal Turn where this content was extracted from. 
• This season had several technical and sound issues.
• This episode considers salmon and the different experiences they have in the wild and in faming operations.  

01:26 – What a Fish Knows

• Check out the book What a Fish Knows by Jonathan Balcombe, his most recent book Super Fly also offers a well researched account of animals.
• Great interview with Jonathan Balcombe on The Animal Turn Podcast.  

03:05 – Salmon and Biosecurity

• Salmon are increasingly farmed in large scale operations. 
• Salmon who escape from farms are often framed as infected agents who contaminate the purity of environments. 
• Discourses often overlook the exploitative circumstances from which the fish are escaping. 

04:10 – Salmon Navigators

• Typically carry out migratory journeys that require incredible navigation skills and adaptability. 
• Navigate complex environments using multiple methods. They rely on geo-magnetic sensing and their incredible sense of smell. They might rely on the sub, their vision and other social dynamics. 

08:00 – Adaptable Salmon

• Swim against the current and have to avoid predators. 
•  Many of them have to leap up waterfalls to get to where they are going. 
• Seem to achieve the impossible. 
• Their skin changes colour at different points in their lives. Sockeye salmon are blue with speckles in the ocean but when they travel in rivers they are bright red. They can adjust their bio-chemistry. 
• Local history of salmon in Kingston, there are geographical and historical variations. 
• Seaspiracy and the changing colour of salmon skin and how farming makes their flesh this dull grey. 

15:47 - Credits

• Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law, and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring the podcast and the Biosecurities and Urban Governance Research Collective for sponsoring the season of The Animal Turn where this content was extracted from. 
• A big thank you to Amanda Bunten-Walberg for co-hosting this season of The Animal Highlight
• This episode was produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and edited by Christiaan Mentz. 
• The logo and episode artwork were created by Rebecca Shen. 
• Show notes compiled by Claudia Hirtenfelder
• Please rate and review wherever you listen.