A U.S. farm is raising market-ready salmon that have never dipped a fin into the ocean. One company, Atlantic Sapphire, offers a shining, even glaring, example of what B.C.’s salmon farming industry says it cannot do — raise commercially viable salmon on land instead of the sea.

Read an excerpt from the story in The Narwhal:

Damien Claire stands inside an industrial complex on the outskirts of Miami, watching thousands of salmon fry dart this way and that in a circular tank. At nine weeks old, the youngsters are the size of paperclips and learning to feed. Instinctively, they school, turning into a swirling dark ball in the lime green light. 

Claire wears a bright safety vest and a white hardhat stamped with the logo of the company he works for, Atlantic Sapphire. It’s a brand that pops up frequently these days in seafood industry publications with names like Salmon Business and Intrafish. 

Founded by two Norwegian cousins with an environmental ethos, Atlantic Sapphire got its start in Hvide Sande, a windswept Danish fishing village on the North Sea, where the company raised small batches of market-ready salmon that never dipped a fin in the ocean or a river. Today, the company is poised to become the largest producer of land-based Atlantic salmon in the world.

Read the full story in The Narwhal

Illustration by Carol Linnitt