Attention disgust alarm

Are we now facing the zombie salmon apocalypse?

Is this what the salmon that ends up on our plates looks like? Animal rights activists are horrified!(Bild: Instagram@veigagretarsdottir, Facebook@Björk)

In Iceland, two large corporations are breeding millions of salmon and boast that they are revitalizing the region. However, critics are sounding the alarm. The fish are degenerating - and threatening the existence of wild stocks.

These are scenes that look like something out of a bad movie: Fish that look like carcasses but are still swimming around alive. Their faces are eaten away by sea lice and bacteria. Nevertheless, they end up in the net and then on our plates. A few people earn millions from this, as reported by the German magazine "Der Spiegel". While the "good" salmon is lost as a result.

The whole discussion began with a picture of a "zombie salmon" in Iceland, shared by activist Veiga Grétarsdóttir. Last fall alone, workers there are said to have taken around one million "zombie salmon" from the sea in just a few days. The majority of them were dead or near death. As a result, they were returned to a fish farm. According to Der Spiegel, thousands of farmed animals escape from there into the open sea and then invade the territories of wild salmon.

Many protests shake the country
The fish farm salmon is polarizing. Many citizens are afraid that sick and fatty farmed animals will cause damage to the ecosystem and displace wild salmon. In the capital Reykjavik, people are now taking to the barricades - two thirds of people are now opposed to the farming. Even a song has been dedicated to the fish by singers Björk and Rosalia:

"We are modernizing the Icelandic economy," emphasizes Bjørn Hembre, Managing Director of Arnarlax, the market leader in Icelandic salmon farming.

Hembre explains that his company wants to meet the rapidly increasing demand for salmon. According to the managing director, the fish are prepared for the sea in a darkened hall for a year. They are then taken out to sea and kept in nets. However, many zombie salmon escape. And thus endanger the "natural" salmon in the wild. Incidentally, 70 percent of farmed salmon are now said to come from farms.

Semi-automated fish slaughterhouse 
Hembre explains that his company has a semi-automated fish slaughterhouse. This has a machine for killing fish and a high-tech device that uses a kind of vacuum cleaner to remove all the innards from the animals. Animals pass by on rubber belts and are sorted out by the workers. According to the information provided, there are six different categories, each of which is decided by a metal button - including "machine error", "wounded" and "deformed". Well then: meal time!