Why is eating Copper River wild salmon better for you and more sustainable than eating farmed-raised salmon?

Most pellet food used to raise farmed-fish come from harvest of pelagic wild stock fish in the Pacific Ocean off of Chile and Peru. Pellets are extruded from the reduced fish and additives such as wheat are used to bind the pellets. Before WWII, fish feed consisted of horse meat!(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_fish_feed)

Today's farmed-raised fish are also given hormones, anti-biotics, and dyes. Dyes are added to make the flesh appear more "wild-like", hormones to make them grow faster, and anti-biotics to prevent disease from the crowded, high-density, pen-raised environments. 

See the Difference!

In February2O16, I ventured into a large nationwide-chain grocery market in Oregon to see the salmon for sale there. On the left is FRESH farmed Atlantic salmon from Canada. Dyes were added to make the flesh look more orange in color like wild salmon, on right. Without the dye added, the farmed-raised salmon flesh would be off-white in color. Note the high amount of white fat between the muscle tissue and the gaping and bruising in the flesh.

In the frozen Wild Pacific Sockeye salmon on the right, the flesh is firm with very little fat between the muscle fiber because wild fish have been swimming naturally, cage-free. 

The quality and appearance of nine month-old Frozen Wild salmon is far superior to that of days-old Fresh farmed salmon.