Quite simply, the salmon farming industry is extracting profits from Iceland’s pristine waters at a rate nature cannot afford.

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Salmon farms populate their sea cages with up to 200,000 lab-harvested Atlantic smolts that are intensively bred to grow fatter and mature faster than their wild counterparts.

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These overcrowded feedlots degrade marine and freshwater ecosystems in multiple ways: The sea lice that infest the sea cages eat the salmon alive and harm nearby wild fish. The antibiotics and pesticides used in sea cages also are lethal to other forms of sea life. And untreated waste from the salmon farms pollutes surrounding waters.

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Millions of these caged salmon die prematurely each year. A recent study determined that 865 million of them died in mass mortality events over the past decade.

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Wild Atlantic salmon populations have plummeted in all salmon-farming countries. Consequently Alaska, Washington and California in the United States, as well as Argentina, have banned sea cages, citing conclusive evidence that they are unsustainable as well as detrimental to wildlife, ecosystems and economies worldwide.