Fish breeding
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Along the fjord now you can see many Salmon farms. Norwegians love fish! The sea and fjords have fed the nation for generations. But the excellent quality led to the worldwide demand for Norwegian fish becoming greater than the number of fish. The pure Norwegian fjords proved themselves suitable for fish breeding at the start of the 1970s and since then it has developed into one of Norway’s biggest export industries. Wild salmon are hatched and spawned in fresh water, but in the interim time they live in saltwater. Farmed salmon on the other hand are in captivity and never get to enjoy spawning in freshwater and rivers. Hatching occurs on land where they are grown to a weight of between 50 to 150 grams before they are put into sea water. After hatching a young salmon is called a fry and thereafter a Smolt when it reaches around 100 grams. Around 300 million farmed salmon and trout are slaughtered every year to a value of 70 billion Kroner. The majority are exported and end up in restaurants and shops across the globe. You may well wonder why salmon have red flesh? The colour comes from their food. The colouring Astaxantin is naturally occurring in the crustaceans that wild salmon eat and is added to the feed of farm raised salmon.