After undercover video shows fish mistreatment, owner of Bingham aquaculture site apologizes
Courtesy / Compassion Over Killing
A photograph secretly taken at the Cooke Aquaculture facility in Bingham, allegedly showing a worker killing a fish by slamming it into a wall. Nonprofit group Compassion Over Killing released over two dozen such photos and a video on Monday.
Video secretly recorded of alleged abusive and improper fish handling at a Bingham salmon hatchery prompted an apology Monday from the plant’s owner, Cooke Aquaculture Inc.
Compassion Over Killing, a Washington, D.C.-based animal-rights group, released on its website a 5-minute video, photographs and an account of what the nonprofit called the “first-ever undercover exposé of salmon aquaculture in the U.S.”
The group said one of its members worked undercover at the Cooke facility and recorded evidence showing employees killing fish by stomping on them and slamming them into the ground, allowing the fish to suffocate in piles of dead stock, and permitting conditions so filthy that the fish had to be vaccinated.
“Carelessly and cruelly handled, the way fish are treated would be considered unconscionable if they were a dog or even a bird,” COK said on its website. “Despite having a similar ability to feel pain as mammals and other animals, fish do not receive the same protection or consideration.”
Late Monday, CEO Glenn Cooke issued a statement saying, “I am disappointed and deeply saddened by what I saw today. As a family company, we place animal welfare high in our operating standards and endeavor to raise our animals with optimal care and consideration of best practice. What we saw today is most certainly not reflective of these standards.”
The company said it had been contacted Sept. 16 by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry about a complaint based on the video, and met with officials the next day. But until Monday, Cooke representatives had not seen the video, and said they don’t know how it was obtained.
In his statement, Glenn Cooke said the company was updating the health management plan for its facilities and working to improve procedures and training for fish handling.
"We are thoroughly reviewing the footage and we are working closely with the Maine Department of Agriculture to review and ensure all our practices are within compliance. We are speaking with all our employees, and we will institute a rigorous re-training program at our Maine facility."
Compassion Over Killing said in a news release that the practices at Cooke represent a larger problem.
"While the aquaculture industry sells itself as a solution to the state of our overfished oceans, there’s a big catch: Millions of farmed fish are subjected to conditions at industrial aquaculture facilities like the one we investigated," said Mike Wolf, the group’s director of investigations.
"It’s long past time the fish farming industry is put on the hook for the suffering it’s forcing upon animals."
Cooke Aquaculture is a division of Cooke Inc., a seafood producer based in New Brunswick, Canada, with 6,000 employees worldwide.
In addition to its Somerset County facility, the aquaculture division operates salmon farms in Washington, Canada, Chile and Scotland. The division also supplies fish for True North Seafood, a Cooke division that partners with homemaking icon Martha Stewart on her own seafood product line.
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