Norway salmon farms turn to veggie menu

Norway's fish farms are feeding their salmon an increasingly vegetarian diet in order to make their businesses more sustainable, but for these carnivorous pink-fleshed fish, all is not rosy.In submerged cages at the Oksebasen fish farm, located at the crossing of two fjords in western Norway, the salmon are under constant watch on mobile underwater cameras.At the first sign the fish are feeling a little peckish, employees at an operations centre 100 kilometres (60 miles) away turn on a "sub-feeder" which releases special pellets swiftly gobbled up by the hungry fish.The small brown granules consist primarily of plant-based materials, 20 to 30 percent fish oil and meal, as well as vitamins, minerals and pigment to give the salmon's flesh its characteristic pink colour."Before, fish feed was made exclusively of marine ingredients," or in other words, wild fish, explains operations manager Magnulf Giske at the world's largest producer of Atlantic salmon, Mowi."But it's a less ...