Is outdoor clothing brand Patagonia’s new documentary "Artifishal" about saving wild salmon or selling its brand of wild salmon?

The question is worth asking because on Tuesday -- a week into the promotion of its new documentary Artifishal, which questions the role of fish hatcheries and fish farms in what Patagonia claims is the coming extinction of wild salmon, the company mailed to its members a promotion for its branded wild salmon products.

Patagonia Provisions, the food division for outdoor apparel company Patagonia, sells wild salmon and canned mussels. The company markets wild sockeye salmon from a community-based, in-river fishery on the Situk River in Alaska and from Cook Inlet. Its wild Fraser River pink salmon, meanwhile, are caught in reef nets off Lummi Island, Washington.

The 70-minute film discusses saving wild salmon, with a focus on the US West Coast, where it claims tens of millions of tax payers' dollars are spent on salmon hatcheries set up to counteract the impact of human intervention on wild salmon stocks. It also zones in on the indigenous North American population, claiming reduced wild salmon stocks have removed a key source of nutrition, in turn leading to unemployment, alcoholism, drug abuse, depression and suicide.

The final part of the film moves to Norway, where escapes from the aquaculture sector and the genetic impact on wild salmon populations is blamed by local fly fishermen for a reduction in stocks. The film is now being rolled out across Europe and the United States and is accompanied by a petition against open-cage salmon farming.

The film, itself, does not promote the company's seafood products, but the email marketing campaign weaves together the two: “We’re proud to work with WFC (Wild Fish Conservancy) to identify and support truly sustainable fisheries, and on projects like our latest film, Artifishal, which documents the effects of hatchery fish,” it wrote in the promotional email, just above a button that encourages recipients to “Shop Provisions Wild Salmon.”

Patagonia worked with the Wild Fish Conservancy to create its own certification criteria for purchasing salmon from wild fisheries not supplemented by hatchery fish

While Patagonia Provisions does not endorse net-pen salmon aquaculture in the ocean, citing the practice as harmful to wild salmon runs, it is more optimistic about land-based salmon farming.

Seizing on the rollout of the film, Johan Andreassen, CEO of fledgling land-based salmon farmer Atlantic Sapphire tweeted this response to Patagonia's announcement of the debut of Artifishal: "Dear @patagonia , good news! There is now farm raised salmon available both in Canadian and US retail that is raised in Bluehouses where the the impact on wild salmon is ZERO. Try @atlsapphire now. Blue Is The New Green!"

Fisheries

Patagonia trashing some wild salmon while it promotes its own salmon brand