Salmon Marketers Say There’s Something Fishy About Ads for Chicken

Radio advertisements that suggest eating chicken to help save dwindling Pacific Northwest salmon stocks are drawing squawks of protest from Alaska seafood processors and marketers.

Spots developed by Stanton Robison Group for the Washington Fryer Commission, a state trade-promotion agency, promote eating more chicken, “like the salmon, a local food treasure,” because “there aren’t as many (salmon) as there used to be.”

Fowl, er, foul, clucked Vince Curry, president of the Pacific Seafood Processors Assn., a Seattle-based seafood trade group.

“Salmon is one of our most abundant seafood products,” Curry said in a news release Tuesday. “Consumers shouldn’t hesitate to buy salmon for fear of depleting the resource. The idea is preposterous.”

Although Puget Sound and Columbia River salmon runs are severely depressed, commercially sold salmon are primarily from Alaska, where the catch last year was a record 193 million, Curry said.

“Frankly, we’re astounded that the Washington Fryer Commission would come up with such a misguided campaign,” Curry said.

“It was intended as a tongue-in-cheek campaign,” commission marketing director Sue Hatch responded.

“What we were really trying to tap into was Washington-grown chicken as being a premium product--like salmon,” Hatch said. “We don’t want to damage the salmon industry.”

Don’t try to wiggle out of it, Curry huffed.

“They may have found the ad amusing, but the potential effect on the salmon industry isn’t funny,” he said. “To suggest that not eating salmon can remedy stock problems in the Pacific Northwest trivializes a serious problem.”

Hatch said there were no plans to change or pull the ads.