Artifishal: The Fight to Save Wild Salmon | Patagonia Films

Artifishal is a film about people, rivers, and the fight for the future of wild fish and the environment that supports them. It explores wild salmon’s slide toward extinction, threats posed by fish hatcheries and fish farms, and our continued loss of faith in nature.

Thanks for watching our film, and for your comments -- our primary goal with the film was to shine a spotlight on these issues, to spark dialogue and encourage changes in the way we think about river and fish conservation and fishery management. The common ground we all seem to share is a love of rivers and an interest in seeing wild fish return in greater abundance. Patagonia has been working to protect wild rivers and wild fish for over 40 years. We were founded by an avid fly fisherman – and we’re proud of all our connections to the fish world, which range from our fly fishing and salmon product lines, to the over $20 million in grants we’ve given to local groups working on these issues in communities around the world.


Further, this is the 3rd film we’ve made about these issues. First was Damnation, which highlights the destructive effect of obsolete dams on healthy river ecosystems and habitat; and then, Blue Heart of Europe, which shares the shocking story of a tsunami of dam development in the Balkans region of Eastern Europe, and calls for a stop to the construction of 3,000 new hydropower dams and diversions. We couldn’t agree more that habitat destruction, dam building, mismanaged harvest, and pollution of our waterways are also incredibly important issues – check out these films to get a sense for some of our advocacy across the issues.


Finally, if you have questions about the science on this issue, we recommend these links, housed on the Native Fish Society and Wild Fish Conservancy web pages:


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About Patagonia:
At Patagonia, we appreciate that all life on earth is under threat of extinction. We’re using the resources we have—our business, our investments, our voice and our imaginations—to do something about it.

[patagonia]

Thanks for watching our film, and for your comments -- our primary goal with the film was to shine a spotlight on these issues, to spark dialogue and encourage changes in the way we think about river and fish conservation and fishery management. The common ground we all seem to share is a love of rivers and an interest in seeing wild fish return in greater abundance. Patagonia has been working to protect wild rivers and wild fish for over 40 years. We were founded by an avid fly fisherman – and we’re proud of all our connections to the fish world, which range from our fly fishing and salmon product lines, to the over $20 million in grants we’ve given to local groups working on these issues in communities around the world.
 
 
Further, this is the 3rd film we’ve made about these issues. First was Damnation,  which highlights the destructive effect of obsolete dams on healthy river ecosystems and habitat; and then,  Blue Heart of Europe, which shares the shocking story of a tsunami of dam development in the Balkans region of Eastern Europe, and calls for a stop to the construction of 3, 000 new hydropower dams and diversions. We couldn’t agree more that habitat destruction, dam building, mismanaged harvest, and pollution of our waterways are also incredibly important issues – check out these films to get a sense for some of our advocacy across the issues.

 
Finally, if you have questions about the science on this issue, we recommend these links, housed on the Native Fish Society and Wild Fish Conservancy web pages:

[david-qcfe]

I like it how they put no ads in this. Mad respect

[erichockersmith]

As a salmon fishery biologist for more than 35 years in the Pacific Northwest I have to agree with most of the information provided in Artifishal, however, Patagonia missed the mark when they didn't call for moratoriums on harvest along with hatcheries. Wild stocks cannot survive our current technological driven harvest rates and practices. The hatcheries exist to support harvest rates and practices. If you eliminate hatcheries you have to reduce or end harvest.

As an interesting side note, the sponsor, Patagonia, started selling food a few years ago, including "wild" sockeye salmon. Patagonia charges $37.33/lb for wild sockeye salmon or around $373 per fish. My local Albertsons grocery store sells Alaska sockeye for $12.00/lb.  I wonder what Patagonia's motivation is?

[niallmccabe]

That young girl at 29 mins in .has a bright future. She nailed this hole documentary in in 1 sentence

[kawamach]

28:30 The wisest comment of all the documentary - humbling to listen how simple it should be, letting natural restoration moving forward - no need for technological sophistication. Kudos to Autumn.

[thinair]

I work in fisheries and would love for wild fish to come back strong. I respect Patagonia as a company, and a decent chunk of my wardrobe has their logo on it. This film vastly oversimplifies a very complex issue, and gets some basic things wrong. For those feeling inspired, awesome! But also take in other sources of information to get a more well rounded view. Also remember, Patagonia is a company, and this whole video is subtlety an ad.

[borthable]

25:26 “Life diversifies in order to survive and
Humans do the opposite, we simplify in order to make things easier for ourselves… imposing simplification on a world that has taken millions of years to so wonderfully diversify is a violent act on life itself.” Spot on! Shifted my paradigm. Thank you!

[GrandmaBev]

Awesome documentary. When I was a kid, there was salmon all the way up to Rio Linda Creek, on the outskirts of Sacramento, that were so big, they had to be 20 lbs. By the time I was in highschool, most of the fish were gone. Just a few little trout. Now there's none. All the streams, creeks, and rivers had fish until dams came along. Dams were only created to starve out Indigenous People. They never needed to block up whole rivers. Especially not for power. The sand, gravel and wildlife can no longer reach the oceans to spawn or create and maintain beaches. We are losing up to 9 Meters of beach a year around the world to erosion because of dams.

[JoshuaRes]

Such an emotional look at how unaware we are as a species of our impact. Challenging to watch, but so important to understand. Another amazing work from Patagonia and team. Thanks for making this available to the public!

[RumiSleem]

Thank you Patagonia for using your platform to share and produce life changing information with a purpose bigger than ourselves, you gained a new customer today.

[royamey]

Thank you for sharing. The best documentary I have seen. A masterpiece for our mother and all of the beautiful creatures she gives life to.

[janettecontreras]

What an eye opener, thanks for bringing The Light. I didn't have idea of this doings, I heard about fish farms and how this type of fish is not good, therefore I was making sure I was buying wild caught not knowing that our wild fish have been contaminated by these hatcheries...Our entire Planet is Greaving...May God Help us...In the book of Revelation it says that GOD is going to destroy those that are destroying The Planet.

[gregcampbell]

As a boy I grew up in the finger lakes in New York with all their tributaries, I am a Proponent of and For Nature, , Mans Intervention and attempts to Divert Natures Primordial Rhythms has always been Detrimental, " Nature is the Source and the Only Course of Mothers Earths Mechanisms, to Play God, " is to Defile the Natural Order of things. Great Film ! I am a Die Hard 61 year old Fly Fisherman, and I cant remember the last time I caught a (Truly Wild ) Trout or Salmon .God Bless, Keep Opening Eyes.

[thestory]

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

[sophietheyogi]

Well thank God I watched this film because I was about to take a job working at a US Fish & Wildlife national fish hatchery in Wyoming. And now I can say that NO, I will not contribute to this major mistake that is devolving and threatening wild fishes. I used to be an avid supporter of fish farming— I spent months researching and writing papers about the economic benefits of fish farming— because I thought it was reducing pressure on wild fish stocks. But this film has flipped my understand on its head!!! Thank you @Patagonia for such a beautiful and thorough exposé of a pretty big misunderstanding, yet another example of humans trying to engineer our way out of the inevitable consequence of living beyond our means.

[alexandertelehin]

I have watched this entire video and am grateful for its production. I have admired the clean river systems shown on TV from Australia of your beautiful country. We in Australia also have small rivers that are not polluted in our mountains we call the high country which I got to fish in my youth about 1970 onwards.
The people of China need to look at what your people are doing to protect your future. The Chinese rivers have turned into the worlds largest sewerage systems because of the thousands of dams, the high powered politicians greed to make money from their rivers have in fact turned into disasters of filth. Their rivers can no longer flush the human excrement and other pollutants that stagnate the water.
Keep up your good work from Australia.

[entvisual]

*One of the Best Videos by far* personally on YouTube, Well done Patagonia.

[tylerperry]

Wild Steelhead declines on the Skykomish are largely due to the fact that the Snohomish estuary has been diked and developed to the point that 85% of historical wetland is now gone. This has huge impacts on Chinook and Steelhead that spend up to a year in the estuary. I don't disagree that hatchery fish add to the complications but the hatchery alone is not responsible for the declines. Development is.

[tea]

These are the people we should pay more attention to instead of focusing and spending time to chase after celebrities or their gossips.

[stonepa]

I re-watch this film regularly and it reminds me of why I am such a strong supporter of organizations in this fight, and a frequent customer of Patagonia. This, and other Patagonia films, are expensive to produce. The filming and editing is top notch, whether short or full length. And I find the investment in producing a film and releasing it, for free, throughout social media, is maybe the single most effective way to get the message out to the broader public. This method scales, is free to distribute, available any time and any place, and is shareable. Thank you Patagonia for supporting the documentary film makers and getting this message out.

PS - i heard Yvon Chouinard state that he was starting a foundation that can accept donations to continue this good work. How can I contribute?