ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on aquaculture as it unfolds in Tasmania, Australia, while the history of aquaculture in Norway serves as a comparative backdrop for the analysis. It provides a brief account of the domestication of Atlantic salmon in a historical perspective, and the more recent domestication of salmon on the Tasmanian coast. Domestication of Atlantic salmon on the Tasmanian coast began in the mid-1980s, when local attempts to raise rainbow trout on marine farms had already proven successful, and some experience with oyster farming was established. Just as the historical pathways to agriculture are several and vary significantly, the domestication of aquatic species also takes a number of different forms. Farmed salmon’s proximity to ocean water gives rise to widely shared cultural connotations of purity and untouched non-humanized nature, which may be exploited for commercial purposes. Terrestrial domestication has provided the model for the way most cultures conceptualize human–animal relations.
