Despite repeated efforts by many (myself included) to change the designation, you'll often see Rufus Woods net pen triploids marketed as "wild steelhead." They have rocket red meat and are very fatty, which makes them taste better than a winter steelhead, for my money.
That's not necessarily bad for steelhead, because those fish are raised for food, and they seem to be fairly sustainable and a non-threat to NATIVE steelhead (the ones we are trying to protect). The trouble is that allowing those fish to be marketed as steelhead allows them to be easily confused (by untrained eyes) with the actual, native steelhead the coastal Tribes sometimes market locally, under the same designation, in the winter/spring.
Farmed triploid trout doesn't sound as much like a delicacy as "wild steelhead" (though it does taste better, IMO), so there we have it. It's dishonest marketing that doesn't directly endanger native steelhead, but it is a problem in that the more sustainable wannabes can easily be confused with the real, endangered thing at market.
