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Aquaculture A Fish Story Jail Cells for Fish The Salmon’s Lonely Journey The Environment Pays a Price Take Action Food from a Fish Bowl According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), farm-raised fish is “one of the fastest growing food producing sectors.” Some researchers estimate that as much as 50 percent of fish and shellfish consumed by humans comes from commercial aquaculture sources—for instance, almost half the salmon, 40 percent of mollusks, and 65 percent of freshwater fish consumed today spend most of their lives in captivity. And the number is rapidly growing. As we decimate natural sources of fish through commercial fishing, the number of farm-raised fish will continue to grow. The terms “aquaculture” and “aquafarm” can include farming of freshwater as well as saltwater species under controlled conditions, although sometimes the term “mariculture” is used to describe the cultivation of fish farmed in seawater. Some aquafarms are high-tech operations where fish are contained in tanks inside steel buildings and where computer-operated systems control the amount of food the fish receive; the light they experience; and the amount of drugs, including hormones and growth stimulants, they are fed. Some aquafarms are outdoor ponds that can range in size to that of a football field. Other farms are located along shorelines and still others are found deep out to sea. Aquaculture began over five thousand years ago in China where villagers trapped carp in artificial lakes formed when flooded rivers receded. Although aquaculture may have a long history, little is known about the ecological impact of intensive fish farming, especially in ocean facilities. Basically fish farms are giant aquariums placed in or near circulating bodies of water with all the waste that an aquarium produces being flushed into natural bodies of water. Because some fish are difficult to raise from birth, they are wild caught and then raised in pens. Bluefin tuna, for instance, is wild caught and then raised on aquafarms until ready for slaughter, thereby reducing the number of bluefin tuna in the wild. A Fish Story Back to Top Most fish destined for fish farms begin life in a hatchery. When they reach a certain size, they are called “fingerlings” and are transported from the hatchery to the fish farm itself. As they continue to grow, they are sorted by size, which requires that they be brought out of the water and dumped onto grates through which they fall depending on their size. Then they are returned to the appropriate cage or pond for their next growth spurt. This cycle of being removed, sorted, and returned may occur as many as five times before the fish are ready to be sent to slaughter. This constant sorting and moving is so stressful, many die before they reach slaughter size. Some fish hatcheries raise fish until they reach their juvenile stage and then release them into the wild for recreational fishing or to supplement a species’ natural numbers. This process is called “stocking.” The purpose is to increase the numbers of desirable species in lakes and rivers for anglers to catch. In fact, because of overfishing in many bodies of water, if not for stocking some lakes and rivers, there would be no fish at all. Jail Cells for Fish Back to Top Farmed fish may be raised in ponds, pools, or concrete enclosures constructed on land or in artificial enclosures in natural bodies of water. Typical sea cages for salmon, for example, measure 40 to 60 feet square, can be 15 to 60 feet deep, and can contain anywhere from 5,000 to 70,000 salmon. They live in this type of confinement for one to two years until they reach the desired weight for slaughter. Because of the concentrated numbers on a fish farm, many fish die due to environmental factors, disease, or suffocation before they ever get to the slaughterhouse. The concentration is so great on some farms that a salmon may have the equivalent of a bath tub of water to swim in; on trout farms, as many as 27 adult trout live in the equivalent of a bath tub of water. Parasites grow in severely crowded conditions. Sea lice is a regular occurrence on salmon farms. The parasites eat the flesh down to the bone on the fish’s faces. To kill the lice, neurotoxins and other poisons related to the formation of some human cancers are used. Although many species of fish typically run in schools, they are not so tightly confined with one another as to rub off each other’s scales and fins. In the compact conditions of fish farms, both of these mutilations can occur. Also because of the overcrowding, some fish go insane. They bump into each other and into the sides of the cage or pond. They get into fights. In preparation for their trip to the slaughterhouse, fish are typically starved for as many as 10 days, thereby creating less waste that could contaminate the water in which they live during transport. Once at the slaughterhouse, trucks pour the fish and water into large metal and mesh cages. Some fish die on the way to the plant; others while awaiting slaughter. There are no stun guns in fish slaughterhouses as there are in slaughterhouses for land-based factory farmed animals—fish are alive when their gills are cut; they bleed to death. Other fish are bashed on the head or simply have the water drained away from them so they suffocate. Some are packed alive and conscious in ice for shipment to market. The Salmon’s Lonely Journey Back to Top Young salmon cover thousands of miles as they swim from the place of their birth in fresh water out to the ocean. Years later, they return to spawn usually in the place where they were born. When male and female return to their spawning ground, the female digs a nest with her tail and then she and her partner stay side by side as the female releases her eggs and the male releases his sperm. They will do this in as many as seven nesting areas. They then both die. On a fish farm, female salmon are killed and their eggs removed; male salmon have their abdomens massaged to release their sperm. The males are often massaged numerous times before they are killed. In the wild, salmon eat crustaceans, shrimp, and krill, which give them their pink color. However, farmed salmon must be fed synthetic pigments to create the pink color they would get naturally. Salmon suffer from a variety of diseases on fish farms. These diseases include bleeding cataracts leading to blindness, bacterial kidney disease, and infectious salmon anemia. Some fish are carnivores so to feed them, fish from the wild are caught and made into fish meal for the farmed fish. In other words, commercial fishing must take place for many farm-raised fish to survive. Salmon, in particular, eat more fish than they produce. To produce one pound of farmed salmon requires several pounds of wild caught fish be turned into feed. When fish are removed from the oceans, their predators suffer and the whole chain of the ocean falls apart. For example, wild tuna, salmon, grouper, and snapper depend on small fish for their survival. As these small fish are removed from the ocean to feed those being raised on fish farms, these predator fish are in jeopardy of collapse. Salmon is the most commonly farmed fish. Other sea creatures who are farmed in great numbers are trout, cod, eel, halibut, carp, tilapia, catfish, sea bass, and turbot. Shrimp is the most heavily farmed shellfish. The Environment Pays a Price Back to Top Industrial fish farms have polluted waterways and radically altered the ecological balance in some coastal areas, mostly through the discharge of waste water. This waste water contains fish feces and carcasses; chemical-laden and rotting food debris; PCBs, dioxins, furans (a toxic compound, which may be carcinogenic), and other toxins; and residues of herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, growth enhancers, flame retardants, and veterinary drugs, including vaccines. All of this waste is passed, untreated, directly into the ecosystem—there are no filtering systems on fish farms. This waste can cause oxygen-depleting algae blooms, pollute the ocean floor, and alter fragile ecosystems. The antibiotics can kill beneficial bacteria and, as with the overuse of land-based antibiotics, create antibiotic-resistant organisms. Coastal and inland waterways where aquafarms exist are directly affected; however, water moves. Therefore, down stream from many aquafarms the water is polluted and the ecosystem disrupted. Some fish farms are moving off-shore setting up large pens in the open ocean, in part because the ecological damage done by aquafarms closer to shore has created a problem for fish farmers. However, the problems of pollution from pesticides, toxins, antibiotics, dead fish, and rotted fish meal will still exist albeit in a larger fish bowl. Ocean aquafarms pose risks beyond those found on farms located along shorelines or on land. First, their creation disrupts the local ecology of the ocean and can harm the sea floor. Dredging, drilling, and other construction work churns up the sea floor, disrupts the habitats of sea creatures, and adds pollution to the waters. Second, marine mammals swimming freely in the ocean can become entangled in the netting used to create the enclosures. They may never be able to free themselves. Regardless of the location, not all fish stay contained in fish farms. Some escape, sometimes when storms flood the farms. These escaped fish then mate with wild species diluting the native gene pool and creating genetic anomalies. Sometimes the escaped fish become invasive, taking over the waters from the local inhabitants, thereby damaging local ecosystems and driving out native species. Our rivers, lakes, and oceans are under siege from industrial and land-based agricultural run off. With the addition of aquafarms, how much more pollution can these bodies take? Take Action to Help End the Suffering on Factory Fish Farms What can you do to change what is happening to animals raised on factory fish farms? First, you can choose to avoid eating seafood. Selecting a vegetarian diet is the best way to eliminate the number of fish being raised and slaughtered on fish farms. Other humane actions include:
Substitute plant-based products for fish and fish oils. Find a vegetarian group in your area and attend a meeting. Learn more about factory fish farming and educate others. Support legislation to require stricter regulation and enforcement of fish farming. At present, there are no regulations governing the humane treatment of fish.
February 2010 Back to Top # |
