Fish Farms and the Environment

Fish populations are declining globally. It seems intuitive that fish farming will take some of the pressure off, but there are disturbing objections to fish farms.

Many of us think we’re doing a good thing when we buy farmed fish (and up to a third of fish sold for human consumption today is farmed)—we think we’re taking the pressure off wild fish stocks. There are objections, however, to fish farming, and they’re disturbing enough to make any environmentally conscious person wonder if we should be eating fish at all:

• Organic waste (fish wastes and excess food) from open net fish farms pollute the water locally, depleting water of oxygen and creating a dead zone under and near the farm.
• Chemicals used to treat fish diseases are released into the surrounding water, killing wild species.
• Farmed fish, often not native to the area they’re being farmed in, frequently escape into the wild.
• Crowded fish in open net farms are susceptible to diseases and sea lice, and pass them on to wild fish.
• Farmed fish are fed with wild fish—there are more wild fish consumed than farmed fish produced.

Recent data from British Columbia, Canada seems to confirm that farmed salmon are wiping out wild salmon by infesting them with sea lice. It’s time to re-evaluate fish farming.

Read about the sea louse issue in Sea Lice and Salmon