In the 1990s I traveled to a small coastal village in Italy, for an extended vacation. Each morning I would arise and walk down to the village center, reaching my destination - a small cafe—by eight thirty or nine in the morning, where I would enjoy an espresso and purchase a fresh loaf of crusty bread. On the way back to our residence, I often passed by the village fish market. But the display window with its clean glass window displaying a well scrubbed, sloping wood display counter which was always clean and empty.
One day my curiosity got the better of me, and I poked my head in to ask, “Excuse me, I see your sign, but tell me, how do you keep in business? I never see any fish here?”
“Sir, the fishermen arrive here at 5:30 AM, we put their catch out for sale at 6:00, and by 7:00 or 7:30 all of the fresh daily catch is sold. To buy fish here, you must come early.
Italians prefer only absolutely fresh fish. Fish was available, every day in the week, but was very expensive…and you had to arise early to get it.
From the late 1960s on fish prices were constantly rising. Increased demand, larger and more efficient trawlers sent wild fish stocks into decline. Aquaculture seemed like a good solution.
In the 1990s fish aquaculture became well established and we all welcomed the concept of fresh fish at lower prices and the support for the protection of wild fish stocks. By that time the earth’s human population had exceeded the 6 billion mark and ocean fishing had reached its maximum production limit.More factory ships could be built, but the world’s fish stocks could not sustainably produce any more fresh-fish tonnage.
Aquaculture seemed a reasonable solution. By growing fish on land in ponds or in cages off shore, it was thought that these fish could help satisfy the human demand for fish, slow the decline of wild fish stocks which for many species (such as the Atlantic Cod) which were approaching the critical point beyond which these species could not recover and begin to recover populations.
Fish farming was born! Today more fish sold in fish markets are farmed fish than wild caught. But the problem aquaculture was touted to solve, did not materialize. Aquaculture has exacerbated fish stock problems rather than offering a solution.
Aquaculture has put more strains of wild stocks of many species of fish since much of the food farmed-fish and shrimp are fed is derived from wild fish stocks. Then too, the massive tonnage of forage fish, such as anchovies, herring, and other small schooling fish which serve as major sources of food for predator fish and sea mammals has has exacerbated the food shortage plight of these other wild species—even those not sought for as food sources such as sea mammals.
The reason? The most popular farmed fish sold are Salmon and Tuna. These fish are predators or piscivorous, that is: they eat other fish. Piscivorous fish such as Tuna and Salmon require about 5 pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed fish. A ten pound Salmon requires about fifty pounds (50lbs) of wild caught fish to reach market size.
As it functions today aquaculture of fish is not sound economics or effective natural resource management, and will only exacerbate the problems fish farming was meant to solve.
We should be cognizant of the impact of over-harvesting of the forage fish schools which are heavily impacted by over-harvesting as sources for fish farming. These practices result in population crashes of these primary food sources which in turn have a deleterious effect on the general ecology of the oceans and directly on the populations of other natural predators such as whales and porpoises.
There is no free lunch. Humans can not continue to take fish resources from the oceans without impacting the well being of general marine ecology.
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