Question on Fish Farming

[labrax]

Aquaculture operations like Atlantic salmon farming in the oceans can provide food for the table, but there can be a cost. These fish can interbreed with the wild fish and dilute the gene pool, so there are escapement issues and competition issues if the escape and go to where the native fish are - all it would take is a seal or two to chew through the netting in a floating pen. The fish are raised at very high densities, much higher than in the wild and therefore would probably be more susceptible to disease. I believe that it is a common practice to feed the farm-raised ATS antibiotics to reduce the chance that disease kills them off. These fish might be a carrier for diseases for the native wild fish. I personally do not think that a farm raised trout is anywhere as good as a wild trout. I believe the taste difference is directly attributable to the processed feed they get vs. what a wild fish feeds on. Probably why the pellet fly is so effective downstream of the Swift River hatchery.

As far as releasing fish aquaculture raised fish to supplement a marine species - I think Texas does, or did release red drum into their waters as a way of pumping up the numbers. I believe there is some debate whether or not that is effective. From the TX DP&W you may get a different perspective than some of the other people that have reviewed the program and written up the results in peer-reviewed journals. My personal opinion is that it makes the Dept look like they are doing something positive, so there is some good PR there, and it provides a few more jobs for the folks down there.

I think we in MA tried this with cod for a while around the turn of the century. You have to raised a lot of eggs to make up for a few very large female cod. Problems with tracking the success of the program as well. The ocean is such a big place that what you can produce is likely to be a drop in the bucket.

The other problem would be funding - how are the State and Feds going to come up with the funds to do this. Fish like stripers and bluefish are migratory - are the people inMA going to bear the brunt of raising baby stripers for release and then have them harvested off of RI and Long Island? Where would be the return on their investment unless all of the states in the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission contributed and participated in it. You start dumping a bunch of fish into the water and there should be some thought to the genetics - you don't want to dilute the gene pool. You also don't want to have these fish compete for the same resources that may be limiting a year classes numbers - say for instances it was a bad year for the juvenile baitfish that the stripers were to feed on - you unnaturally dump in more fish to an already bad situation and you may lower the naturally reproduced fishes ability to survive.

Probably the better way would be to better manage the resource that we already have. I would love it if the next guy that I see flip a fish back into the water from about 6' in the air would get a $25 fine, or the person that kicks the fish back in the water would get a $25 fine - then maybe there would be some money for some enforcement and research and better survival for some of the fish. The herring fishery might be another area to look at - more sophisticated fishing methods and processing ships that follow along with the fleet are very efficient at what they do - maybe that leaves less food for the stripers - possibly resulting in skinner fish and less resources used for reproduction, meaning fewer eggs and smaller subsequent year classes. How much does the reduction fishery contribute to the Atlantic states vs. the money brought in from recreational fishermen? VA might answer that it is a draw, but the rest of the states would problaby argue that many more people benefit from the money derived from the recreantional anglers.

So to reel myself back into the original idea/question - Aquaculture can provide an alternative to naturally raised fish, but there are costs involved - some of those are operational costs and some of them are environmental costs, which include pollution, genetics, competition with wild fish. To make a dent supplementing a species numbers in the marine species would be expensive, and as the waters you release the fish into cross domestic and international boundaries - there probably would not want to have any one organization doing it as their return would not be justified.

[Raven]

to release genetically superior fish into the population that would
have disease preventative genes and hope that they mingle at the next bass party. ...
unfortunately they don't yet exist....
where the hell are the aliens when ya need them.....
bastards always sneekin around.

[Raven]

and the best they can do is $20.00 per pound
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/24/maga...2007012614#TOP

[Bass Babe]

With all the food out there, do we really need to eat certain fish badly enough to farm them? Farming fish for food is unneccessary, and as already well-explained, dangerous, as is supplementing populations unnaturally. I'd eat some tofu instead of a farm-raised fish if I thought it would make a difference -- and I like my steak rare and still mooing.

Don't pee in the gene pool, kids!

[baldwin]

The wild fish we now see have evolved over eons to adapt to their specific habitats, diseases, etc. Hatchery fish are different. You don't want to dilute the original genetic stocks with those altered by artificial selection geared toward hatchery raising. It's much better to protect the wild stocks than to try to substitute for them and mess with the natural process. Plus, the factors that now deplete gamefish, such as water quality problems and lack of suitable forage would still be there. Take better care of what we've got, don't substitute by slapping a band-aid on the problem when the problem may be a cancer.

[zacs]

Originally Posted by Bass Babe

With all the food out there, do we really need to eat certain fish badly enough to farm them? Farming fish for food is unneccessary, and as already well-explained, dangerous, as is supplementing populations unnaturally. I'd eat some tofu instead of a farm-raised fish if I thought it would make a difference -- and I like my steak rare and still mooing.

Don't pee in the gene pool, kids!

That is down right crazy-talk. If I wasn't rushing out the door i would draft a long rebuttal. hopefully i will remember to come back to this thread.

Farming fish takes pressure off wild species. I have a lot more to say than that but I gotta run.

Zac

[goosefish]

Ever seen a street scene of Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, Bombay, and Rio De Janeiro. Me think we need fish farms, and shellfish farms, and more of them. But we need them to be as "green"as they can be. And I think that is where all this becomes very difficult. Welcome world to free enterprise!