Wild fish vs. farmed fish

Time for a battle royal, a smackdown over who's the real sustainable source of fish, fishing or fish farms.

Right now, fishing has the moral high ground with stories on contamination in farmed fish and ocean harm from fish farms. But aquaculture is making a strong push with economic clout and improving technology, and the acccurate pitch that the world needs farmed fish.

Now a fish farming business is making a run at the moral high ground of sustainability, with a striking new argument that actually rings true to me.

Does fishing really have less impact on oceans than fish farming? Many ocean people make this claim, often in a blanket way as though fish farming is always bad. From my perspective, badly-managed fishing is clearly worse than a good fish farm. And, I think for good fish farms and good fishing it's not clear which is worse for the ocean.

One point rarely raised is that fish caught in the wild are eating a lot of forage and may have more ecological impact on forage fish than capture for fish farming. I know some will say "that's ok, because it's natural impact" but that argument doesn't sway me.

Kona Blue, purveyors of sustainable farmed fish, want you to think about these questions. According to The Earth Times, they've just released a new report that includes some provocative claims about how farmed fish are often much more sustainable than wild fish. I'm trying to track down the original report for you, and I'll offer more when I've had a chance to dig in. Stay tuned, this issue is going to grow in importance.

Here's Kona Blue, quoted in The Earth Times.

“If we examine the true environmental cost of wild-caught predatory fish -- such as swordfish or tuna -- we find sustainably maricultured fish have some 60 times less impact on fish stocks at the base of the food chain, such as sardines and anchovies,” said Neil Anthony Sims, President of Kona Blue. The leading offshore mariculture operation in the U.S., Kona Blue raises sashimi-grade Kona Kampachi®, a Hawaiian yellowtail, off the coast of Hawaii.

“What would ocean-conscious consumers rather have on their plates?” asked Sims. “One pound of Kona Kampachi®, or one sixtieth of a pound of tuna? The impact on the oceans is about the same.”

Sims bases this estimate on three primary considerations. First, aquaculture is continually moving towards sustainable substitutes in farmed fish diets to lessen reliance on fishmeal and fish oil. Kona Blue’s current feed formulation includes only 35% fishmeal/fish oil from wild baitfish, of which approximately 3% is from capture fishery by-product. Contrary to outdated ratios of 5:1 or higher quoted by some environmental groups, the current ratio of “wild fish in to farmed fish out” has fallen to approximately 1.5:1 (1.5 lbs. of anchovies producing 1 lb. of sashimi-grade farmed fish).

By contrast, wild fish are subject to the laws of trophic transfer, where only 10% of their prey’s food value is transferred up each step of the food chain. “If a tuna eats a mackerel that earlier ate an anchovy, then there are two trophic steps, compounding the costs,” said Sims. “A tuna may therefore need to eat the equivalent of 100 pounds of baitfish to increase its weight by one pound.” As the fishmeal/fish oil for farmed fish feed involves only one efficient step, trophic transfer loss is minimized.

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The decline of pink (salmon)

Pinks are the poor relations of the salmon world, although they shouldn't be. They lack the superstar appeal of king (chinook) salmon and they're not even in the second tier with sockeye and coho. And pinks are small. Along with chum, pinks are just plain fish.

They're not bad fish at all, I love a good canned pink salmon. And in biological terms, there's no reason to not think pink when thinking about salmon. Pink salmon are important ecologically, so they might be the superstar salmon for an animal like, say, a killer whale.

So even though you've barely heard of pink salmon, there's reason to feel bad about the recently reported decline of pink salmon off British Columbia. In particular, pinks are in big trouble near salmon farms.

The scientist responsible for uncovering this problem was recently profiled in the New York Times, and featured on the Island of Doubt blog for her achievement in science without benefit of the typical pedigree, gasp she doesn't have a Ph.D.! How dare she wade in these waters without a license???!!

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US losing catfish war

American fish farmers seemed to be on a winning streak with catfish, but things have turned. Now catfish farms are going under, and the name "catfish" is being replaced by the more upscale invented name "delacata."

Ironic, considering the battle over who could use the name "catfish." American fish farmers won, but they don't want their prize anymore.

Catfish farms were on a winning streak just a few years ago. They turned out a good fish at a good price, with a positive sustainability ranking, and people were buying it. Then foreign competition shuffled the deck.

Vietnamese catfish farms (photo above right) grow good fish at a good price, and the fish are cheaper. They're coming back under their own names, tra, basa, and pangasius, and winning again at the fish counter. The only hope for American catfish farmers is to win the race to the top, by selling for a high price to discerning fish lovers. You'll soon see a new American catfish product that will compete by featuring the higher environmental and sustainability standards used in US fish farms. Only it won't be called catfish, a name that's not suitable for a premium fish.

Enter "delacata," a new name for a fillet that's better than catfish. You'll see it soon if you haven't already, and it'll be free of the risk of contamination that hovers around imported farmed fish.

Who's winning the catfish wars? You decide, after you try delacata.

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Alaska's half-farmed salmon

Alaska's love affair with farming of salmon (despite words to the contrary) is slowly coming under scrutiny. Fish people in Alaska should be up front about their salmon hatcheries that are really a lot like fish farms.

Image: boyhood home of a so-called "wild" salmon?

Blogfish has noted previously that Alaska's so-called wild salmon include some fish that are raised for part of their lives in fish farms called "hatcheries." These fish live for up to half of their lives in farms, before being released into the ocean. When caught and sold, half-farmed fish are called "wild."

The problem is worst for less-preferred species like pink salmon and chum salmon, but even some sockeye and a very few chinook (king) salmon begin their life in hatcheries (fish farms).

Just this week, a letter to the editor of the copyrighted and subscription news service Intrafish has a scathing critique and a new term that just might begin to stick (excerpt below). Fish farmer Neil Sims of Kona Blue refers to Alaska's hatchery fish as "half-farmed" and writes about the hypocrisy of Alaska's opposition to fully-farmed fish, while simultaneously half-farming huge numbers of salmon.

This is an interesting take on the wild salmon vs. farmed salmon debate. The best answer is that we need 3 categories, wild, hatchery, and farmed salmon. But I don't look to Alaska for progress on this issue.

Alaska's half-farmed salmon are a waste of resources

From: Neil Sims
President, Kona Blue Water Farms, LLC

10.09.08 15:23

John Fiorillo had a “chuckle” over Alaska’s opposition to offshore aquaculture , when he argued – quite soundly – that Alaska is already the world’s biggest offshore aquaculture program, because of the massive salmon stock enhancement effort.
...

how does Alaska’s half-farmed salmon measure up...

The easy answer is to imagine the furor if there were 58 million farmed fish escapees each year! But when they are deliberately allowed to escape (i.e. released) into the ocean, Alaska’s hatchery-reared stocks compete with truly wild fish for prey and other resources...

Hope you don't mind me posting this excerpt, Intrafish

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