Nearly 2M metric tons of wild fish used to feed Norwegian farmed salmon annually

https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/aquaculture/report-nearly-2-million-metric-tons-of-wild-fish-used-to-feed-norwegian-farmed-salmon-annually

by NoRagrets • 2 years ago

157 240 2 years ago

seafoodsource.com

throwaway211• 2 years ago

The effects are not just the ton of fish, or even the job lost, it's equivalent to scorching the earth and polluting the groundwater of land based farming affecting generations into the future.

OccamsMirror2• 2 years ago

Yeah, but salmon is delicious and consumers gobble it up. Don't worry about the externalities.

That's (hopefully) for future generations to pay for.

toomuchtodo4• 2 years ago

It’s wild how people fret about birth rate declines while we’re also openly stealing from the future. Humans are disappointing.

https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39033002

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

Quothling2• 2 years ago

The weird thing about salmon (and other fish farms) is that the fish they produce aren't necessarily more tasty than the fish they consume. I live in Denmark, we have some really delicious small fish but they are hard to sell, so they are generally used to feed fish farms instead. With the soybeans mentioned earlier I at least get why it's fed to livestock that are then fed to people. I'm not going to say it's the right thing to do but at least there is a difference between soy and pork. With fish it's literally taking one delicious fish and putting it into another (objectively less delicious) fish.

So weird.

thriftwy6• 2 years ago

I don't believe the African situation is stable or sustainable hence we will see large scale tragedies on that continent in this century, that will make everything happened in the century XX a cake walk.

I enjoy farmed salmon so I can't blame its growers for providing me food. If they are catching feed where it is harmful, some marine regulation should solve it.

YZF• 2 years ago

Here in BC, Canada, another problem with the farmed salmon is that diseases and parasites (e.g. parasitic sea lice) from the fish farms, which are in the ocean (surrounded by nets), get to the native population.

My family avoids farmed salmon. I think as long as it's fished sustainably in the ocean (and we take care of the rivers) that's a better option.

pprotas• 2 years ago

I know you might have not meant it this way but the way I read your last sentence makes it sound like fishing in the ocean is per definition sustainable, which is far from the truth.

ein0p• 2 years ago

I find farmed salmon to be fatter and tastier. In fact I prefer it to wild salmon, even though it sometimes costs more.

kortilla6• 2 years ago

What is special about farmed salmon that makes it happen there? Do you have sources indicating the disease rates?

Tiktaalik2• 2 years ago

You have an enormous amount of salmon in tiny pens in various sheltered bays and this artificial closeness breeds disease and parasites rapidly. The lice and diseases are then passed onto the wild salmon that pass through these bays on their migratory lifecycle routes. Thus wild salmon become dramatically more impacted from parasites and disease than they otherwise would be and thus the farmed salmon start to drag down the health and viability of the wild population.

tyfon2• 2 years ago

Norwegian here.

I live not that far from some fish farms (Mowi), and the wild fish around the farms are also inedible. Large fat bodies that taste weird.

Most people here would never eat the farmed salmon either.

alexey-salmin2• 2 years ago

I live not that far from some fish farms (Mowi), and the wild fish around the farms are also inedible. Large fat bodies that taste weird.

Curious, is there any theory what mechanism is behind this?

reify• 2 years ago

I have never eaten a farmed fish and I do not intend to, ever.

Why would you do that?

Its not only the destruction of wild fish to feed farmed salmon its also the Diseases, the parasites and the chemicals used by salmon farmers.

Hundreds of thousands of farmed fish die in the fish pens. Crammed in like sardines, excuse the pun.

The life of a wild salmon is amazing.

Ecological destruction for profit. Yet again!!!!!!!!!

epolanski8• 2 years ago

You're naive if you seriously think that you have never eaten farmed fish.

If you go to a sushi place you're eating farmed fish 100%, if you have eaten some salmon roll, you're eating farmed fish.

rNULLED• 2 years ago

It is simple to imagine a person who has never eaten fish.

DoingIsLearning• 2 years ago

I have never eaten a farmed fish and I do not intend to, ever.

The probably is accurately knowing in order to make an informed choice.

Naively I assumed certain species were likely to be farmed. But nowadays the advancements in aquaculture mean that more and more species can be farmed. Even Tuna and Cod can be captured small and grown to a larger size in captivity.

My main concern is the health unknowns around feeding incenerated fish carcasses to fish that should be eating bottom of the ocean sealife and vegetation. It intuitevely takes me back to the 'mad cow disease' epidemic, with cow feed made out of slaughter house carcasses.

kortilla6• 2 years ago

have never eaten a farmed fish and I do not intend to, ever.
Why would you do that?

Because farmed salmon is better so pretty much every sushi restaurant uses it. Wild salmon is super lean and doesn’t produce that nice buttery texture

Mizza• 2 years ago

Terrible that people have this attitude. Depleting natural wild salmon stocks is way, way worse than eating farmed salmon. For all it's faults, farmed salmon is a miracle.

dools5• 2 years ago

Reminds me of the statistic I heard recently that something like 95% of soybeans grown in South America are used to feed livestock in Europe, even though soy is already a complete protein and could be used to satisfy the protein requirements of more people locally, than the protein harvested from the livestock.

bwb• 2 years ago

People don’t like soybeans the same way they like meat.

TaylorAlexander6• 2 years ago

Maybe but that is cultural and influenced by marketing, public awareness campaigns, and access to quality prepared meals. Certainly in just the past 5 years I went from a meat heavy diet to a meat-free diet with a lot of consumption of soybeans (tempeh, tofu, soymilk, and cooked soybeans).

We could encourage others to do the same with, as I said above, marketing, public awareness campaigns, and encouragement for meat-free restaurants. Not everyone would shift, but in aggregate we could change demand patterns and people would still be happy. I know I would much rather eat tempeh now than any kind of meat product.

frankzander• 2 years ago

Really? In Asia Tofu and Tempeh is well established in the cuisine so ... At the end it's a matter of getting used to new tastes.

maxglute• 2 years ago

Vegetarians visceral don't like meat the same way they like soybeans. It's somewhat trainable preference. IMO easier to get entrenched meat eaters to eat some more plants than convert plant eaters (especially religious) to meat.

dools5• 2 years ago

I don’t think Europeans should stop eating meat but I think we should stop using protein rich food suitable for humans to feed livestock. Livestock are good for taking inedible grass and turning it into protein.

Deforesting South America to grow protein rich cow food for Europeans is absurd.

tivert• 2 years ago

Reminds me of the statistic I heard recently that something like 95% of soybeans grown in South America are used to feed livestock in Europe, even though soy is already a complete protein and could be used to satisfy the protein requirements of more people locally, than the protein harvested from the livestock.

Reminds me of a statistic that most people still like to eat food even though they could satisfy their protein requirements with a nutritional slurry at 34% of the cost with a 96% reduction in fueling times.

highwaylights• 2 years ago

ITS PEOPLE!

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!

SSLy• 2 years ago

yep, that's the market huel, queal, etc cover.

MandieD• 2 years ago

If you want less rainforest destroyed to grow soybeans, eat more soybeans.

forty4• 2 years ago

No rainforest have been destroyed by soybean that people eat. Meat production kills environment (with soybeans and more).

peterpost2• 2 years ago

And even if you dont care about animals, do it for the humans. the Industry there is quite deadly for the environment and the people.

easytiger3• 2 years ago

Yes, it is well known that beef and reconstituted processed soybean products have exactly the same nutritional content, eating experience, flavour, texture and satiating ability for the consumer.

People enjoying this experience are clearly morally corrupt lumpenproletariat deserving to be shamed and cowed by the self flagellating self appointed protectors of the summum bonum.

eigenket4• 2 years ago

Ah yeah, this seems like a perfectly sensible and not wildly exaggerated reply.

I'm sorry that people taking personal responsibility for the results of their actions provokes such a response in you.

dxuh• 2 years ago

You are correct that soy bean protein is complete and the protein is of high quality, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people talk about protein completeness, as it is essentially false dichotomy. There is a (multi-dimensional) continuum of protein completeness in the sense that the amino acid profile doesn't just have to contain every essential amino acid, but has to contain it in the right amount, as is required by the average human being.

Soy protein for example is particularly low in Methionine and Cystine. If your goal is to get enough of those, you might have to eat three times as much soy as for example egg whites (by weight). But similarly soy protein has more Tryptophan than beef. "Completeness" is a binary that is not quite sufficient to describe protein quality.

There is a reason whey and egg proteins are more popular among strength athletes for example, as they are richer in leucine, which seems to be the limiting amino acid in muscle building.

I still think we should eat way less meat and soy is a very high quality substitute for it.

sociorealist• 2 years ago

I still think we should eat way less meat and soy is a very high quality substitute for it.

"I still think _i_ should eat way less meat and soy is a very high quality substitute for it."

There, FTFY.

(i see the soyboys came, again, out of their woodworks already)

dools5• 2 years ago

My point is more that cows are great at taking inedible grasses and turning them into protein. Growing a rich protein and then feeding it to a cow to make slightly different tasting protein is dumb.

fransje262• 2 years ago

We could do a lot better than farming meat, by planting legumes instead. Not only would we relieve the pressure on arable land, we would also be improving the local soil quality as legumes are good nitrogen fixers.

ilius2• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcgChU4RpxM

mgraupner• 2 years ago

I did some fact checking on these figures and could not find a source for them. It seems that most of the soy goes to China.

The dynamics of global soybean trade remain heavily influenced by China, which accounts for about 60% of worldwide soybean imports. China’s soybean imports are driven by demand for animal protein and edible oils, two essential components of a diversifying Chinese diet that reflects rising living standards. China predominantly sources its soybean supplies from Brazil and the United States. For many years, the United States was the top supplier, but in the last 15 years China has depended more on imports from South America, especially from Brazil. From 2019-2023, 73% of Brazil’s exported soybeans have headed to China, versus a 51% average for the United States (see Figure 2).

Source: https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2024/02/the-united-states-....

dools5• 2 years ago

Yep you're right. The place I heard it was the Just Have a Think YouTube channel. He was quoting Hannah Ritchie:

https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation#is-our-a...

The figure is 75% of global soy goes to animals, and China is more than Europe (although EU is second largest importer of Brazilian soy after China).

So the figures are 75% and China+Europe, not 95% and Europe.

Either he got it wrong or I remembered it wrong! Thanks for pointing that out.

timonoko3• 2 years ago

I seriously question this report. If you listen VHF radio at Alaskan Coast there is active market going on all the time. If the "Cannery" does not want the lot, the "Fish Plant" will. So it is not like they destroy valuable wild fish to feed less valuable farmed fish.

TaylorAlexander6• 2 years ago

Would be pretty nice if they just caught less fish if they don't really need them all.

timonoko3• 2 years ago

Some fish species are actually harmful to the environment. In the Nordic countries they often try to get rid of the roach, which muddies the water and destroys the habitat of more worthy fishkind.

Gustomaximus• 2 years ago

Are there any viable solutions here?

- Larger vessels can only fish <increased distance> off shore? - Increase 'no fishing' zones which has shown great success in studies creating nursery locations

Even if there is a solution would it be enforced off the coast of Africa? Some nations fishing fleets dont have the best reputation for following rules.

grugagag• 2 years ago

Yeah, Chinese fishing fleets are a serious problem. Any solution would have to address them to make a difference.

eru12• 2 years ago

You could try to privatise ocean fishing populations; people are typically more careful with their property.

Even if there is a solution would it be enforced off the coast of Africa?

I guess look into whatever we are doing to deter poachers of farm animals (especially for open grass land farming, the strategies used to protect barn animals might not work)?

semi-extrinsic2• 2 years ago

Au contraire, what has actually been quite successful in the North Atlantic for the past four decades is the extension of territorial water limits out to 200 nautical miles and beyond. This is coupled with coast guard-enforced fishing quotas set by an independent panel of biologists. The fishermen complain loudly of course, which is a very good sign.

thunfischtoast• 2 years ago

Calculate the maximum sustainable amount of fish that can be caught/harvested, limit the world-wide production to that and let the market handle the rest.

Those limits would have to be enforced useing armed boats however - else I don't know if there would be an effective way for those huge swimming fish factories to just catch everything until the ecosystem collapses.

Then you'd also need a mechanism so make it socially balanced, or we'd pretty much ban low-incoming fishing societies from consuming their own product.

My humble opinion, not an expert.

zo1• 2 years ago

This is almost up there with "people shouldn't have kids they can't afford to take care of". The world's appetite for such drastic measures is not anywhere close to being there yet. As evidenced with how barely-able we are to get people to kinda pretend and kinda do something but not really about something as simple as dirty-coal burning, or throwing plastic trash into rivers.

fransje262• 2 years ago

Are there any viable solutions here?

Not fish-farming salmon?

epolanski8• 2 years ago

I always get severely downvoted on social medias when I say it but the most impactful way we have to impact the planet on the single scale is with food.

Obviously a full vegan diet is the greenest, but I can't do it.

But if you are at least aware of the insane cost for the planet of fishing (regardless of farmed/non farmed) and raising animals (beef especially) I invite you to try to limit your intake. Maybe by eating less of it you can also afford to also raise the quality.

fish/beef > pork > lamb/mutton > > poultry > cheese > eggs > vegetables

If every time you eat you're at least aware of this scale, you may decide to switch some of your meals. Hamburger? Maybe eat some pulled pork. Pulled pork? You can replace it with lamb. Etc, etc down to vegetables. And if you really want that hamburger, enjoy it without any guilt!

Do what you want, but know that changing your diet habits and sharing this information with others will have a more positive impact than buying an electric car (which will put some hundreds tons of CO2 in the atmosphere during production alone)

NayamAmarshe3• 2 years ago

I always get severely downvoted on social medias

Why? Yours is not a fanatical take. You’re just explaining how we can contribute in a more positive way by putting the planet before our taste buds.

epolanski8• 2 years ago

Because of very basic human nature: we don't like to be told something we do is "wrong", and nobody likes the idea of eating a steak with some sense of guilt.

walthamstow2• 2 years ago

I can't do full vegan either, but that's ok, we don't need western people to eat 0 meat, just less.

Veganism in the form of religion that thou must not deviate from is entirely counterproductive, IMO

jamil77• 2 years ago

Veganism in the form of religion that thou must not deviate from is entirely counterproductive, IMO

Do whatever you want but what’s actually counterproductive is attempting to the blame the small percentage of the world’s population that are vegan or follow a vegan diet.

TaylorAlexander6• 2 years ago

Hamburger? Maybe eat some pulled pork. Pulled pork? You can replace it with lamb.

I don't understand this. Is this based on CO2? Because I feel worse about pigs being killed, they are smarter than cows, and so subject to even more psychological horror in the factory farm. And lamb is horrible because a lamb is just a baby sheep. Sheep naturally live something like 8 years, but a lamb is a sheep that was killed at less than one year old.

Seriously, vegetables, soy beans, and lentils are suuuper tasty.

epolanski8• 2 years ago

It's based on an overall environmental impact per pound of meat.

Cattle produce a lot of methane while digesting, which is 200 times worse for the environment than CO2.

Beef also requires way more food and water.

Pigs produce much less methane and require less resources thus they are greener overall.

wezdog1• 2 years ago

Can't go vegan? Why not

karles• 2 years ago

For most people, I think it comes down to habits/practical stuff/availability.

Everyone most certainly COULD do it, but don't underestimate how our bodies and brains react to different foods/diets etc.

epolanski8• 2 years ago

I like meat. I'm fine promoting eating way less of it, but I will just never give up on it entirely.

KronisLV• 2 years ago

I actually made some veggie burgers instead of using meat recently, they turned out fine: https://imgur.com/a/9KA78TQ (a bit dry, but that's what the sauce was for)

I don't think I could do a fully vegan diet easily, but I lean more heavily into plant based food, I still think that Michael Pollan's advice holds true:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

That said, it feels like the governments around the world are subsidizing the production of meat perhaps a bit too much, which is why people don't have to deal with the true cost of meat production and therefore opt for it disproportionately often, alongside cultural habits.

Meat is tasty, yes, but to me feels like something that should be enjoyed maybe once or twice a week, instead of every day. I say that as someone who has helped my dad hunt wild animals, remove the guts from the carcasses, bring them home, skin them, de-bone the meat and perhaps has a bit more understanding of what it takes to get to a tasty meat meal than the average person. Very humbling experience, presumably a little bit similar to working on a farm.

That said, chicken meat feels way better than something like beef when it comes to the environmental effect and is both versatile in what you can put it in, as well as is really tasty, so for many that would be a workable option too, for more frequent consumption!

DimmieMan• 2 years ago

I always get severely downvoted on social medias when I say...

There's some irony that the proud meat eater that often replies to such comments feels more prevalent these days the pushy vegan/vegetarian straw man they'll often rant about.

Maybe by eating less of it you can also afford to also raise the quality.

Economics makes that easy, Here in Australia "cheap" beef in particular just leaves me feeling so cheated I avoid it out of that principle alone, why bother when it actively detracts from the meal. Would much rather get the good cut occasionally and actually enjoy it.

Also worth checking for sustainable local sources; I often eat Kangaroo instead which hits the same itch and dramatically better for the environment (in fact it's a net positive removing them).

michael94232• 2 years ago

Near me is a conservation area where agriculture is not allowed, but cattle grazes there all year round. It is sold locally. Plant-based food is often farmed on an industrial scale which pollutes the environment with glyphosate for example.

It is not about food type, it is about how it's produced.

And if you really want that hamburger, enjoy it without any guilt!

That's very gracious of you, to allow this.

epolanski8• 2 years ago

It is not about food type, it is about how it's produced.

It absolutely is!

A single cow produces around 220 pounds of methane and around 200 pounds of ammonia per year. That's equivalent to 5ish gigatons of CO2, again per cow per year, so this really makes no sense.

Why not compare to how much food you can produce on the same land with some sustainable cereal?

I bet you, there's no less than 30 times more food at a fraction of the emissions.

That's very gracious of you, to allow this.

I am not vegan myself and I don't feel guilty eating meat at all, but I'm aware enough to limit the intake and spread this to my family which is the point I'm trying to make.

nrclark• 2 years ago

it's worth noting: meat production is only resource-intensive because of the amount that we produce. In smaller quantities, cows / sheep / goats can graze on land that isn't useful for anything else. Pigs and chickens can eat garbage.

Pigs especially were a significant urban technological advance, good at turning most kinds of organic matter into usable food. They played a big role in the rise of many civilizations.

If we ate less meat overall, we could absolutely produce it in ways that were environmentally friendly.

andruby• 2 years ago

I agree with this.

If most of us just limit our meat intake, that will have a huge impact. Going from 7 days meat per week to 3 or 4, and maybe reducing the portions can easily halve your impact.

My wife is vegan and we eat a lot of plant-based food. The kids and I still have some meat, and some milk and eggs. As a whole, we've probably halved our animal based food intake without giving up a lot.

There's plenty of great tasting vegetarian/vegan dishes out there.

blackeyeblitzar• 2 years ago

There is also an epidemic of farmed fish being passed off as wild fish, especially at restaurants. There are many videos that cover fraud in the seafood industry, because it is very hard to verify what you're eating or how it was sourced without a lab.

ec109685• 2 years ago

This is so lazy. How many tons of wild fish are farmed each year? How many tons of fish does this feed produce?

This is very much word salad:

“ In the report, Feedback calculated that the Norwegian salmon farming industry’s "feed footprint" is equivalent to 2.5 percent of global marine fisheries catch. The report also estimated that Norway’s annual output of farmed salmon is 27 percent lower than the volume of wild fish required to produce the fish oil used in Norwegian farmed salmon feed. The Norwegian industry’s plan to more than triple farmed salmon production to 5 million metric tons by 2050 would create demand for over three times as much wild-caught fish compared to 2020”

Timshel3• 2 years ago

? 2M tons of wild fish used to produce 27% less farmed salmon ...

The issue is not the absolute number but that you are using more to produce less. Off course as someone else mentionned not all those fish might be ready for consumption.

But at the same time Norway toot Salmon farming as efficient but are all externalities really taken into account ?

vasco• 2 years ago

The issue is not the absolute number but that you are using more to produce less

I was under the impression that's how it is with all animals, they always need to eat more than what you get from them in terms of calories which usually will also equate to more weight (the comparison used here) in than out.

Otherwise we'd have found some feeding process that's over 100% efficient which doesn't seem possible.

In other words, they poop while they grow, unlike plants where the efficiency looks better.

enriquto• 2 years ago

2M tons of wild fish used to produce 27% less farmed salmon ...
The issue is not the absolute number but that you are using more to produce less.

But this will always be the case when growing animals. The 83% number seems quite efficient to me.

I'd bet that the weight of a cow is a way smaller percentage of the weight of grass needed to grow it. Surely closer to 1%.

Drygord4• 2 years ago

They are tiny little fish humans don’t want to eat.

Kosirich• 2 years ago

Can anyone knowledgeable comment on if farming insects, like grasshoppers that are apparently very efficient in turning feed to protein, will become a viable alternative for salmon and tuna farms?

impossiblefork2• 2 years ago

Insects aren't any more efficient than chickens though, especially American chicken. Some insects, for example, mealworms can be more efficient than chickens on certain diets, but I think the complications, i.e. that they're so small and thus harder to deal with mean that it's not going to be worth it.

But I don't want to characterise myself as knowledgeable on this topic, so this isn't the answer you and instead something which you can hope will provoke somebody to give you the real answer.

eru12• 2 years ago

It's viable, if you can get customers to pay. Many people don't like eating insects.

Btw, shrimp are fairly popular, and they aren't that different from insects.

netsharc• 2 years ago

I guess after seeing how industrially farmed chicken/pigs/cows are raised, people wouldn't want to eat them either.

But yeah, I like my meat, and don't feel well about the idea of eating insects.

semi-extrinsic2• 2 years ago

Yes, this is being seriously investigated. It was already approved for commercial use by the EU in 2017. Specifically the industry is looking at places where there is both waste biomass and low-grade waste heat available nearby, and close proximity to fish farms, in order to produce fish feed from farmed insects.

AFAIK the black soldier fly (BSF) larvae and the yellow mealworm are the two species which are in focus. For BSF larvae I believe they have some extremely convenient biological urge to migrate once they have reached maximum size, so it's possible to set up systems where they "collect themselves" at the optimum size for processing into meal.

Depurator2• 2 years ago

Yes there are large farmers in Norway that are using black soldier fly protein meal and its being produced in large scale in e.g. NL and France. But so far only a fraction of the feed has been replaced due to cost and availability of the meal. Consumers typically think insects are icky and would rather not have their food eating insects even if its their natural diet. There are also great progress on terrestrial epa and dha omega-3 in plant oils but its gmo so again people dont want it

impossiblefork2• 2 years ago

I actually don't think it's GMO.

I use DHA+EPA from algae (a Swedish company, Simris Alg), and that is non-GMO anyway.

adrian_b• 2 years ago

Insects are efficient, but not significantly more efficient than chicken.

Of the currently known methods for producing proteins, the one that has the potential to be significantly more efficient than raising chicken or insects is the culture of genetically-modified strains of the fungus Trichoderma, which produce either ovalbumin (the main protein of egg white) or beta-lactoglobulin (the main protein of whey).

These egg-white proteins or whey proteins are identical to those of chicken eggs or cow milk and they have an excellent amino acid profile.

They could easily satisfy all the protein needs of a human. Such proteins are water-soluble powders, looking the same as the whey protein concentrates that can be bought now.

Used alone, they would be bland, but they can be an essential ingredient for cooking various kinds of tasty food, from savory dishes based on various vegetables to sweet creams, e.g. with cocoa or vanilla.

I am currently using whey protein concentrate for cooking and I would like very much if a fungus-produced alternative would become available at a decent price. I prefer very much such a protein powder, which can be used to enhance both the taste and the nutritional value of any food, instead of fake meat.

xyproto2• 2 years ago

Unfair competition from fishmeal factories, which offer more money for catches

Would it be better if they offered less money?

Overfishing should be regulated by law by the state that owns the resources.

Drygord4• 2 years ago

Yeah but it’s obviously the tiny little fish humans don’t want to eat.

jamil77• 2 years ago

Firstly, it doesn’t matter if humans wouldn’t want to eat them because they form a part of a food hierarchy that’s disruption ultimately damages humans. It also causes a cycle in which less wild fish is available and more must be farmed. Secondly, if you read the article you’d note that people do rely on those fish as a food source.

Drygord4• 2 years ago

Obviously the people are eating the farmed salmon in place of the tiny fish. The “food hierarchy” remains completely untouched.

koalaman• 2 years ago

They placed farms right in front of my house on a pristine part of bantry bay. Nobody wanted them and now the water on the shore is covered in orange scum. I don't dare swim anymore. They never should have been allowed because the flow of water is inadequate to clean the waste out into the open ocean, but they're very influential with the politicians. It's a disgrace.

robocat• 2 years ago

We eat an extraordinary amount of the fish and seafood in the world from the ocean: “The global per capita consumption footprint in 2011 is estimated at 27 kg. [That figure also includes] the indirect use of capture fisheries production by the fishmeal sector.” “the conversion of wild-capture fish that would not be used for human consumption into fishmeal and subsequent use as aquafeed, results in an overall increase in human consumption of fish”.

Figures do seem to show that most ocean fishing is for human consumption, but 16Mt of forage fishing (non-edible) is still greater than 10% of our total ocean fishing.

About 75% of fish meal is used for farm fisheries (aquaculture), the other 25% for animal farming on land. Fish meal is ~3/4 made up of non-edible fish (forage fisheries) and at most 1/4 trimmings (in 2017).

Finding good information needs persistance - but the above quotes use some of the keywords.

CHB0403085482• 2 years ago

Meatless https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWWe2U41N8 How Sikh Chefs Feed 100,000 People At The Gurudwara Bangla Sahib Temple In New Delhi, India

vixen99• 2 years ago

This is of of interest I think.

"An Update on the Content of Fatty Acids, Dioxins, PCBs and Heavy Metals in Farmed, Escaped and Wild Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar L.) in Norway"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7766777/

wodenokoto• 2 years ago

I don't see the problem with refining resources.

We convert cheap fish to expensive fish with a small loss. We also incur energy losses when we convert fuel to forward momentum or electricity to light.

wordofx3• 2 years ago

Don’t know who would eat Norwegian salmon to begin with. It’s terrible tasting compared to salmon sourced elsewhere in the world.

eterps• 2 years ago

Eating like a salmon is better than eating actual salmon:

https://www.foodandwine.com/health-benefits-of-eating-wild-f...

walthamstow2• 2 years ago

It's a damn shame that British people typically won't/don't eat mackerel or sardines. They are both delicious and they basically grow on trees around here.

I make a sardine equivalent of a classic British bacon sandwich with salty crispy skin, lots of butter and soft white bread. My dad, as typical an Englishman as you might find, loves it.

pvaldes2• 2 years ago

Of course. All animals need to eat.

And don't make me talk about how many tons of wild fish consume the domestic cats in the planet each day.

ogou• 2 years ago

The worst health advice and most conspiratorial food theories usually come from other tech folks in my workplace. The comments here seem to reinforce that.

themk5• 2 years ago

There is a great documentary that covers some of the other issues with farmed salmon (amongs other things)

Eating Our Way to Extinction, available on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaPge01NQTQ

Depurator2• 2 years ago

One of the main problems is the commoditization of salmon and race toward cheapest feed ingredients just like the other animal proteins such as cattle, poultry and pork. Its just that Salomon need marine epa and dha omega-3 oils and proteins while not being able to process carbs that well. There are promising alternatives but they have a hard time to compete since you cant carry the cost to the consumers. Ie few are willing to pay extra to get a Salomon fed with insect protein and gmo oil from plants or algae. Switching feed ingredients also have their own impacts that need to be taken into account.

tannhaeuser• 2 years ago

What have soy beans to do with it? This is about converting valuable wild fish to less valuable generic farmed salmon, isn"t it?

ximus• 2 years ago

Salmon farms need to go. They are a plague to the wild salmon populations.

Here in BC Canada, our local area wild salmon populations are finally recovering after the closure of the local salmon farms.

They crowd fish in biologically hazardous conditions, then pump them with antibiotics and chemicals to keep them alive. All this in open water pens shared with the rest of the ecosystem.

One better solution seem to be inland salmon farms.

Wild salmon are too critical to many food chains both in the water and on land.

Nearly 2M metric tons of wild fish used to feed Norwegian farmed salmon annually

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