Fish Farming

TEDTalks: Dan Barber: How I fell in Love with a Fish

grrlscientist — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:59:12 +0000

TEDTalks: Dan Barber: How I fell in Love with a Fish

tags: fish farming, aquaculture, piscivory, bird sanctuary, foodie, ethical eating, permaculture, agriculture, poverty, hunger, Dan Barber, TEDTalks, streaming video

Chef Dan Barber squares off with a dilemma facing many chefs today: how to keep fish on the menu. With impeccable research and deadpan humor, he chronicles his pursuit of a sustainable fish he could love, and the foodie's honeymoon he's enjoyed since discovering an outrageously delicious fish raised using a revolutionary farming method in Spain. My one complaint about this video is that the speaker never once identifies either of the fishes he fell in love with .. if they're so wonderful, why doesn't he tell us what they are so we can all enjoy eating fish that are ethically and sustainably farmed?

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts.

grrlscientist Thu, 03/11/2010 - 23:59

Might this be what he's on about?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902751,00.html

I usually eat fish once or twice a week, but it's difficult to know what's good and bad, environmentally. Mostly I eat farmed salmon and trout. I really like tuna, but there doesn't seem to be a sustainable source at the moment.
Mackerel I think is still OK, and at least it's fairly local.

Of course, although there may be fish farms which are well run I'm limited to the fish which is available in my local shops.

Huh, that's interesting, SImonG. I've never seen the farmed lubina (which is what they call sea bass in spain) in markets - the size at harvest would make it obvious. Probably too expensive for the markets I've shopped in, if they're comparing it to pata negra ("black hoof" iberian pigs that are raised free range in oak forests) and if it's being sold to top-end restaurants.

That's an interesting wetlands restoration/bird habitat/fish farming scenario the article describes.

SimonG, the Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a list of good, iffy, and bad fish, with explanations, *and* they produce a small card for reference in wallets, *and* they have cards specific to regions of the US:

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx

Stuff available for smartphones, too.

Inconveniently, I'm in England, so the MBA's doubtless marvellous publications are of limited use to me.

Spanish Mackerel appears on the menu at Blue Hill New York

http://www.bluehillfarm.com/food/blue-hill-new-york/menu

Maybe that is the one.

Farm Fugitives Feasting On Fiji's Fish?

cwilcox — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:53:00 +0000

Farm Fugitives Feasting On Fiji's Fish?

Tilapia has quickly risen the ranks as an important aquaculture fish. It's third in production behind carps and salmon, with over 1,500,000 metric tons produced every year. They're ideal fish farm species because they're omnivorous, fairly big, quick-growing, tolerate high densities quite well and are mighty tasty.

More than anything else, tilapia are hailed as one of aquaculture's greatest successes. Cheap and easy, they breed well and are considered far more environmentally friendly than other species because they can be fed a vegetarian diet. Conservation organizations have even set up a way that farmers can certify that their tilapia farm is environmentally friendly.

Tilapia species have been in Fiji since at least 1949. At first they were introcued to feed pigs, but once tilapia began to be seen as good for people, too, Fijians began farming them for human consumption. Fish ponds were constructed in the interior areas of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu to provide supplemental animal protein to the protein-deficient inland rural communities. In 1999, fish farms in Fiji produced 300 tonnes of tilapia, and outputs have continued to rise. Since most of Fiji's cultured fish are distributed locally, tilapia are feeding a lot of Fiji's people every year.

But there's a downside to being the perfect fish to farm: tilapia are also a highly damaging invasive species, for many of the same reasons they're so perfectly adaptable to aquaculture. Because they grow fast and eat whatever is available, they're very adaptable to living in just about any freshwater environment that's warm enough. they've invaded the waterways of many of the countries that farm them commercially from accidental or intentional releases from farms. In Fiji, a new study has revealed that these escapees are damaging the natural biodiversity of Fiji's waterways.

Researchers from Wetlands International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Conservation International set out to better understand the nature of Fiji's fresh water systems and what forces are damaging them. They sampled native fish from all over the Fiji, including 20 river basins on the major islands of Vitu Levu, Vanua Levu, and Taveuni, and at the same time recorded possible factors that might be influencing native fish density like the presence of invasive tilapia (Oreochromis spp.), forest cover, distance upstream or downstream, and water quality variables.

They found that two things correlated strongly to the diversity of native fish in an area. Firstly, they found that the more an area had been cleared for housing or other reasons, the fewer species of native fish. It was not shocking to find that human activity damaged the native ecosystems, as similar results have been found all over the world. It was the second variable that decimated native fish diversity that made headlines: the presence of tilapia species (genus Oreochromis).

Of the 89 different sample locations surveyed, 85.4% had been invaded by tilapia. The study found that where this occurred, native fish diversity suffered greatly. In areas free of Oreochromis, there were, on average, 16 species of native fish. Where the invaders lived, however, there were only four, a 75% drop in diversity. The the throat-spine gudgeon, the olive flathead-gudgeon, and other gobies were hit the hardest, including species that have been traditionally fished and eaten by Fijians for generations.

Why the tilapia have such a dramatic impact is not certain, but the researchers think that it might be a very direct reason: tilapia are known to eat larvae and juvenile fish, and the researchers think that they might be chowing down on the native young'uns.

In Fiji, the loss of native fish is as much a cultural issue as it is an environmental one. Many native species form an important part of the diet of inland communities, and, in particular, are important in small villages where fish are caught not farmed. The decline in the market trade of traditional Fijian fish damages the poorest who have the most trouble switching to other sources of income.

According to the scientists, "An ecosystem approach to management is required that: (1) incorporates conservation of forests... and (2) actively excludes introduction of Oreochromis spp." In other words, protect the forests and get rid of the tilapia.

It's a good plan for the native fish, but as the human populations continue to expand, countries like Fiji will, out of necessity, rely more and more heavily on compact, efficient means of producing food like fish farms. As they do so, it will be harder and harder to keep the fish in the farms from escaping and damaging the surrounding habitat. While this paper serves to warn of the downsides of aquaculture, it unfortunately doesn't provide a solution to the underlying problem of too many mouths to feed on limited resources. I fear that even the most eco-friendly methods of feeding the world come at a price that may be too steep for many native species.

Citation: Jenkins, A., Jupiter, S., Qauqau, I., & Atherton, J. (2009). The importance of ecosystem-based management for conserving aquatic migratory pathways on tropical high islands: a case study from Fiji Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems DOI: 10.1002/aqc.1086

cwilcox Wed, 01/13/2010 - 04:53

Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood

grrlscientist — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:59:59 +0000

Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood

tags: seafood, fisheries, aquaculture, fish farming, tuna, swordfish, salmon, shrimp, sushi, book review

There's plenty of fish in the sea, as the old addage goes -- but are there, really? I experienced a rude awakening at the peak popularity of Orange Roughy, which I loved. I learned that Orange Roughy, Hoplostethus atlanticus, an extremely long-lived benthic species in the Western Pacific Ocean that doesn't even reach sexual maturity until 40 years of age, was being eaten out of existence by people like me. After I learned that, I never touched Orange Roughy again. But after I discovered Japanese sushi, especially Toro (chutoro, otoro) -- the melt-in-your-mouth fatty belly meat from the giant bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus -- I learned this lesson once more. Based on these experiences, I concluded that it was not possible to eat seafood without either causing extinctions and massive habitat destruction or poisoning myself, so I have not eaten seafood since. Until now, that is. Thanks to Taras Grescoe's book, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood (NYC: Bloomsbury; 2008), everyone can make environmentally friendly seafood choices -- choices I am already pursuing.

My desire to consume seafood and fish as my primary source of animal protein was initially a "green" decision that was supported by my growing fondness for seafood. Despite the fact that seafood and fish are widely perceived to be affordable "green" foods, I learned this is not the case. Further, I learned that consuming most seafood is in direct conflict with my desire to live as lightly as possible on this earth (well, "lightly" for an American), and that I was contributing to the extinction of many species of marine fishes.

But unlike other food items, making ethical and healthy seafood choices were impossible because of the veil of secrecy enshrouding it. I could rarely learn the method used to "harvest" the seafood I was contemplating purchasing, nor where the animals were captured, and sometimes, I could not even learn which species of fish or shellfish I was eating. In short, the more that I learned about the commercial fisheries and fish farming industries, the less I wanted to support either of them. In the end, I gave up eating seafood -- all animal protein, in fact, except for occasional dairy products -- for many years. According to what I read, I am not alone.

In this well-researched and powerful expose of the seafood industry, Taras Grescoe documents the commercial fishing industry's rapacious and wasteful practices and shows how these technologies place them on a collision course with disaster. For example, massive bottom-trawlers are scraping the ocean floor clean of all visible life in pursuit of fewer and smaller fishes, while discarding hundreds of tons of dead and dying "bycatch" overboard (bycatch are fish that are either too small or the wrong species to sell, and other animals, such as seabirds, marine mammals and sea turtles, that are caught in the giant nets along with the targeted fish) [this is a topic I've written about before; Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Loving Our Oceans to Death].

Fish farming, which had once been widely touted as "the answer" to the environmental damages caused by commercial fishing, causes quite a few serious, and often interrelated, problems. For example, the habitat destruction of coastal mangroves is complicated by increased local poverty due to farming so-called "jumbo shrimp" for consumption in Japan, America and Europe -- an issue I've written about several times before [for example; Tsunamis and Mangroves: The Shrimp Connection]. To make things even worse, the commercial fish foods sold to the local shrimp and fish farmers poison the earth with pollutants and antibiotics, which triggers the development multiply-drug resistant bacteria that cause dangerous contageous diseases in humans.

Another serious problem associated with fish and shrimp farming is the introduction of farmed species into waterways where they are alien, such as Atlantic salmon into the Pacific Northwest, where they are competing with -- and hybridizing with -- dwindling native salmon populations for limited resources. But fish farming is not the only mechanism whereby alien species find their way into new waters: dumping of ballast water by large cargo ships near coasts also transplants alien species, and even local aquariums are causing problems. For example, Jacques Cousteau, the world's greatest populizer of oceaonography, inadvertently dumped the invasive Australian "assassin algae", Caulerpa taxifolia, into the Mediterranean Sea when he was director of the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco.

Given these snippets of information, it would be easy to assume this book would read like a rant, but instead, it is an unexpectedly tasty combination of investigative journalism, travel writing and scientific research. Grescoe talks with fishermen and shellfish farmers, chefs, scientists and government officials as he follows many species of fish and marine animals as they make the journey from their ocean home to the most celebrated (and often controversial) dishes in the world; from Bouillabaisse in Marseilles and sharkfin soup in Shanghai to Otoro in Tokyo and monkfish tail in New York City.

In ten chapters, Grescoe's conversations and experiences reveal, fish by fish, how our thoughtless and irresponsible eating habits are unsustainable; how we are preferentially consuming the top predators in the marine food web; tuna, sailfish and swordfish, shark, salmon and seabass, which poisons our bodies with mercury and other accumulated toxins and disrupts the entire marine ecosystem, leading to the massive over-proliferation of the so-called bottomfishes, such as jellyfishes.

Grescoe's book is not a one-sided endictment of everyone involved with seafood. For example, in this book, Grescoe introduces us to Chesapeake Bay waterman, Tommy Leggett, whose goal has always been to "grow things" [pp. 57-59]. Leggett ended up turning his hobby -- oyster farming -- into an income source that rivals that of his full-time job. And the best thing is that oysters are unusual among farmed seafood because they happily filter toxins and pollution out of waterways, thereby making their environment cleaner than before. (Leggett is very knowledgeable about oysters and their role in the ecosystem, and as you read this interview, you'll quickly realize he is quite fond of his oysters as more than just a source of revenue -- a detail that I found to be amusingly endearing).

My favorite story in the book occurred when Grescoe elected to participate in the annual Pufferfish Memorial Service by releasing a poisonous fugu into Tokyo's Sumida River -- after consuming a potentially fatal meal of fugu sashimi. In this ceremony, which is presided over by a Shinto priest in a golden headdress, the wholesalers at the world-famous Tsujiki Market gather to pay tribute to the souls of all the fish they have dispatched. The author writes;

Picking up a mid-sized fugu, I cupped its slippery belly in my palms. It was surprisingly heavy. Looking up at me with its round, dark eyes, it was as cute as a Pokemon, minus the annoying squeeks. I walked to the river, watching my fugu gasp through its rectangular mouth. [ ... ] Giving my fugu a final pat, I let it slip into the slate-colored water as smoothly as I could. It quickly disappeared beneath the surface of the Sumida River. When I last glimpsed it, it was heading in the direction of the Pacific Ocean. [pp. 219-220]

After detailing the myriad and often complex problems with seafood, Grescoe then goes on to suggest how we can do something beneficial for the world's oceans without giving up seafood entirely. As suggested by the title of his book, the author advises us to become bottomfeeders ourselves, to eat pelagic fishes, such as blue whiting and Atlantic herring; schooling fishes, such as sardines, pollock and mackerel; shellfish such as crabs, lobsters, oysters and mussels; and he points out that we will be doing the oceans a big favor if we especially focus our culinary energies upon jellyfish. (He even mentions peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches at one point.)

This book is meticulously-researched, passionate and very useful. At the end, it has a 14-page citation list and a 12-page reader-friendly index as well as an informative and useful index that lists tools for choosing seafood -- the index alone is worth the price of the book. I was so impressed with this book that I will go one step further and recommend Bottomfeeder as my "must read" book of the year. It will especially be appreciated by environmentalists, chefs, and especially by everyone who loves to eat any type of seafood.

If you wish to carry a guide to ethical seafood choices in your pocket or wallet, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's printable seafood "avoid" pocket guide.

Taras Grescoe is the author of The Devil's Picnic: Travels Through the Underworld of Food and Drink and Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec, which was shortlisted for the Writers' Trust Award and was a national bestseller in Canada. His work appears in major publications all over the U.S., the UK, and Canada, including the Times, National Geographic, Independent, CondÃ© Nast Traveller (UK), National Geographic Traveler, and the New York Times. He picnics on bottomfish in Montreal.

grrlscientist Wed, 11/12/2008 - 04:59

Mangrove Destruction Magnified Burmese Tragedy

grrlscientist — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:32:41 +0000

Mangrove Destruction Magnified Burmese Tragedy

tags: Environment, Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar, Burma, Mangrove, Rhizophora species, Shrimp Farming, Fish Farming

Mangrove, Rhizophora species, in Cuba. [larger view].

I've written about the importance of mangrove forests before, and about the environmental disasters and human tragedies that result when they are wantonly destroyed. Unfortunately, as we are witnessing now, the widespread destruction of Burma's mangroves has magnified yet another human disaster in the wake of cyclone Nargis, a tragedy that might have claimed more than 100,000 lives, according to some news services' estimates.

"Encroachment into mangrove forests, which used to serve as a buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and residential areas; all those lands have been destroyed," said Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general for the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Even though Cyclone Nargis was a strong storm, with winds clocked at 190km/h (120mph), it was the storm's surge that caused the most damage and death.

"The wave was up to 12 feet (3.5 meters) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," said Burma's minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe. "They did not have anywhere to flee."

Images from a NASA satellite show the impact of Cyclone Nargis on southern Burma. Before it hit, on 15 April (top image), features are sharply defined. In the aftermath on 5 May (bottom image), much of the Irrawaddy river delta region is clearly flooded.

Mangroves are a group of salt-tolerant evergreens that grow in tropical and subtropical areas where ever marine and fresh water meet; coastlines, deltas and rivers. Mangroves form a dense forest with an extensive root system that buffers residential areas and farms against the effects of storms, tsunamis, freak ocean waves and rising tides. However, mangroves are under pressure from humans who eagerly rip them out and replace them with shrimp and fish farms, as seen throughout southeast Asia and other coastal regions of the world.

Unfortunately, Burma's mangroves suffered as a result of being overexploited. A recent United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study reported that 3.6 million hectares (35%) of all mangrove forests were destroyed since 1980. The study also pointed out that Asia had suffered the greatest loss, with the destruction of more than 1.9 million hectares.

"There are very limited areas that you would describe as pristine or densely covered mangrove in the Irrawaddy area," said Mette Wilkie, a senior forestry officer for the FAO, referring to the region of Burma where Cyclone Nagris first made landfall.

These mangroves were replaced with fish and shrimp farms, and were also destroyed to meet the demands of tourism and of large populations of people living along coastlines.

"The impact is so severe because of the increase of the population," observed Pitsuwan.

As I found in early 2005 when I was writing about the tsunami that killed roughly 200,000 people (more than half of them in Indonesia alone);

The protective qualities of mangroves were .. observed in 1999 when a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal claimed more than 10,000 lives and washed away several coastal villages in the state of Orissa on India's eastern coast. This was one of the worst cyclones in history with winds of 160 miles per hour. However, amidst all the damages, it was noted that villages in and around neighboring Bhitarkanika were spared much of the cyclone's fury: Bhitarkanika is the second largest mangrove forest in India. [ref].

This cyclone was a terrible event, but the needless loss of mangroves worsened the cost in human lives lost and widespread damage to property and much-needed agricultural areas. We not only need to help the thousands of survivors in their time of need, but we also must help replant the mangroves in Burma and elsewhere to prevent tragedies that will inevitably occur in the future.

Sources

BBCNews (quotes)

Mangroves and Tsunamis: The Shrimp Connection -- Lots of background!

grrlscientist Wed, 05/07/2008 - 13:32