Fish Meat
Fish Meat is a recent documentary by Fish Navy Films that examines the practices of fish farming. The film was created by Andy Danylchuk, a fish ecologist who graduated from the University of Massachusetts- Amherst, and his friend Ted Caplow, an environmental engineer. The pair went on a sailing voyage around Turkey to pull back the cover on modern fish farming or aquaculture. Dr. Caplow founded Fish Navy Films in order to find out more about sustainable sea food, he also founded Science Barge which is an urban hydroponic farm for the public. Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants in water without soil.
90% of all large fish including tuna, swordfish, sharks, and cod are gone from the sea. Caplow claims that the oceans natural productivity is reaching its limits and we need to farm fish to meet the growing demands for sea food. Surprisingly, about half of the world’s fish is farmed, and aquaculture is the fastest growing food production system in the world.
Aquaculture is important because 85% of the world’s marine stocks are either fully exploited or overfished. Obviously farmed sea food does not give us an excuse to continue over fishing, but it can be useful in order to meet demands if carried out correctly. If tanks are properly fertilized than algae for the fish to eat will grow naturally, or fish can be hand fed. On a visit to a fish farm in Cape Cod, MA I was able to buy food to feed the fish myself. This benefits both visitors and creates profit for the owners while simultaneously managing the farm.
Another interesting method of fish farming is the practice of placing the fish pods in a greenhouse like environment. Here, a hydroponic bed is secured in the area to circulate the water which cultures microorganisms for nitrification of the ammonia. This helps with fertilization of the water for the fish.
Although fish farming is seen the majority of the time as helpful to the environment, some people consider it a negative practice. “Aquaculture’s current heavy reliance on wild fish for feed carries substantial ecological risks,” says Roz Naylor a leading scholar on the subject at Stanford University’s Center for Environmental Science and Policy. They believe that this new industry could cause depletion for other species in the food chain. Some are unhappy with the method of slaughter where tanks are filled with saturated carbon dioxide and then the gills are cut so the fish bleed out. Packed fish tanks can also cause access waste and pollution. If fish are packed in too closely they can injure themselves as well as spread diseases to other fish. Nevertheless if fish farming is done right it can be extremely beneficial to the environment and provide a much needed source of protein for the growing world.
Information used from:
(1) Harris, Dudley. Hydroponics. N.p.: New Holland, 1992.
(2) Print.Caplow, Ted, PhD. “Fish Meat | Fish Navy Films.” Fish Meat | Fish Navy Films. Fish Meat, 2012.
(3) “Farmed Seafood.” Wildlife Conservation, Endangered Species Conservation.
(4)Stier, Ken. “Fish Farming’s Growing Dangers.” TIME Magazine. N.p., 19 Sept. 2007.