http://www.mercola.com/2002/dec/28/fish_farms.htm
Fish Farms Become Feedlots of the Sea
By Kenneth R. Weiss
Like cattle pens, the salmon operations bring product to market cheaply. But
harm to ocean life and possibly human health has experts worried.
If you bought a salmon filet in the supermarket recently or ordered one in a
restaurant, chances are it was born in a plastic tray here, or in a place
just like it.
Instead of streaking through the ocean or leaping up rocky streams, it spent
three years like a marine couch potato, circling lazily in pens, fattening
up on pellets of salmon chow.
It was vaccinated as a small fry to survive the diseases that race through
these oceanic feedlots, acres of net-covered pens tethered offshore. It was
likely dosed with antibiotics to ward off infection or fed pesticides to
shed a beard of bloodsucking sea lice.
For that rich, pink hue, the fish was given a steady diet of synthetic
pigment. Without it, the flesh of these caged salmon would be an
unappetizing, pale gray.
While many chefs and seafood lovers snub the feedlot variety as inferior to
wild salmon, fish farming is booming. What was once a seasonal delicacy now
is sometimes as cheap as chicken and available year-round. Now, the hidden
costs of mass-producing these once wild fish are coming into focus.
Begun in Norway in the late 1960s, salmon farming has spread rapidly to
cold-water inlets around the globe. Ninety-one salmon farms now operate in
British Columbian waters. The number is expected to reach 200 or more in the
next decade.
Industrial fish farming raises many of the same concerns about chemicals and
pollutants that are associated with feedlot cattle and factory chicken
farms. So far, however, government scientists worry less about the effects
of antibiotics, pesticides and artificial dyes on human health than they do
about damage to the marine environment.
"They're like floating pig farms," said Daniel Pauly, professor of fisheries
at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "They consume a
tremendous amount of highly concentrated protein pellets and they make a
terrific mess."
Fish wastes and uneaten feed smother the sea floor beneath these farms,
generating bacteria that consume oxygen vital to shellfish and other
bottom-dwelling sea creatures.
Disease and parasites, which would normally exist in relatively low levels
in fish scattered around the oceans, can run rampant in densely packed fish
farms.
Pesticides fed to the fish and toxic copper sulfate used to keep nets free
of algae are building up in sea-floor sediments. Antibiotics have created
resistant strains of disease that infect both wild and domesticated fish.
Clouds of sea lice, incubated by captive fish on farms, swarm wild salmon as
they swim past on their migration to the ocean.
Of all the concerns, the biggest turns out to be a problem fish farms were
supposed to help alleviate: the depletion of marine life from over-fishing.
These fish farms contribute to the problem because the captive salmon must
be fed. Salmon are carnivores and, unlike vegetarian catfish that are fed
grain on farms, they need to eat fish to bulk up fast and remain healthy.
It takes about 2.4 pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed
salmon, according to Rosamond L. Naylor, an agricultural economist at
Stanford's Center for Environmental Science and Policy.
That means grinding up a lot of sardines, anchovies, mackerel, herring and
other fish to produce the oil and meal compressed into pellets of salmon
chow.
"We are not taking strain off wild fisheries. We are adding to it," Naylor
said. "This cannot be sustained forever."
In British Columbia, the industry, under pressure from environmentalists,
marine scientists and local newspapers, is taking steps to mitigate some of
the ecological problems.
"We have made some mistakes in the past and we acknowledge them," said Mary
Ellen Walling, executive director of the British Columbia Salmon Farmers
Assn. "We feel the industry is sustainable, if well-managed, and we have a
code of practices that is followed by all of our member companies."
Nearly 30 farms are preparing to move to less ecologically fragile areas,
under orders from Canadian authorities.
Some farms have installed underwater video cameras to detect when fish quit
feeding, so workers can stop scattering food pellets. Many farms are
switching to sturdier nets to stop fish from escaping and keep out marauding
sea lions, which are shot if they penetrate the perimeter.
The industry now recognizes that it will soon be pushing the limits of the
ocean.
"There will come a time when our industry will use more of the fish oil and
fish meal than is available," said Odd Grydeland, an executive at Heritage
Salmon in British Columbia. "Our biggest challenge is to find substitute
grains for fish meal and fish oil."
Farm-raised salmon now dominates West Coast markets, arriving daily from
Canada and Chile. About 80 percent of the salmon grown in British Columbia
goes to markets from Seattle to Los Angeles.
The salmon industry took off so fast in British Columbia in the 1980s that
the provincial government, worried about the environmental toll, imposed a
ban in 1995 on any new farms.
The industry responded by stuffing, on average, twice as many fish into each
farm. Today, farms typically put 50,000 to 90,000 fish in a pen 100 feet by
100 feet. A single farm can grow 400,000 fish. Others raise a million or
more.
The moratorium on new farms was lifted in September by the provincial
government after voters elected a pro-business slate of lawmakers and
administrators. As a result, 10 to 15 farms are expected to open each year
over the next decade.
Five international companies -- three of them based in Norway -- control
most of the existing farms. Nearly all are situated around Vancouver Island,
which begins outside Seattle's Puget Sound and extends up the coast for 300
miles.
It's a lightly populated place of stunning beauty. Cedar, hemlock and
Douglas fir grow right down to the high-water mark.
Massive tides flush rich blue-green waters through the archipelago of
islands, straits, bays and inlets, nurturing five types of wild salmon.
These, in turn, attract seals, sea lions, white-sided dolphins and the
world's best-known pods of killer whales.
Residents rely on boats and seaplanes to reach surrounding islands that host
many of the farms. Each farm is a cluster of pens, often interconnected by
metal walkways and tethered offshore by a lattice of steel cables, floats
and weights.
In the midst of this idyllic setting, signs of strain on the marine
environment are bubbling to the surface much the way diseases and parasites,
incubated in European salmon farms, fouled the fiords of Norway and the
lochs of Scotland.
In Norway, parasites have so devastated wild fish that the government
poisoned all aquatic life in dozens of rivers and streams in an effort to
re-boot the ecological system.
"The Norwegian companies are transferring the same operations here that have
been used in Europe," said Pauly, the fisheries professor. "So we can infer
that every mistake that has been done in Norway and Scotland will be
replicated here."
Dale Blackburn, vice president of West Coast operations for Norwegian-based
Stolt Sea Farm, said his staff works very closely with its counterparts in
Norway. But, he said, "It's ridiculous to think we don't learn from our
mistakes and transfer technology blindly."
Still, more than a dozen farms in British Columbia have been stricken by
infectious hematopoietic necrosis, a virus that attacks the kidneys and
spleen of fish.
Jeanine Siemens, manager of a Stolt farm, said, "It was really hard for me
and the crew" to oversee the killing of 900,000 young salmon last August
because of a viral outbreak.
"We had a boat pumping dead fish every day," she said. "It took a couple of
weeks. But it was the best decision. You are at risk of infecting other
farms."
Farms are typically required to bury the dead in landfills to protect wild
marine life and the environment. But Grieg Seafood recently got an emergency
permit from the Canadian government to dump in the Pacific 900 tons of
salmon killed by a toxic algae bloom. The emergency? The weight of the dead
fish threatened to sink the entire farm.
About 1 million live Atlantic salmon -- favored by farmers because they grow
fast and can be packed in tight quarters -- have escaped through holes in
nets and storm-wrecked farms in the Pacific Northwest.
Biologists fear these invaders will out-compete Pacific salmon and trout for
food and territory, hastening the demise of the native fish. An Atlantic
salmon takeover could knock nature's balance out of whack and turn a
healthy, diverse marine habitat into one dominated by a single invasive
species.
Preserving diversity is essential, biologists say, because multiple species
of salmon have a better chance of surviving than just one.
John Volpe, a fisheries ecologist at the University of Alberta, has been
swimming rivers with snorkel and mask to document the spread of Atlantic
salmon and their offspring.
"In the majority of rivers, I find Atlantic salmon," Volpe said. "We know
they are out there; we just don't know how many, or what to do about them."
His research focuses on how Atlantic salmon can colonize, if given a chance.
It has terrified the U.S. neighbors to the north. Alaskan officials banned
fish farms in 1990 to protect their wild fishery. So they don't take kindly
to British Columbian farms creeping toward their southern border.
Although native Pacific salmon are rare and endangered in the Lower 48,
Alaska's salmon fisheries are so healthy they have earned the Marine
Stewardship Council's eco-label as "sustainable." The council's labels are
designed to guide consumers to species that are not being over-harvested.
Recently, the prospect of genetically modified salmon that can grow six
times faster than normal fish has heightened anxiety. Aqua Bounty Farms
Inc., of Waltham, Mass., is seeking U.S. and Canadian approval to alter
genes to produce a growth hormone that could shave a year off the usual 2.5
to three years it takes to raise a market-size fish.
Commercial fishermen and other critics fear that these "frankenfish" will
escape and pose an even greater danger to native species than do the
Atlantic salmon.
"Nobody can predict just what that means for our wild salmon," Alaska Gov.
Tony Knowles said. "We do see it as a threat."
Canadian commercial fishermen, initially supportive of salmon farms, have
grown increasingly hostile. They were stunned in August when their nets came
up nearly empty during the first day of the wild pink salmon season in the
Broughton Archipelago at the northeast end of Vancouver Island.
"There should have been millions of pinks, but there were fewer than anyone
can remember," said Calvin Siider, a salmon gill-netter. "We can't prove
that sea lice caused it. But common sense tells you something, if they are
covered by sea lice as babies, and they don't come back as adults."
Alexandra Morton, an independent biologist and critic of salmon farms, began
examining sea lice in 2001 when a fishermen brought her two baby pink salmon
covered with them.
Collecting more than 700 baby pink salmon around farms, she found that 78
percent were covered with a fatal load of sea lice, which burrow into fish
and feed on skin, mucous and blood. Juvenile salmon she netted farther from
the farms were largely lice-free.
Bud Graham, British Columbia's assistant deputy minister of agriculture,
food and fisheries, called this a "unique phenomenon."
"We have not seen that before. We really don't understand it," he said.
"We've not had sea lice problems in our waters, compared to Scotland and
Ireland."
Salmon farmers point out that the sea louse exists in the wild. Their
captive fish are unlikely hosts, the farmers say, because at the first sign
of an outbreak, they add the pesticide emamectin benzoate to the feed.
Under Canadian rules, farmers must halt the use of pesticides 25 days before
harvest to make sure all residues are flushed from the fish. If that's done,
officials said, pesticides should pose no danger to consumers.
European health officials have debated whether there is any human health
risk from synthetic pigment added to the feed to give farmed salmon their
pink hue.
In the wild, salmon absorb carotenoid from eating pink krill. On the farm,
they get canthaxanthin manufactured by Hoffman-La Roche. The pharmaceutical
company distributes its trademarked SalmoFan, similar to paint store
swatches, so fish farmers can choose among various shades.
Europeans are suspicious of canthaxanthin, which was linked to retinal
damage in people when taken as a sunless tanning pill. The British banned
its use as a tanning agent, but it's still available in the United States.
As for its use in animal feed, the European Commission scientific committee
on animal nutrition issued a warning about the pigment and urged the
industry to find an alternative. But in response, the British Food Standards
Agency took the position that normal consumption of salmon poses no health
risk. No government has banned the pigment from animal feed.
Scientists in the United States are far more concerned about a pair of
preliminary studies -- one in British Columbia and one in Great Britain --
that showed farmed salmon accumulate more cancer-causing PCBs and toxic
dioxins than wild salmon.
Scientists in the U.S. are trying to determine the extent of the
contamination in salmon and what levels are safe for human consumption.
The culprit appears to be the salmon feed, which contains higher
concentrations of fish oil -- extracted from sardines, anchovies and other
ground-up fish -- than wild salmon normally consume. Man-made contaminants,
PCBs and dioxins make their way into the ocean and are absorbed by marine
life.
The pollutants accumulate in fat that is distilled into the concentrated
fish oil, which, in turn, is a prime ingredient of the salmon feed.
Farmed salmon are far fattier than their wild cousins, although they do not
contain as much of the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids.
The industry complains that environmental activists have misinterpreted the
contaminant studies, needlessly frightening consumers.
"The concern is that people will stop eating fish," said Walling, of the
British Columbia Salmon Farmers Assn. "Salmon is a healthy food choice. Our
Canadian government says this is a safe food."
Environmentalists in British Columbia and Scotland recently launched
campaigns urging consumers to boycott farmed salmon until the industry
changes many of its practices.
At the least, they want the farms to switch to solid-walled pens with catch
basins to isolate farmed fish -- and their diseases, pests and waste -- from
the environment. The ideal solution, they say, is to have the farmed stock
raised in landlocked tanks.
Protests notwithstanding, the industry is expected to get a lot bigger.
Demand for seafood is rising and will double by 2040, according to the
U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. Nearly half the world's wild
fisheries are exhausted from over-fishing, thus much of the supply will
likely come from farmed seafood.
"Aquaculture is here to stay," said Rebecca Goldburg, a biologist who
co-authored a report on the industry for the Pew Oceans Commission. "The
challenge is to ensure that this young industry grows in a sustainable
manner and does not cause serious ecological damage."
L.A. Times Dec. 9, 2002
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DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:
E-mail to a friend
Many people will choose to eat fish at a restaurant because they believe it
is one of the healthier choices on the menu, but the sad reality is that
technology has transformed fish into an unhealthy choice. Traditionally
caught fish are a problem due to the mercury and PCBs they receive from
polluted waters. Farm-raised fish, which are raised in the same water, have
the same issues with PCBs and mercury.
However, nearly all fish sold in restaurants have the problems discussed in
the story above. Not only will you not get many of the beneficial omega-3
oils because of what the fish are fed, but the fish themselves are very
unhealthy, much like factory-raised cattle.
This story provides compelling reasons why you should seriously reconsider
eating fish at nearly all restaurants.
Although I donāt advocate eating fish unless it has been tested and found to
be free of mercury and other toxins, the best type of omega-3 fats are those
found in fish. This type of omega-3 is high in two fatty acids crucial to
human health, DHA and EPA, which are pivotal in preventing heart disease,
cancer, and many other diseases.
Routine consumption of fish oil, rich in EPA and DHA, is highly encouraged
as it is in pure form and does not pose the mercury risk of fresh fish. It
is important to obtain a high-quality oil to ensure that it is pure. I have
tried various brands, but the one brand my patients and I have experienced
outstanding success with, and that I can recommend highly, is Carlsonās fish
oil and cod liver oil, which is now available in my "Recommended Products"
section. You may also be able to find it at your local health food store.
Carlson's is regularly tested by an independent FDA registered laboratory
and is of high potency and purity.
Related Articles:
Heart Disease Linked to Mercury-Contaminated Fish
Why You Should Stop Eating Fish
Mercury and Seafood Linked to Infertility
FDA Negligent On Mercury in Fish
Discover How Your Beef is Really Raised
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