The Chinese have raised fish on a manageable scale for centuries without problems. It is however the more recent development of industrial-scale fish farming, salmon in particular, over the last thirty years, that has wreaked havoc on many different levels: pollution; genetically-altered species, which result in faster growth and more consistent product; the control of the market; the flooding of the market, resulting in lower prices for wild-caught fish; the decimation of wild stocks to feed the penned fish; and the consolidation of companies into a few vertically-integrated multi-national corporations that have run amuck in their operational procedures, are regularly cited problems.
The most recently targeted species for pen-raised fish is the world’s most valuable species, tuna, which can sell for upwards of $40/pound. Many of the same techniques that have been applied to the salmon farming industry are now being applied to the tuna farming industry. One big difference in the tuna farming industry is that they do not raise them from smolts. Instead, they catch wild stocks, put them in pens , tune and fatten them to bring the highest price.
According to some industry experts, this method of catching wild stocks is devastating world wide to the fishery and those fishermen who use traditional methods of harvesting. Giant bluefin tuna are a highly-migratory species that criss-cross the Atlantic in their travels. What effect do wild bluefin stocks captured in the Eastern Atlantic have on the stocks migrating to the Western Atlantic? What effect does it have on established quotas for non-farming countries?
The decimation of wild stocks for feed is a major concern. It takes three tons of wild fish to produce one ton of salmon, and it takes five tons of wild fish to produce one ton of cod; but it can take 20 tons of wild fish to fatten a bluefin tuna for market.
Four to six years ago, traditional harvesters would catch 20 tons a day off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Spotter planes would see schools of 10,000 or more tuna in one day. Today there are schools not bigger than 20 fish. Is this only coincidental with the boom in pen-raised tuna farms in countries such as Spain, Malta, Croatia, Turkey, Mexico, and some African nations?
If not, where’s the tuna?
