Huge Fish Farm Proposed Off
San Diego Coast

Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, a nonprofit funded in part by SeaWorld, is planning to construct the largest fish farm in the U.S. for the purpose of cultivating yellowtail and sea bass. Rose Canyon Fisheries would comprise 48 cages of approximately 11000 cubic meters each, which in total would be capable of producing 11 million pounds of fish annually, in federal waters four miles off the San Diego coast. While project boosters claim the installation will produce sustainable fish at good market prices, environmental groups are crying foul. San Diego Coastkeeper, a local nonprofit, has raised concerns with biological waste from the caged fish, entanglements with marine mammal populations, and genetic dilution of the wild fish genome when farmed fish inevitably escape from the net pens in which they’re raised.

Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association opposes open ocean finfish aquaculture because of the impacts such projects have on the demand for wild-caught seafood, in addition to the reasons mentioned above. Fish farms could be devastating for the commercial fishing fleet, which harvests sustainable seafood without disproportionately impacting the environment.

For more information, see this 2 September KPBS article: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/sep/02/massive-fish-farm-proposed-sandiegos-coast