Farming vs. Wild (split from Seal Slaughter)

[fisherdvm]

Salmon farming is a fairly new industry and therefore hasn't as much time to get into habits that have been learned for hundreds of years. Some habits are hard to break. It is highly regulated, and science is the way it started. Check it out for yourself, the aquaculture act in British Columbia will blow your mind.

Feel free to ask any other questions...
I think we have hijacked this thread...maybe this discussion deserves its own?

Cheers
O

Yes, we probably need a new thread. I was quite amazed at the salmon food conversion rate, better than poultry, which I thought was the best. I mean 1.35 lbs of food for 1 lb of meat? Almost impossible to believe.

But the bottom line concern is - damage to the environment. Salmon farms have to be built in sheltered cove, to protect from storm, surges, etc.

Second, they need a good flow of water, to carry away waste.

Where does the waste go? Into bays and sheltered rivers.

What does the waste do to the local ecology? That is my biggest concern, and others too. It doesn't take very much waste to cause algae bloom, bacterial overgrowth, and other problems. 2 tons of salmon, equals 2 tons of waste or more (if wet). Not simply 1.35 minus 1 - as feed to meat ratio is dry weight of food to wet weight of meat.

I think you, and any others, will have a very hard time convincing me of the small environmental foot print of salmon aquaculture. It will take alot of convincing. But if one can raise prawn and shrimps in the middle of Michigan (but shrimp is a high priced commodity), one can possibly farm salmon safely inland. I just can't see farming salmon in open water good for the environment.

 

[Ann Marie]

I think to buy organic grown pork, and free range hen laying eggs is very much like purchasing "tree credit" in afghanistan so you can drive your SUV guilt free. Kinda like purchasing indulgence in the middle age, so you can commit adultery and still earn grace for heaven.

I don't drive my SUV guilt free. But I do buy organic when I can and I support locally grown products. I'm a SCUBA instructor, there are often times when my truck is loaded to the max (often times friend's and student's stuff too). Right now that vehicle fits my life-style. When it comes time to get a new vehicle I hope to buy a SUV that is more 'green'. But I happen to like not having a car payment (even though it cost me $80 to fill that thing up with gas yesterday).

I do what I can, I read labels, I use canvas bags, I recycle, I'm learning about composting. I consider where my products come from and I try to buy green products as well as those with the least amount of packaging. My husband hates going to seafood restaurants with me anymore because I pull out my handy-dandy Seafood Watch card and tell him, "You can't order that.." I given up on almost completely eating shrimp

There are a hundred little more things I do but the SUV fits my life-style right now.

 

[wardric]

I miss my old SUV

 

[Hank49]

Aquaculture can be very good for the environment. Or very bad. Shrimp farming devastate mangrove swamps, and releases antibiotics, waste run offs, and removes precious environment for the protection of juvenile fish, birds, and shellfish. In the same way, salmon farming also can introduce disease, antibiotic waste, and cause pollution to river and bays.

You might be correct in saying that catfish and tilipia farming is sustainable. But also remember that the grass carps, which eventually will enter the great lakes, were introduced as part of aquaculture.

You are encouraging the unnatural way of harvesting food. Locking animals up in over crowded pens, eating preprocessed food, and all the while imagining that your supermarket is stocked with "free range additive free chickens".

Again, I'd rather be a wild salmon taking my chances with the fisherman's net, a wild seal taking my chances with hunters, or a wild animal facing nature as it intended. Than to be cooped up in an unsanitary pen suffering until the day I am slaughtered. I eat turkey, beef, pork ... But I don't have qualms about hunters and fishermen. Because I think there is much more that can be done to eliminate animal suffering than worrying about the seal harvest.

These seals suffer no more than a few minutes of pain before their death.

Broiler chickens suffer 8 weeks, beef cattle 2 years, pigs 6 months, and egg laying hens 2 years .... Before they can be slaughtered. Their death maybe "humane", but their life is far from it.

First of all, 20 years ago shrimp farmers learned that mangrove soil sucks for growing shrimp. It's too acidic, hard to build ponds because of porous, high organic soil, is too low in most areas to drain and dry the ponds and at best, farmers got one or two good crops out of it. Nowadays you may see a supply canal cut through the mangroves but farms are not in them. If you want to target mangrove destroyers, look at hotel and housing projects.
Shrimp farming has advanced in leaps and bounds since then, and today, the new super intensive farms (rapidly developing in Thailand and Indonesia...the kings of shrimp producing countries) that require genetically improved, disease resistant and fast growing shrimp, all use plastic liners, low protein feeds to get a carbon to nitrogen ratio that promotes a bacterial flock system developed to purify the water, and 0 water exchange. Much more enviro friendly.
All food produced today is "unnatural". We cannot feed the world any other way and it's not going to get better. Super intensive farms, low cost recycling of waste from one crop to fertilize another is the future. (shrimp waste feeding tilapia etc etc or fish farm waste fertilizing land crops)
Chicken growing has advanced at an incredible rate. For the last 18-20 years, the growing cycle for a broiler has been reduced by one day each year. Obviously the cost has come way down also. This was mainly due to genetic improvement.
I don't like seeing animals suffer. Unfortunately, the intensive, low cost production is the primary goal of food production. Hopefully, kindness to animals will follow.

 

[fisherdvm]

I remembered reading a documentary about shrimp farming in Vietnam, and how the government encourages it. It is still very primative, and wasteful. I am not an authority on this. I do understand that modern farms can be very efficient and less damaging to the environment. But we are talking about third world countries - Vietnam, Equador, Bangledesh, and Thailand. BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Shrimp farms 'harm poor nations'
and EJF: Protecting People and Planet

You are probably talking about shrimp and prawn farmers in the USA, where regulation is high. But 90% of the coconut shrimp, fresh shrimp and cooked shrimps on the shelf are from third world countries.

I know that an expert aquaculturist in Michigan has grown limitted amount of high quality prawns in the middle of the state. But the lower priced product that we consume, are still causing damage to the environment.

I was amazed that we can bring a broiler chicken to the market in only 8 weeks 20 years ago. What age do they market them now? 6 weeks?

 

[fisherdvm]

However, Vietnam has also reversed its 50 years of uncontrolled shrimp farm growth, to more recent large programs to reforest and preserve mangrove swamps. Public outcry and actual harm to people have started to awaken these government to the harms in destructive farming methods.

Talking about little cars and SUV's. My wife is perturbed that I want to buy a little car like a Fiesta, Aveo, or Yaris.... All of my employees drive luxury SUV's and the boss is driving a little economy car!

 

[Hank49]

I remembered reading a documentary about shrimp farming in Vietnam, and how the government encourages it. It is still very primative, and wasteful. I am not an authority on this. I do understand that modern farms can be very efficient and less damaging to the environment. But we are talking about third world countries - Vietnam, Equador, Bangledesh, and Thailand. BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Shrimp farms 'harm poor nations'
and EJF: Protecting People and Planet

You are probably talking about shrimp and prawn farmers in the USA, where regulation is high. But 90% of the coconut shrimp, fresh shrimp and cooked shrimps on the shelf are from third world countries.

I know that an expert aquaculturist in Michigan has grown limitted amount of high quality prawns in the middle of the state. But the lower priced product that we consume, are still causing damage to the environment.

I was amazed that we can bring a broiler chicken to the market in only 8 weeks 20 years ago. What age do they market them now? 6 weeks?

Your expert in Michigan is polluting on a per acre basis just as much as any shrimp farm in the world, depending on his target harvest density. I would bet he's growing macrobrachium Rosenbergii or the Giant Malaysian Prawn, which lives its larval cycle in brackish water but the adults live in fresh water. Kentucky St U started a program for farmers in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky about 15 years ago but it's more of a hobby than a real industry.
I was talking about farms in developing countries. The only farms I have worked on in the US were in Hawaii back in the 70s and early 80s. Since then (31 years altogether) I've managed farms and hatcheries in the Philippines, Malaysia and Belize. I've been to farms throughout the world and am aware that SOME are not up to environmental standards but it's nothing like the articles you're siting. We can't screw up our environment or the shrimp won't grow. The greenies like to portray us as a bunch of idiots.

I have friends developing the industry in Vietnam as we type. All of that part of the world is making the transition to penaeus Vanammei from penaeus Monodon (black tiger prawns) and they're getting into the genetically improved, high tech systems just like everyone else. Coconut, cooked whatever, are 90% either tiger shrimp or pacific whites. Those are the two main shrimp cultured throughout the world.
I believe the chicken growing cycle is around 35 days now.

 

[fisherdvm]

Pressure on third world countries by exposure of environmental issues probably has done alot to encourage modernization of shrimp aquaculture. I think that some articles noted that Vietnam should be a model for mangrove reforestation.

I love shrimp. But I don't like the damage done by "bycatch" with wild shrimp harvesting. Isn't it like for every pound of shrimp, about 10 pounds of wastage we do to other sea creatures? But the alternative, aquaculture has to be watched with a wary eye, so we don't rape the environment needlessly. As the people who work on these farms are dirt poor to start with, we can not let them destroy their natural resources.

I am glad there are experts who are willing to lend a hand and teach these farms the correct methods to maximize harvest. Here is an article about the man in Michigan. You might have heard of him? USMSFP - U.S. Marine Shrimp Farming Program

 

[Ann Marie]

However, Vietnam has also reversed its 50 years of uncontrolled shrimp farm growth, to more recent large programs to reforest and preserve mangrove swamps. Public outcry and actual harm to people have started to awaken these government to the harms in destructive farming methods.

Talking about little cars and SUV's. My wife is perturbed that I want to buy a little car like a Fiesta, Aveo, or Yaris.... All of my employees drive luxury SUV's and the boss is driving a little economy car!

You know the Mercedes SLKs are little cars. My husband won't let me put any of my SCUBA gear or myself when I'm wet and sandy in his little car though. Can't imagine why though.

 

[Underwater Ogre]

Yes, we probably need a new thread. I was quite amazed at the salmon food conversion rate, better than poultry, which I thought was the best. I mean 1.35 lbs of food for 1 lb of meat? Almost impossible to believe.

But the bottom line concern is - damage to the environment. Salmon farms have to be built in sheltered cove, to protect from storm, surges, etc.

Second, they need a good flow of water, to carry away waste.

Where does the waste go? Into bays and sheltered rivers.

What does the waste do to the local ecology? That is my biggest concern, and others too. It doesn't take very much waste to cause algae bloom, bacterial overgrowth, and other problems. 2 tons of salmon, equals 2 tons of waste or more (if wet). Not simply 1.35 minus 1 - as feed to meat ratio is dry weight of food to wet weight of meat.

I think you, and any others, will have a very hard time convincing me of the small environmental foot print of salmon aquaculture. It will take alot of convincing. But if one can raise prawn and shrimps in the middle of Michigan (but shrimp is a high priced commodity), one can possibly farm salmon safely inland. I just can't see farming salmon in open water good for the environment.

As I said before the waste is not dumped in one big...no cesspools. Farms are in areas with good flow and "no" most of the time it is not sheltered. Sites are selected, then a a couple of years of monitoring currents, environmental assessments and a load of paperwork before the lease application even gets a looked at by anyone who has any say. Algae blooms are created by lower salinity, minimal water movement and the lots of sun.
Because of the current flow, bio-loading is not an issue. Do you think a viable product can be grown in a cesspool...I hope I am making a point?

I have always lived and worked on the coast. Do you think I would support an industry that would be destroying my ocean? I know it is everyone, but teaching my children that it is their ocean, gives them pride, a sense of ownership and a reason to be responsible for it.
I have watched commercial fishery beat most stocks to death. There are just too many people on this planet to think that we can feed without farming efficiently.

Farming inland is an option, but I really hate the idea of using tons of energy to pump millions of gallons a water a day to do something the tide does with no fuel.

I've been to farms throughout the world and am aware that SOME are not up to environmental standards but it's nothing like the articles you're siting. We can't screw up our environment or the shrimp won't grow. The greenies like to portray us as a bunch of idiots.

You hit the nail on the head Hank49. We cant screw up our environment...and the greenies always portray fish farmers as idiots.