A Problem of Scale

Chilean salmon-farming industry in a sad state

Posted at 4:18 PM on 27 Mar 2008

A virus called infectious salmon anemia is sweeping through Chile's fisheries, bringing attention to the condition of the country's third-largest export industry. On expansive salmon farms, fish are bred in crowded underwater pens. Fish poop and food pellets contaminate the water. As many as 1 million nonnative salmon escape each year, gobbling native species and traveling as far as Argentina. The fish are treated liberally with antibiotics, some of which are prohibited for use on animals in the U.S. -- but 29 percent of Chilean exports end up in American grocery stores. Salmon farming was welcomed as an economy-booster two decades ago, but in the wake of the virus, some in the industry are leaving in search of more pristine waters. Says one local fisherman, who says salmon farming has affected the quality of wild fish as well: "They bring illnesses and then leave us with the problems."

source: The New York Times
see also, in Grist: U.S. fails to inspect farmed fish imports for dangerous chemicals

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Comments: (7 comments)

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Animal Husbandry

Domesticating animals for food or any other reason is bad for the environment, native species, and the animals themselves. This is just one more example.

by Wolverine at 12:38 AM on 28 Mar 2008

Waste is a resource out of place

What is needed is a closed loop. Aquaculture, or the concentrated breeding of fish, isn't bad if you collect the wastes (in clear text, fish poop) and use it to fertilize the land -- to produce nice things like soybeans for all those hungry vegans. I often eat tilapia, a freshwater fish that itself is often branded a pest. I call it another misplaced resource.

Fish-farming on the open sea, as far as I know, is always bad. There's no way to collect the poop or to isolate the sperm of lazy, fenced-in salmon. But there sure as heck is a way to pass decent laws to protect ocean ecosystems and to enforce these laws. With the human population as large and hungry as it is, the oceans are becoming an increasingly important source of food. Strip-mining the sea and refilling depleted areas with garbage has got to stop.

by JakobFabian01 at 8:26 AM on 28 Mar 2008

Any Aquaculture Is Harmful And Cruel

While keeping farmed fish away from natural ecosystems would be a large improvement over the current situation, placing fish feces on land is unnatural and probably causes some ecological harm, even if humans have not yet figured out what it is. Additionally, removing water from natural ecosystems for fish farming would also be ecologically harmful. And on top of all that, it's cruel to cage or fence any animal.

What needs to be done is to greatly lower human population. The problems with lack of fish in the oceans is a perfect example of human overpopulation. We need to quit trying to solve problems caused by overpopulation by doing things other than lowering population.

by Wolverine at 11:27 AM on 28 Mar 2008

wolverine, you are ridiculous

OBVIOUSLY overpopulation is the cause of most, if not all environmental issues here, and should clearly be combatted if intact systems are to survive. The point is, is that this is something that is not as easily as changeable as, say, the freshwater vs. oceanic fish farming industries. First of all, you probably support the removal of troops from Iraq, but our intervention is essentially lowering the world population as you prefer. Second, you said that adding fish poop as a soil amendment is unnatural, but you forget that all farming and domestication of any species, both plant or animal, is historically unnatural. That spinach salad you eat for lunch is just as unnatural as the tilapia the previous guy was talking about, and probably even more unnatural considering that we are inherently carnivorous as a species. Until you start foraging from the forest and fishing natural lakes/streams for all your meals, stop whining! You can do more powerful things like asking the store purchasers to make more conscious decisions or volunteering in these foreign countries to help them apply a more sustainable path to their aqauculture practices. If you are going to be an environmentalist, please be a good one and get your stuff straight.

by drewpekarek at 1:28 PM on 28 Mar 2008

Salmon and Overpopulation

Wolverine -- Besides policies such as expanding educational opportunities for girls and family planning programs, which many people (myself included) support for reason beyond populuation issues, what specifically should people and policy makers be doing to lower population? Are there policies that are not reactionary and authoritarian? It seems to me that for all the sound and fury about the "overpopulation problem" there are few workable and realisic solutions, at least for free and democratic societies.
John

by baileygood at 1:30 PM on 28 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

No Time For Moderation

Drew:
First, humans are NOT inherently carnivorous, where in the world did you get that, the meat industry? Primates eat very little meat naturally, some eat none at all. A natural diet would be fruit- and vegetable-based with occasional meat.

Second, drawing attention to the root cause of the problem when people are focusing on symptoms is not whining. If you don't like people raising points that strike a nerve with you, I suggest you stay away from discussion groups.

Third, I do ask my store purchasers to do the right thing, even though the store I buy from -- when I can't get what I need from a farmers market -- sells almost exclusively organic produce.

Fourth, don't tell anyone (s)he should volunteer unless you're willing to support him or her. I didn't see any offer of support from you.

Finally, I should be a "good" environmentalist like you? Gimme a break? I've been arrested numerous times and put my body and life on the line for the Earth. I've also volunteered 10-20 hours per week for about three years in addition to my full time paying job driving a recycling truck. What have you done that makes you better?

And BTW, war does not lower population. After the fighting, people breed even more in an attempt to make up for all the dead. But you're right, I do support pulling ALL U.S. troops out of ALL foreign countries, because the only reason for them being there is to support U.S. businesses, mainly the oil industry.

Bailey:
The most effective things that can be done to lower human population are empowering women and a one-child per family policy with carrots and sticks.

by Wolverine at 12:40 AM on 29 Mar 2008

Overpopulation Solutions

Bailey:
I forgot to mention this in my last post: Whether a solution to overpopulation is authoritarian is an anthropocentric issue that is completely irrelevant to the rest of the planet, though I think most everyone would agree that it's far better to get people to act voluntarily, both for their own happiness and because it's more effective.

The problems with focusing on whether a solution is authoritarian instead of whether it would be effective are these:

First, if the main goal is to lower human population to a level where all other forms of life have adequate space and where human consumption is not harming the planet, the manner in which it's done becomes secondary. As a constraint on mass murder, one needs to proceed from the premise that everything is alive and that the only excuse for killing is to eat (or, in the case of human-human killin, self-defense).

Second, people only deserve freedoms when they take responsibility for the relevant actions. Because humans have been utterly irresponsible in their incessant population growth, they don't deserve the right to choose how many children to have, and continuing to allow that freedom will just produce more overpopulation. It would be great if we could convince everyone, without coercion, to limit their families to one child until the human population is down to a level that would support all other species -- no one knows what that is, but it's far lower than the two billion that's been touted lately by anthropocentrics -- but the only way that's been shown to effectively lower birth rates to less than two children per family is China's one-child family policy. (Empowering women works to a smaller extent, in that they'll generally have two kids if they have a choice.)

Re your comment about being reactionary, I don't understand what that term means in this context. If you mean that the Earth and those of us who unconditionally support it and all life on it are reacting to human overpopulation, I'm all for that reaction. In a political context, it is those of you who oppose government coercion who are being reactionary, as evidenced by the statute that was authored by Jesse Helms that prohibits the U.S. from implementing a China-type policy. I don't think there is a meritorious argument that Jesse Helms was not one of the most reactionary members of Congress during the past several decades.

by Wolverine at 10:26 AM on 29 Mar 2008

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