My dad once had a fish farm and we always enjoyed the fishes whenever we harvested them. The world's need for protein continues to grow and so the dependence on fish also increases. It looks like lakes, oceans and rivers are currently overburdened with fishing activities leaving fish farmers (aquaculture) to do the needful to ensure that we get fishes on our tables but then, people have come up with problems surrounding aquaculture and it now leaves us to the question of which is sustainable and which is harmful, farming or wild catching?
When it comes to wild caught fish, people do not need to bring in water or do any feeding since the fishes live in the wild and they are caught in the wild. In the past, wild fishing wasn't done in commercial scale but since people realized that there were a lot of fishes in the water, commercial fishing began and people started to use big ships for this purpose. These ships emit a lot of greenhouse gases but you might want to ask how many ships could be on water body for the purpose of fishing, and the answer is 4.6 million as at 2018.
Asides from the catching of the fishes, transporting them round the world also comes with its own share of greenhouse gas emissions but beyond the emissions is the bycatch problem where unwanted fishing substances including living sea organisms are returned back into the ocean as waste. About 10% of commercial fishing harvest are regarded and discarded as bycatch. This bycatch could include sharks, dolphins, seabirds, sea turtles, and small unwanted fishes.
Some fishermen also used bottom trawling in the past to catch fishes and this method affected a whole ecosystem which could takes a long time before the ecosystem reaches normalcy again. The extent at which we have harvested fishes in the wild, it would take a long time for the current population to produce and reach its former population and rebound.
With all the negative result from wild fishing, we would assume that aquaculture is the best solution but it looks like that hasn't gotten a good name as well. While farming fishes isn't as hazardous to the environment as cow farming, we cannot deny the reality that it also add its own bit to it. People who practice aquaculture in large scales usually farm in the natural water body with difference being that they create their own pen or nets to differentiate their fishes from the wild.
When fishes are farmed, the fishes can eat a lot and at the same time release waste a lot which can lead to alga bloom in the water body affecting the fishes in the wild and leading to their death as a result of low oxygen. Breeders who breed in the natural body of water try to prevent fishes in their pen from getting disease and so they feed them with antibiotics regularly which can diffuse into the natural habitat of wild fishes and if the antibiotics are not properly administered, they could lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria in the water affecting both the fish and human health.
A lot of fish farmers are now farming inland instead in the natural water body, and with this, there is no interaction with fishes in the wild and so there is no way they can affect their ecosystem with their activities. For now, we are we will have to still tilt to farming our fishes. Fish vaccinations can also be used in fishes instead of antibiotics that could lead to Antibiotic resistant. Proper waste management can also be put in place so as to hep make the environment a better one. Saying one is better than the other when it comes to sustainability can be difficult, so we just go with choice.
Reference
https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/06/11/choice-matters-the-environmental
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams
https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-basics
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/06/06/319247280
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/10/14/141273483
https://phys.org/news/2005-12-overfishing-threatens-inland.html#google_vignette
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1084135/
https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/seafood-101/cost-of-food/
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1820344116
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1801270115
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1405454111
https://www.npr.org/2012/04/30/151548173/drama-amid-indonesias-disappearing-mangroves
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-future-of-fish-farming-may-be-indoors/
https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/06/11/choice-matters-the-environmental
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams
https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-basics
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/06/06/319247280
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/10/14/141273483
https://phys.org/news/2005-12-overfishing-threatens-inland.html#google_vignette https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1084135/ https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/seafood-101/cost-of-food/ https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1820344116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1801270115 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1405454111 https://www.npr.org/2012/04/30/151548173/drama-amid-indonesias-disappearing-mangroves https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-future-of-fish-farming-may-be-indoors/
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