The Future of Fish Farms ????

Rockfish

Well-Known Member
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Sa...ore+land+based+aquaculture/7562924/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/...es+demand+sustainable+fish/7562923/story.html


What we can only hope will be the future.

The only question I have about this technology is how will they sterilize the outgoing sea water that will be returned to the ocean as it occurs to me that the Atlantic salmon eggs used could and likely will contain some of the same Atlantic Ocean evolved viruses that our Pacific Salmon have little immunity too? Could UV sterilizing units be sufficient for killing viruses and workable with this volume of seawater or perhaps some other technology? Am I missing something? It has to be less of a risk than Atlantics in Net Pens.
 
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Anything is better than netpens. UV sterilization is not 100% effective.
 
From what I read elsewhere, most water will be recirculated in the system and what does leave will be directed to a field which will absorb the water into the ground and where it is intended that eventually crops will be grown.
 
Well if agramarine failed what makes this project any different. Seems like the article puts on a brave confident face about the project when really the fact is that it is going to be very challenging to succeed. I find it amusing that all the ngo groups that support this project have no intention of consuming the product. I actually am not interested either. In this day and age where the public has a desire to have their food grown in a more natural manor/environment this takes 10 steps backwards from that. Growing fish twice as fast and twice as dense! OMG!!! This can only lead to high moralities, pour feed conversion and a great increase of the use of antibiotics, yuck! I will far prefer the current more natural product that comes out of a net pen.

And if disease is your concern about open net pens please somebody explain to me how where i work we use no antibiotics or pesticides, EVER, and yet we do not see large die-offs. We grow chinooks that are reasonably close to atlantic farms. How can this be? We also have next to zero sea lice due to our low salinity.
 
We grow chinooks that are reasonably close to atlantic farms. How can this be? We also have next to zero sea lice due to our low salinity.

You must be close to fresh water as in a river. yes/no?
If so how is the wild salmon run in that river.
Got data to prove that you have no impact on the run?
Why don't you post that data here to prove to us that you have no impact.
I for one would be very interested to see that.
GLG
 
Well if agramarine failed what makes this project any different. Seems like the article puts on a brave confident face about the project when really the fact is that it is going to be very challenging to succeed. I find it amusing that all the ngo groups that support this project have no intention of consuming the product. I actually am not interested either. In this day and age where the public has a desire to have their food grown in a more natural manor/environment this takes 10 steps backwards from that. Growing fish twice as fast and twice as dense! OMG!!! This can only lead to high moralities, pour feed conversion and a great increase of the use of antibiotics, yuck! I will far prefer the current more natural product that comes out of a net pen.

And if disease is your concern about open net pens please somebody explain to me how where i work we use no antibiotics or pesticides, EVER, and yet we do not see large die-offs. We grow chinooks that are reasonably close to atlantic farms. How can this be? We also have next to zero sea lice due to our low salinity.

Not only do salmon feed lots (they are NOT farms) carry all the problems discussed endlessly in the media and on this site and highlighted in the Cohen report, but this article hits the nail on the head with this quote.

The elephant in the room is still feed. You don’t want to damage wild fisheries in order to feed so-called sustainable aquaculture.

It takes from 2 - 5 kg of wild fish, which could feed humans directly in many cases, to make 1 kg of feed lot salmon. Salmon feed lots contained or otherwise, can never be sustainable because raising carnivores is a zero sum game, with devastating consequences elsewhere.

http://www.theecologist.org/trial_i..._devastating_coastal_communities_in_peru.html

And if by some effort we managed to raise feed lot salmon on chicken waste or some such source, I would argue the product is not salmon!!
 
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What is alarming is that wild salmon convert 10 to 1, thats 10 kg of wild natural feed to make 1 kg of "wild?" hatchery, ranched, or wild salmon.
 
You must be close to fresh water as in a river. yes/no?

Yes, a large river...when it raining...very large.

If so how is the wild salmon run in that river.

Absolutely decimated and whats left of the salmon continues to be fished with nets every year. The river flows into one last small bay at sea level. The name of the bay....cannery bay! Of course there are some springs, coho and chums but sadly during the last five years there has been a massive increase in the pilchard numbers in the area. The result of this has been a massive increase in the number of sea lions wintering in the area. The numbers went from 3- 4 hundred to 3- 4 thousand in the area. Their haul out is right at the mouth of cannery bay. It depressing. The Kennedy river system is one of the largest watersheds on the island and sadly it is in very very rough shape. You can try to blame the salmon farms for this but IMO your kidding yourself and I know you would be eager to claim that it is the salmon farms that are hindering its recovery. I don't think so.

Got data to prove that you have no impact on the run?

Got data that proves it doesn't? I am not a biologist or a campaigner or representative of the company.

Why don't you post that data here to prove to us that you have no impact.

Well, we have no sea lice, we never use medication and our fish aren't dying all the while being close to atlantic farms. These are basic observations that suggests the opposite of what morton and others are claiming on a regular basis. See for yourself, search: Creative Salmon in Tofino B.C.
If our farms are disease pools like some suggest then how are they maintaining such a high survival rate? Since you are suggesting that I provide data specific to our location that proves there is no impact, why don't you post some that proves they do?
 
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closed containment has been used for some time in E WA to raise Coho for the market. the guy is doing quite well with this venture probably a decade old by this time. the folks in Chile have moved from atlantic salmon to both Chinook and Coho at their net pen facilities. the market for these fish brings a higher price and without these stocks south of the equator, they are not much worried about escapees. this happened when their fish farms crashed from diseased atlantic salmon eggs. a complete retinking occurred on the governments part and this is now the result, a profitable enterprise subsidised by their government, the only way it can survive.
 

Glad to see that "sustainable" means they consider the sourcing and sustainability of the feed pellets.

A farmed fish that ticks all the boxes for sustainability could well find a market among environmentally conscious shoppers, said Mike McDermid, a manager at Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise conservation program.

“Land-based aquaculture mitigates escapes, controls effluents and solid waste and you don’t have any disease getting out into the wild, if it’s a true recirculating system,” he said. “The elephant in the room is still feed. You don’t want to damage wild fisheries in order to feed so-called sustainable aquaculture.”

Living Ocean Society is working with feed suppliers as part of the ’Namgis project to ensure the farmed fish will be fed a sustainable diet.
 
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What is alarming is that wild salmon convert 10 to 1, thats 10 kg of wild natural feed to make 1 kg of "wild?" hatchery, ranched, or wild salmon.

Birdsnest, I don’t know where you get that figure of 10:1, but even if it were true you make a meaningless and irrelevant assertion.
How can your figure, even if true, be “alarming”?? Wild salmon have lived in the North Pacific in harmony with herring and other forage fish for thousands of years. For you to imply that wild salmon are somehow wasteful, inefficient and a drain on the ecosystem is just plain stupid spin.
Your diversionary tactic does not fool anyone, What is really wasteful, inefficient and dangerous is strip mining the oceans, especially off the coast of South America, to catch millions of tons of forage fish for processing into pellets, and ship up here for your feed lots, at great cost to the planetary ecosystem and wasted energy and C02 production.
It really is a robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario. I am citing this Ecologist journal article again. It really is a shattering exposure of what your dreadful industry does to these coast South American communities and their ecosystems. The following quote from this article says it all:-

‘The salmon we produce is eaten by the mouths of people in the USA and Europe, but the asshole is here in Latin America,’ says Jean Carlos Cardenas of Ecoceanos. ‘The true cost of the cheap salmon you eat is being paid with the blood of our people and the health of our oceans.’

http://www.theecologist.org/trial_in...s_in_peru.html

The evidence described in this article Birsdest means your industry is not just bad for people, the environment, and for wild salmon, it is in reality, criminal.
 
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Birdsnest, I don’t know where you get that figure of 10:1, but even if it were true you make a meaningless and irrelevant assertion.
How can your figure, even if true, be “alarming”?? Wild salmon have lived in the North Pacific in harmony with herring and other forage fish for thousands of years. For you to imply that wild salmon are somehow wasteful, inefficient and a drain on the ecosystem is just plain stupid spin.
Your diversionary tactic does not fool anyone, What is really wasteful, inefficient and dangerous is strip mining the oceans, especially off the coast of South America, to catch millions of tons of forage fish for processing into pellets, and ship up here for your feed lots, at great cost to the planetary ecosystem and wasted energy and C02 production.
It really is a robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario. I am citing this Ecologist journal article again. It really is a shattering exposure of what your dreadful industry does to these coast South American communities and their ecosystems. The following quote from this article says it all:-

‘The salmon we produce is eaten by the mouths of people in the USA and Europe, but the asshole is here in Latin America,’ says Jean Carlos Cardenas of Ecoceanos. ‘The true cost of the cheap salmon you eat is being paid with the blood of our people and the health of our oceans.’

http://www.theecologist.org/trial_in...s_in_peru.html

The evidence described in this article Birsdest means your industry is not just bad for people, the environment, and for wild salmon, it is in reality, criminal.
Using this same logic would you also call the use of these same pellet formulations for hatchery and ranched salmon and trout criminal? Think what your coho and chinook angling opportunities would be like if Washington and Oregon stopped their hatchery programs on the Columbia. Think what would happen to their fisheries and economies if Korea, Japan , Russia and Alaska stopped their salmon ranching programs. Also toast would be freshwater salmon and steelhead angling on rivers like the Vedder and Stamp as well as interior trout fisheries in lakes.
I do agree more research must be directed to finding alternate and suitable diets for all farmed, ranched and hatchery salmonids.
 
Beat it Dave... I'm sure youd like to argue about everything and keep delaying the inevitable. Time for you and your industry to f*#k off. :)
 
They always post one after the other. Maybe the same dude? Anyways, it's a waste of time engaging these guys. I was done with it a while ago.
 
They always post one after the other. Maybe the same dude? Anyways, it's a waste of time engaging these guys. I was done with it a while ago.

Rockdog, I always challenge their posts. Their arguments are always so simple, uneducated, and ignorant of any understanding of the way ecology and the environment works they cannot be left to stand! The one below is just a silly parallel that is comparing apples to oranges!!

Using this same logic would you also call the use of these same pellet formulations for hatchery and ranched salmon and trout criminal? Think what your coho and chinook angling opportunities would be like if Washington and Oregon stopped their hatchery programs on the Columbia. Think what would happen to their fisheries and economies if Korea, Japan , Russia and Alaska stopped their salmon ranching programs. Also toast would be freshwater salmon and steelhead angling on rivers like the Vedder and Stamp as well as interior trout fisheries in lakes.
I do agree more research must be directed to finding alternate and suitable diets for all farmed, ranched and hatchery salmonids.

Dave, you are drawing parallels between two things that differ by many orders of magnitude. Fish feed lots use enough pellets to raise salmon to marketable size!! And what is more this destructive industry wants to continue to expand all over the world.

Hatcheries and ranches only raise fish to fingerlings for goodness sake!! They are then left to the their own devices to forage naturally just like a wild fish.

And if we took better care of our environment, which includes removal of all fish feed lots!, we would not need hatcheries, because the rivers and streams of BC and the Pacific North West have produced millions more salmon in the past than they do now, and could do again.

But above all, removal of fish feed lots would bring some respite to the rape and pillage of the oceans motivated now by the pellet feed industry and better protect the base of the food chain worldwide.

Dave, you have not read that Ecologist article and I can understand why. You are too ashamed!!
 
Birdsnest, I don’t know where you get that figure of 10:1, but even if it were true you make a meaningless and irrelevant assertion.
How can your figure, even if true, be “alarming”?? Wild salmon have lived in the North Pacific in harmony with herring and other forage fish for thousands of years. For you to imply that wild salmon are somehow wasteful, inefficient and a drain on the ecosystem is just plain stupid spin.

Yes, I can see how it is a meaningless figure to you since you seem to want to stick to your facts. You could just call me a liar or actually consider the figure. I just put that figure out there because I think it is interesting. If you think about it, how could a wild salmon convert better that a farm salmon. No other wild animals convert better than farm animals. I did not just make that figure up but as you post below you seem to be all knowing so I will leave it with you to do what you do. To me it is surprising that wild salmon convert that poorly and it should be considered when accepting some of the current practices taking place in the north pacific. Its no wonder salmon population fluctuate.

Rockdog, I always challenge their posts. Their arguments are alwaysthey cannot be left to stand! The one below is just a silly parallel that is comparing apples to oranges!!

I will leave this question to stand then:

And if disease is your concern about open net pens please somebody explain to me how where i work we use no antibiotics or pesticides, EVER, and yet we do not see large die-offs. We grow chinooks that are reasonably close to atlantic farms and have no sealice. How are these farmed chinooks surviving?

Its not a trick or a trap or a conspiracy either I am just wondering since I am
so simple, uneducated, and ignorant of any understanding of the way ecology and the environment works,
I figure for certain you could tell me the answer to the above question.
 
Here's a paper that establishes a link between farmed salmon and wild salmon mortality -http://www.pnas.org/content/108/35/14700.long - it's free to view. There was also another recently published paper (not free to view) I referenced in another thread that makes it even clearer. Fish farms concentrate fish and disease. Fish farms located at terminal regions of salmon migration do so at the worst possible location. Moreover, and this isn't discussed much in the public domain, fish farms have the potential to create even more virulent strains of not only sea-lice but other fish viruses and fish bacteria. In the wild, the lethality of a virus, bacteria or parasite is naturally limited due to the need for the host to last long enough to pass the disease onto the next fish. When the fish-to-fish contact is more limited (like it is in the wild), infectious diseases do not develop virulence that rapidly kills the host. In a concentrated environment with a near limitless supply of new hosts, there is less selective pressure on all infectious diseases and hence the ability for a more lethal version to evolve is higher. In the long run, the ONLY effective solution to this problem is to get the fish farms into self contained environments. THE WORST POSSIBLE thing to do is what is done right now - e.g. to site the fish farms near rivers and streams to which salmon return. Remember, friends don't let friends eat farmed salmon.
 
Here's a paper that establishes a link between farmed salmon and wild salmon mortality -http://www.pnas.org/content/108/35/14700.long - it's free to view. There was also another recently published paper (not free to view) I referenced in another thread that makes it even clearer. Fish farms concentrate fish and disease. Fish farms located at terminal regions of salmon migration do so at the worst possible location. Moreover, and this isn't discussed much in the public domain, fish farms have the potential to create even more virulent strains of not only sea-lice but other fish viruses and fish bacteria. In the wild, the lethality of a virus, bacteria or parasite is naturally limited due to the need for the host to last long enough to pass the disease onto the next fish. When the fish-to-fish contact is more limited (like it is in the wild), infectious diseases do not develop virulence that rapidly kills the host. In a concentrated environment with a near limitless supply of new hosts, there is less selective pressure on all infectious diseases and hence the ability for a more lethal version to evolve is higher. In the long run, the ONLY effective solution to this problem is to get the fish farms into self contained environments. THE WORST POSSIBLE thing to do is what is done right now - e.g. to site the fish farms near rivers and streams to which salmon return. Remember, friends don't let friends eat farmed salmon.

Thats just another generalized blanket fear mongering paper written by the usual suspects that does not apply to the scenario I speak of one little bit. So when looking at my question it is important to realize that medications or treatments of any kind are being used to treat pathogens or sealice and have not been for a number of years. I am glad that you posted that seadna because this is exactly the point I make. If these chinook farms are like the paper suggest how do most of their fish survive to market size? All the while there are atlantic farms close by and if what this paper says is going on there you would think that the chinook sites would have all died off long ago but they never have.
 
Thats just another generalized blanket fear mongering paper written by the usual suspects that does not apply to the scenario I speak of one little bit. So when looking at my question it is important to realize that medications or treatments of any kind are being used to treat pathogens or sealice and have not been for a number of years. I am glad that you posted that seadna because this is exactly the point I make. If these chinook farms are like the paper suggest how do most of their fish survive to market size? All the while there are atlantic farms close by and if what this paper says is going on there you would think that the chinook sites would have all died off long ago but they never have.
I'm sorry if you think science and legitimate concerns are "fear mongering". It may be that in your particular fish farm, you don't have problems with sea lice due to low salinity. The reality however, is that most fish farms do and there is abundant evidence of negative impact on wild salmon period. While you're entitled to your own opinion, you're not entitled to your own facts. Did you read the primary scientific literature on this topic? I'd be happy to debate any aspect of either paper to which I provide a link. However, throwing around terms like "usual suspects" and "fear mongering" will do little to get at the facts. Your argument about the chinook sites vs. the atlantic sites may have some merit as perhaps the fish farmed in the chinook sites are less susceptible to disease. BUT, and this is a big but, we don't really give a crap about whether the atlantic fish farms harm the chinook in a chinook fish farm! We do care about whether they impact wild salmon runs and THEY DO as is indicated by the data.

Also, there is no doubt that increasing the local concentration of fish (e.g farming them), increases the risk of disease and increases the risk of increased virulence of disease. There is also no doubt that the worst place to site a fish farm is adjacent to a site of increased concentrations of wild fish (e.g. at or near a terminal site of migration).
 
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