Wild Fish Vs Farm-Raised Fish

An Environmental Comparison of Wild vs. Farm-raised Fish
Molly Reamon The introduction of aquaculture, or raising fish on farms, was intended to relieve the pressure of the commercial fishing industry on the ocean. These fish farms do add to the global fish market which directly reduces the need for commercial fishing, but also indirectly contributes to the problem of overexploitation, or taking more resources from the ocean than is sustainable. This leads us to ask, which is more environmentally sustainable; raising fish on a farm or catching wild fish? The introduction of aquaculture, with the intentions of relieving the ocean of commercialized fishing, quite often has the opposite effect by recreating similar problems such as overexploitation, and introducing new unintentional issues. …show more content…
The predatory fish population has declined by 90% because of the commercial fishing industry in the past 50 years (Meyer & Worm 2005). The practice of aquaculture, or raising fish on farms, has recently become popular because it is thought to relieve pressure on fisheries by decreasing the demands of wild fish. However, the opposite is true in most cases because these fish farms require tons of wild fish to feed the farm-raised fish. For example, one of the most common types of aquaculture raises salmon, a species at the top of the food chain. These salmon farms do relieve pressure on the salmon fisheries, however they require tons of lower level fish to feed the salmon. An average of 2.5-5kg of wild fish for feed is required for every kilogram of salmon produced (Naylor et al. 2000). Both farm-raised fish and wild fish contribute to the overexploitation of the ocean in different