It’s not every summer that a fish lands on the cover of TIME Magazine. But that’s just what happened this July, signaling that the future of our nation’s fisheries has become a pressing issue to be seriously debated among the federal government, environmental and consumer groups and of course, fishermen. Unfortunately, this debate was heating up at a time when Congress was mostly focused on issues like the debt ceiling – and right before they left town for congressional summer vacations.
Now that the summer is over, it’s time for Congress to weigh in.
“There's no denying that aquaculture [fish farming] can be messy,” the TIME story acknowledged. “A badly run near-shore farm of 200,000 salmon can flush nitrogen and phosphorus into the water at levels equal to the sewage from a town of 20,000 people.”
Shocking statistics like this are central to the debate on fish farms. True, the world is eating more fish, but farming those fish sustainably to feed our appetite for seafood is no solution. Unfortunately, ocean factory fish farms, like the one mentioned in the magazine piece, tip the scale towards extreme pollution and raise concerns for consumers.
Factory fish farms cram thousands of fish into open net pens and cages. These fish are eating and excreting waste into the sea. Like factory farms on land, growing animals in such close quarters often leads to filth and disease. This necessitates the use of sometimes harmful pesticides, antibiotics and chemicals – toxins which not only flow into the surrounding marine environment, but can also end up on our plates. Moreover, caged fish can escape and overtake or interbreed with wild fish, harming native fish populations.
Read the complete opinion piece from The Hill