J. Lee

Horrors of Animal Farming and Netting – The Fish Industry

This story exposes fish farms and how it affects humans and other living creatures.

FISH FARMING

Fish farming poses many dangers to humans and wildlife surrounding the farms. The environment they are kept in is cruel, crowded and unhealthy. The dangers allowed in the name of profit effects fish and shrimp, but it extends to humans and other living creatures.

My report is not to convince anyone to go vegan or vegetarian.  Its purpose is to open your eyes to the factory fishing industry.  I will also show the aquatic impact of netting to sea life referred to as bycatch often caught in nets.

Aquafarming – Nearly half of all fish consumed worldwide each year are raised on land- or ocean-based aquafarms. Farmed fish spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy enclosures, and many suffer from parasitic infections, diseases, and debilitating injuries.

Salmon, tilapia, trout, catfish, and shrimp for the most part are raised in overcrowded farmed environments. They are fed fish pellets which are unhealthy. Chicken feces as well as pig and duck waste is also part of their diet.

Fish Farming – As is the case with industrial animal farms on land, the fish are often housed in unnaturally crowded and cramped conditions with little room to move. Fish may suffer from lesions, fin damage and other debilitating injuries. The overcrowded and stressful conditions promote disease and parasite outbreaks – such as sea lice – that farmers treat with pesticides and antibiotics. The use of antibiotics can create drug-resistant strains of diseases that can harm wildlife populations and even humans that eat the farmed fish.

Pellets and waste from fish raised in farms are often eaten by surrounding animals such as birds, mussels, other fish and other aquatic inhabitants causing unintended and harmful consequences.

Dr. Mercola – What Do Fish Farms Use For Feed? – The practice of feeding feces, and possibly contaminated feces at that, to farmed fish is disturbing, but not particularly surprising. The practice increases fish growth and therefore profits, and when health and profit collide, health is usually the loser.

Conditions at fish farms are like conditions at factory farms everywhere: overcrowded, sickly, infected animals being fed whatever it takes to grow them as large as possible in as short a time as possible. Fish farm techniques are causing disease to be spread even to wild fish, such as by infecting wild baby salmon with sea lice. Without exposure to infections and toxins — and don’t forget mercury — fish would be nearly a perfect food.

One Medical ‘Is Farmed Salmon Bad for You?‘ – The majority of salmon on the market is farm-raised, meaning it’s farmed and harvested under controlled conditions in sea cages or net pens. The problem, according to some researchers, is that the crowded conditions of most farms can cause contamination. A 2003 report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that seven out of ten farmed salmon purchased in grocery stores in San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Portland were contaminated with cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at “levels that raise health concerns.”

Additionally, farmed salmon has been found to contain toxic chemicals methylmercury and dioxins, and farms have been accused of polluting the oceans, fostering disease, and spreading sea lice. 

Environmentalists and those concerned monitor problems. Their research helps to keep the public informed regarding dangers to humans and wildlife. The advancement of drones have helped to see what might have been previously overlooked.

The Problem with Farmed Salmon – Aquaculture-grown fish and seafood is becoming increasingly common. Worldwide, more fish than cattle are farmed. But the booming fish industry is causing environmental problems. Medications, pesticides and parasites are escaping from open-water farms and contaminating the ecosystem.

FISH FARMING – HARMFUL TO HUMANS 

Fish in fish farms exposes humans and surrounding wildlife to antibiotics, pesticides, Dibutyltin (chemical used in PVC plastics), Polybrominated Diphenyl (chemical used as a flame retardant), Dioxins, Canthaxanthin (synthetic pigment that is used to add a pink color to farm-raised salmon) and they harm the environment.

THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD STOP EATING TILAPIA AND FARMED SHRIMP IMMEDIATELY – Fish can either be one of the best foods for you or detrimental to your health depending on where it’s sourced. There is a world of difference between a fish that is caught in the wild vs. farm-bred or farm-raised fish. The most common farm-raised fish are: salmon, tilapia, catfish, “sea” bass and cod (the last two surprise a lot of people).

NETTING, DECOMPRESSION AND BYCATCH

Netting is used by commercial fisherman. Fish experience decompression from being brought in too quickly. When that happens fish air bladders rupture and expand crushing other vital organs. Decompression causes gases to expand and inflate. When that happens it causes eyes and sometimes other organs to pop out.

Netting fish creates bycatch which means nets also catch other other sea such as sharks, dolphins, turtles and other aquatic species. Some survive, but most do not. Most are discarded back in to the ocean without a thought.

When Sea Creatures Are Accidentally Caught in Nets, It Hurts Us All – These nets also entangle and kill other animals the fishermen never intended to catch, including whales, turtles, sharks, dolphins and many species of fish. In other words, bycatch is bad for those who fish and even worse for the environment.

CONCLUSION: WHAT YOU CAN DO

As consumers we can demand change to improve conditions for animal as well making sure what we eat is healthy to consume.

It is within your power to choose kindness over cruelty. There is something we all can do. We can support organizations on the front lines, we can become activists, we can contact legislators or sign petitions.

USDA to propose standards for organic seafood raised in U.S. – Among the U.S. seafood that could be covered: salmon, tilapia, catfish, shrimp and mollusks such as mussels, oysters and clams.

Land-based fish farming – An alternative that doesn’t impact wild fish. Fish are not given antibiotics or hormones. Water is recycled and waste can be used as fertilizer.

Petition: Get fish farms out of BC!

Thanks for caring!

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