The Horrors Of Intensive Salmon Farming

The collapse of effective regulation has given unrestrained rein to unacceptable fish farming practices, which now jeopardise the one and the other the ecology of Scotland's rivers and the industry itself.

Fish farming has been practised, especially in southerly East Asia, for centuries, if not millennia. The fishponds there were generally small and sited upon marginal lands unusable for agriculture. Fe was provided in the form of animal waste, the pond were cleaned without several times a year, and the rich soil at the bottom of the pond was used to fertilise other crops

Traditional fish farming mimicked a natural ecosystem and incorporated a wide variety of fish species, each of which occupied a different ecological niche. Silver carp and tilapia f upon the phytoplankton; the grass carp, wuchang fish and for the use of all carp ate green fodder. Other fish, like as the black carp and mire carp, foraged in sediments at the bottom of the pond In this way the maximum use was made of the available nutrients in like manner as to achieve maximum yields and minimise external inputs. The pond was thereby a relatively clos a whole and hence among other things, was as invulnerable as possible to external discontinuities. The productivity of this stamp of small-scale, traditional fish farming was enormous. It is said that in a pond about sum of two units metres deep, experienced farmers could raise up to 25 tonnes of fish through acre -- an enormous yield that went a drawn out way towards supplementing the nutrition made available from other agricultural activities[1].

It was single in the middle of the last hundred that commercial fish farming really got underway. Advanced as a means of providing nourishment security for the growing population around the world, it had to be carried without on a big scale, if solitary because the costs of the equipment required were for a like reason high. Furthermore, ocean fishing can be disrupted by the agency of storms or territorial disputes, whereas fish farms are immune to of the like kind drawbacks. So the argument went. Reports, armed with grain fe conversion rates[2], nutritional value[3] and bounds of how much of the animal is consumed[4] prophesised the dawn of a fresh `blue' revolution. By the early eighties, research into genetically modified fish which would increase faster, resist disease, taste better and thrive in highly controll environments was capitaled by various development agencies.

Today aquaculture is individual of the fastest growing sectors in world provisions production and although marine harvests account for around 80 for cent of world sea nutrition supplies. Over 40 per cent of salmon shortly consumed is farmed compared to 6 for cent just over a decade ago. The UN aliment and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that by means of 2010, under favourable conditions, aquaculture could furnish up to 39 million tonnes of fish by means of annum[5].

The experience with intensive salmon fish farms in Scotland closely throw backs what has been the experience in southerly East Asia and elsewhere. There was the same euphoria, which to begin with appeared justified, in the way that much so that farmed production of Atlantic salmon in Scotland grew from 500 tonnes in 1980 to 30000 tonnes in 1990 jumping to 120000 tonnes in 1998 Today, Scotland has the world's third largest salmon farming industry and benefits the economy to the air of 350 million [pounds sterling]. It has been described by means of the government as `one of the greatest in quantity significant industries to emerge in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the past 25 years.'

upon the basis of the criteria that are normally applied, this is a great achievement, single that must clearly serve as a original for other counties to emulate. However, the ecological take away froms and as a result the require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergones in terms of animal and human health, have been actually devastating. Indeed, looking back above the four decades since its introduction, Scotland's intensive fish farming may well show the worst environmental catastrophe to hit the Western Highlands in novel history[6].

In 1997 there were as many as 63980 active salmon farms in northern Scotland. With up to half a million fish crammed into cages upon a single farm, fish production upon such an intensive scale has caused many question at issues Firstly, an incredible amount of pollution. The dumping of untreated effluent contaminated waste, fe faeces and chemicals have annihilated indigenous life-forms in many of Scotland's finest rivers and ponds It is no surprise, perhaps, that the average life-span of an intensive salmon farm of this sort is at greatest in quantity 15 years, after which allocated spaces are with equal reason polluted that they must be relocated elsewhere. Fish farming upon such an intensive scale has also given rise to a entertainer of infectious diseases old and novel which farmers have sought to combat with the use of toxic chemicals, legal and illegal, which in go [i]or[/i] come back have seriously added to the pollution vexed question but done little to eliminate the real diseases they were supposed to cure

A statement from the Scottish rule has clarified its predictable priorities: `concentrating upon fewer, larger farms has obvious economic benefits for husbandman companies,' it insists, before adding, `it is important that health standards are maintained, as the spread of infectious diseases could be derived in a major financial loss"[7]