Voiceover (Ted Danson)
More and more fish are now being farmed. Many people see this as an answer to the increasingly desperate problem facing our oceans. But fish farming is not all that it seems.
Fish farming uses wild fish to feed farmed fish. But it kills more than it produces. All of these anchovies will be ground up for fishmeal to feed fish and other animals around the world.
Patricia Majluf Cayetano Heredia University
Of the 100 million tonnes that get fished every year on the planet 40% get ground into fishmeal to feed other fish and not to feed people. So that some rich people somewhere in the world can eat salmon and can eat shrimp.
Professor Daniel Pauly, University of British Columbia
The more fish farming that we do in the west the less fish we have. This is one of the paradoxes that people have big problems understanding.
Professor Ray Hilborn, University of Washington
Aquaculture for species that eat fish doesn’t have that much room to grow because there just aren’t that many fish out there in the ocean to feed them any more.
Professor Daniel Pauly, University of British Columbia
You actually convert fish from one species into the other you don’t make more fish. At least not when you have farmed fish.
Voiceover
On average five kilos of anchovy make only one kilo of salmon.
Charles Clover
We’ve reached the buffers. We have reached the limits of what the ocean is capable of providing to feed the fish farming industry. So how can it grow if its already reached the end of its feedstock?
Voiceover
Patricia has started a campaign to encourage people all over the world to eat small fish like anchovy, herring and mackerel. Instead of the farmed fish that are fed on them.
Patricia Majluf Cayetano, Heredia University
Why not eat the fish directly? Why not eat the anchovy? They’re much better for you than salmon anyway. It’s this tiny little fish that has all the energy that you need to be healthy.
Voiceover
If fish farming is not the answer, despite attempts to make it less wasteful and sustainable fisheries aren’t catching on fast enough what else can we do to save the world’s oceans?