By Nick Engelfried
For the first time in history, humans are “farming” more fish and other aquatic life for food than we catch from oceans, lakes, and rivers. That’s according to a report recently released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which showed aquaculture supplied 51 percent of the fish, shellfish, and other sea and freshwater life eaten by people in 2022. The implications of this for animal welfare and conservation are vast–yet, most policymakers and the broader public have yet to truly grapple with what this enormous shift means for our relationship with underwater life.

Humans have raised land-based animals for food for millennia, and have done so intensively for the last few centuries. In contrast, aquaculture, or the practice of growing aquatic animals or plants for consumption, has not been conducted on a large scale until recently. Aquaculture can take many forms, from farming fish in large pens in the ocean to raising shellfish like abalone in vats of water. Proponents of aquaculture argue it can be practiced sustainably and help take pressure off wild populations of marine or freshwater life–and this may be true in some cases.

However, raising aquatic animals for food brings up a host of ethical questions, similar to those encountered in land-based animal agriculture. Fish and other sea life confined to pens often live in overcrowded, disease-ridden conditions where engaging in many natural behaviors is impossible. Meanwhile, there is a danger of waste, chemicals, and parasites from aquaculture operations leaking into the surrounding environment. In some cases, fish or other animals who escape from underwater farms can even become invasive species, wreaking havoc on native ecosystems and the creatures that depend on them.

Small-scale aquaculture has been practiced in certain parts of the world since ancient times. Over a thousand years ago, people in China were raising freshwater carp for food, while the ancient Romans cultivated underwater oyster farms. But whereas early aquaculture largely involved shaping the local environment to create conditions hospitable to the desired species, modern methods are much more invasive.

Among the most problematic types of aquaculture are fish pens, consisting of massive nets which form the walls of huge submerged enclosures where salmon or other species are raised. Fish pens are usually located a short ways out to sea–but because they are mostly underwater, most people visiting nearby beaches may be completely unaware of their existence. Within the walls of the net, many thousands of fish live crowded together, a stressful environment that encourages the spread of disease and parasites. Like land-based factory farms, industrial fish pens are places where animals live short, miserable lives until they are killed for food.

While the abuses on factory farms are relatively well-known, the cruelty of fish pens has received far less public attention, perhaps because fish are portrayed in mainstream culture as unfeeling and undeserving of compassion. Yet, recent scientific studies suggest that while the brains and senses of fish differ from those of birds or mammals, they are just as capable of feeling fear and pain as are cows, pigs, and chickens. This makes highly unnatural environments like fish pens hotbeds of animal cruelty.

The negative impacts from fish pens extend beyond the walls that keep the fish within trapped for the duration of their lives, however. Along with any confined population of animals comes a concentration of animal waste–and the Conservation Law Foundation estimates a standard industrial fish farm produces as much as one million pounds of feces annually. Currents carry the waste into the surrounding environment, where it settles as sludge and forms a toxic layer on the seafloor.

Another similarity between land-based factory farming and industrial fish pens is that both use “preventive” antibiotics to hamper the spread of sickness in crowded, naturally disease-ridden environments. Unfortunately, such widespread use of antibiotics encourages microorganisms to develop into dangerous “superbugs” that are resistant to antibiotics and other forms of treatment. A study published in 2020 found antibiotic overuse on fish farms to treat bacteria contributes to the evolution of superbugs capable of infecting humans and animals alike.

However, perhaps the worst environmental impact of fish pens occurs when damage to nets results in large numbers of farmed fish escaping. This happened in waters off Washington State in 2017, when a fish pen operated by Cooke Aquaculture came apart and released hundreds of thousands of non-native Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound. Amid fears that the fish would compete with or spread diseases to native salmon, the Washington legislature banned the farming of non-native fish the following year.

Policymakers in other parts of the world are also beginning to take a hard look at the environmental effects of fish pens. This year, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard announced open-net salmon pens will be phased out and prohibited in the waters off British Columbia by 2029, largely due to concerns about farmed salmon spreading disease to native fish. And, in 2021, Argentina lawmakers banned salmon farming within the country’s waters.

Despite these wins against industrial fish farming, the global trend in large-scale aquaculture has been dramatic growth, with more and more fish, shellfish, and other marine and freshwater life being raised for food in captivity. As this has happened, aquaculture has grown to look more and more like land-based industrial animal farming, with similar impacts on the environment and animal welfare. It’s important that the public understand the implications of this dramatic transformation in how we produce food from the oceans and other bodies of water.

Like land-based animal agriculture, the use of concentrated farming practices to raise aquatic life for food requires that we humans grapple with what it means to turn other species into commodities that are raised and killed for profit? How we answer this question for marine and freshwater life will shape the fate of aquatic ecosystems and millions of individual animals with the capacity to suffer and feel pain. For animal lovers everywhere, the time is now to speak up and make our voices heard.

Photo credit: Isaac Wedin

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Nick Engelfried Writes About Animals, the Environment, and Conservation for the ForceChange network