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Will we ever run out of FISH ?


 By: Victorhugo Campos

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"Figure1. Examples of Aquaculture regulation (Hallie Templeton, 2020)               

 There is a certain feeling of security when it comes to the fish that we eat. Its comforting knowing they always sell fish at Walmart or H-E-B. But will there ever be a lack of fish, or even how we are currently affect the populations of fish and marine life by eating them? Due to the high demand of fish and the constant need for more, various species have already been impacted in a negative way. So what can be done to stop this? Well there is a big demand for fish farms or hatcheries. These farms essentially keep fish in protected enclosures until they reach a desired number and are healthy enough to be released into the wild. Lots of big companies feed the idea of  how the aquacultures have so much potential to deliver a constant stream of food security. But in reality its something we can't 100% be sure of for our future generations. Lots of efforts and money have been put into farming fresh water fish, and branching into farming in the ocean for different species. This can let us believe that we can't ensure there will always be fish on the market for every consumer. So much money is being put into maintaining these fish populations or facilitating the capture of certain fish that prices of those fish are going to rise, and not to mention the addition charges for transportation. These prices will rocket and will be inaccessible to lower income consumers. Although the idea of creating aquacultures will help repopulate fish species it can't be relied on for environmental sustainability. Also the overuse of the aquacultures will create a pressure on marine resources that other species need to survive. But if aquacultures stayed small scale like most freshwater fisheries they could potentially have a great impact on the fish species as well as  acting as a conservatory for the certain species being farmed.

B., Belton Little, D.C., Zhang, W. et al. 2020. Farming fish in the sea will not nourish the world. Nat Commun 11, 5804 


Comments

  1. Miriam BrewsterNovember 18, 2020 at 3:45 PM

    Do you think there can be other reasons besides overfishing can cause the increase of price in fishes? Like for example, ocean pollution, invasive species, or even environmental changes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ritzuko GutierrezNovember 19, 2020 at 12:57 PM

    Would it only affect a certain species of fish? because not all fish species are consumed by humans. As you mentioned, if this happens, it would not only affect us but also the other species that need the fish to survive. It would break the food web tremendously.

    ReplyDelete

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