According to estimates made by marine biologists associated with the World Wildlife Fund and other environmental groups, the population of large oceangoing fish has declined by up to 80 percent or more over the past hundred years. This decline is the result of overfishing by the world’s four million fishing vessels.1
Several years ago a National Geographic magazine article titled “Still Waters, The Global Fish Crisis” shed light on some disturbing facts. Here is a sampling: Twelve species of Mediterranean fish that were once traditionally caught for food are now commercially extinct. The population of cod, which used to be a common catch from the North Sea to New England, is in collapse. And so many fishing boats ply the waters of the Java Sea and the Gulf of Thailand that even those once abundant and seemingly endless stocks of fish are close to exhaustion.2
Among all of the alarms sounded about declining populations, one particularly urgent cry appeared in a November 2006 issue of the journal Science. The article was coauthored by fourteen marine biologists and fisheries experts from the United States, Canada, and Sweden. They wrote the following: “Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. . . . We conclude that marine biodiversity loss is increasingly impairing the ocean’s capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations.”3
Why are we humans desecrating the ocean and decimating the life that depends on it? The never-ending slaughter of fish is driven by the fishing industry’s desire for more profits and growth. It is also a by-product of misguided medical advice that encourages people to increase the amount of fish in their diets. (See chapter 2 to learn more about how eating fish affects human health.)
To help alleviate the growing shortage of wild fish, people in the fish business are relying on two innovations—fish farms and genetically modified fish that grow larger and faster. Ironically, neither development has helped wild fish or stanched their population loss. Rather, fish farming and genetic manipulation both come with significant downsides.
Tens of thousands of aquaculture farms now exist worldwide. These fish farms raise more than 220 species of finfish (most commonly carp and salmon) and shellfish (most commonly clams and mussels).4 Aquaculture now supplies half of the total fish and shellfish for human consumption.5 However, this statistic does not mean that wild fish are off the hook.
“Aquaculture is a contributing factor to the collapse of fisheries stocks worldwide,” determined the ten coauthors of a study that was published in a June 2000 edition of the journal Nature. “For some types of aquaculture activity, including shrimp and salmon farming, potential damage to ocean and coastal resources through habitat destruction, waste disposal, exotic species and pathogen invasions, and large fish meal and fish oil requirements may further deplete wild fisheries stocks.”6
This strong statement underscores the paradox—aquaculture was developed as a solution, but the practice has negatively affected wild fish populations and ocean health. Here’s why: Farmed fish are fed a diet of fish oil and fish meal, which is manufactured from fish waste products and smaller fish (called forage fish) that are caught in the wild. This further depletes the wild fish population at a time when 75 percent of the world’s monitored fisheries are already near or exceeding maximum sustainable yields.7 These facts disprove a common misconception among fish consumers: they are not protecting wild fish when they choose farmed fish. (See chapter 6 to learn why farmed fish are not a safer, more healthful choice in the human diet.)
The authors of a study published in a September 2009 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that fully one-third of the global wild fish catch goes to produce fish meal and fish oil for use in the fish-farming industry and for other agricultural purposes.8 Nearly 60 percent of the fish meal produced in the world is used in Asia, mostly in China. These rising demands for wild fish to feed farmed fish “places direct pressure on fisheries resources,” observed the authors of the Nature article.9
According to the World Review of Fisheries and Aquaculture 2008, more than half of the fish oil produced in the entire world is fed to farmed salmon.10 As discussed in chapter 5, even the most health-conscious consumers don’t realize that marine algae is the original source of omega-3 fatty acids. That’s why herring and sardines, and other forage fish that eat algae and fish oil, are fed to farmed salmon.
The loss of wild fish populations cannot be attributed only to the practice of feeding wild fish, fish meal, and fish oil to farmed fish. An article in the November 2001 issue of EMBO Reports, the journal of the European Molecular Biology Organization, stated: “Most of the ocean fishing catch is simply discarded. . . . When analyzing a five-year survey of trawling operations in the Gulf of Mexico, it was found that only 16 percent of the total catch was commercially viable shrimp, while 68 percent of the total catch was unintended bycatch, mostly juvenile finfish. In some areas of the Gulf of Mexico, it is estimated that for every one kilogram of shrimp harvested, 10 kilograms of other species are caught and discarded.”11 Bycatch is the term the fishing industry uses to describe untargeted marine animals that happen to get caught. These fish are also dismissively called “trash fish.”12
To solve the problem of overfishing and the diminishing populations of wild fish, scientists devised “Frankenfish”—genetically engineered (GE) fish that grow faster and bigger than normal fish. The first species to be modified was salmon.
Time magazine declared genetically modified North Atlantic salmon to be one of 2010’s top fifty inventions because transgenic salmon, as they came to be known, were the first genetically modified animals intended for human consumption.13 By some estimates, transgenic fish can grow to ten times the size of normal fish in the first year of life. This is accomplished by splicing a gene from a fish called ocean pout, which resembles an eel, into farm-raised Atlantic salmon. This process increases the amount of growth hormones and accelerates the salmon’s natural growth cycle.
Most of the owners of the four thousand aquaculture facilities in the United States are applauding this innovation, as it means higher profits. AquaBounty Technologies, a company in New England, engineered the fish and filed an application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval. As of this writing, the FDA has yet to make a decision, but we can be fairly certain that transgenic fish will enter the marketplace eventually, whether in the United States or some other country.
The question we should be asking is this: what are the risks of contaminating the food supply with transgenic fish? Supporters of genetic modification argue that we are already surrounded by genetically modified food. Henry I. Miller, former director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology, puts it this way: “Most of the corn, soy, and canola grown in the United States is genetically engineered with molecular techniques, and more than 80 percent of the processed food in our supermarkets contain ingredients from genetically engineered crops. In North America alone, consumers have eaten more than three trillion servings of food that contains ingredients from genetically engineered plants without a single documented adverse reaction.”14
Animals are genetically manipulated for reasons beyond food production. Fans of genetic engineering do cartwheels of enthusiasm over such innovations as the GloFish, a zebra fish that is already on the market. This aquarium fish, which is marketed to hobbyists and beginners, has been genetically altered so that it glows fluorescently. Whether they are modified for food or just fun and games, have we overlooked some important considerations in our frenzy to manipulate living organisms?
Let’s hear what a scientific expert believes about the risks of raising GE salmon in fish farms. Biologist Robert Devlin has studied these fish since 1989 on behalf of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Center for Aquaculture and Environmental Research. He was interviewed by a newspaper reporter about his findings, and he made this observation: “There’s still more questions than answers. It’s complex. It’s really puzzling. Simply put, we scientists can’t say for sure how these fish will respond to different environments. There is a serious risk if they escape into the environment.”15
Farmed salmon already routinely escape into the wild. “As much as 40 percent of Atlantic salmon caught by fishermen in areas of the North Atlantic Ocean are of farmed origin,” reported a team of fisheries researchers in Nature back in June 2000.16 They also stated: “In the North Pacific Ocean, over 255,000 Atlantic salmon have reportedly escaped since the early 1980s and are caught by fishing vessels from Washington to Alaska. Increasing evidence suggests that farm escapees may hybridize with and alter the genetic makeup of wild populations of Atlantic salmon that are genetically adapted to their natal spawning grounds. Such genetic alterations could exacerbate the decline in many locally endangered populations of wild Atlantic salmon.”17
When GE salmon escape into the wild, they are capable of crowding out and eventually killing off natural species by interbreeding and outcompeting them for food. According to estimates published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an escape of just sixty GE fish into a wild population of sixty thousand non-GE fish could lead to the extinction of the entire wild population within a matter of years.18 Even though the company behind GE salmon insists the fish are sterile, biologists know that a certain percentage of fish will remain fertile and be able to reproduce in the wild. This possibility is enhanced because some fish can change their gender from male to female.
Authors of a study published in a November 2010 edition of Science urged the FDA to consider other threats from GE fish. They wrote: “Environmental concerns about salmon farming include local pollution from waste effluents, disease, and potentially increased pressure on wild fish stocks that provide sources of feed for salmon.”19
For consumers, potential problems are the unknown health risks of eating GE fish and the task of trying to purchase unaffected fish. There may be no labeling of transgenic fish, making it impossible for people to identify them in supermarkets. Consumers simply won’t have access to the information necessary to do so.
The company behind GE salmon adamantly opposes labeling transgenic fish, revealing its fear that consumers will choose non-GE fish if they are given a clear choice. Their opposition serves as an important reminder that, by manipulating nature, we raise many questions.
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