Providing seafood for the world's people is serious business.  Americans ate close to 5 billion pounds of seafood in 2007.  The US rank the third largest consumer of fish and shellfish only behind China and Japan. But our love for fish has taken its toll on the ocean in many ways; collapsed stocks of species from overfishing, destroyed habitat from fishing gear and a variety of impacts from fish farming.  Fish farming may be one of the ways to supply us with seafood, but it comes with a price.  Farmed fish require feed which can be provided by taking wild ocean fish of non-comercial value but with great ecological value as forage fish.  Fish farming operations can degrade water quality and become hot spots for sea lice.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ask questions about where the seafood you purchase comes from.  Learn more about what fish species are at risk and which are safer to eat.  Download a pocket guide.

 

Learn about the impacts of fish farming on wild fisheries of Ireland.

 

 

Browse a spectacular collection of marine photos and impacts to the marine environment at Marine Photobank.

 

 

Images courtesty of:

Salmon Farm Protest Group/MarinePhotoBank

(c) Wolcott Henry 2005/MarinePhotoBank