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bajabum
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Posts: 144
Registered: 9-29-2003
Location: San Diego, Ca
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The Tuna pens in Ensenada (and many other oceans in the world) have had a very negative effect on the local eco systems. I have fished the Punta Banda
area for many years now and the effect of the Tuna pens has been devastating to the local fishery. The tuna are netted with the utmost efficiency that
modern technology can provide and the take is in tons. The pens are then hauled into the bay where smaller bait boats (seiners) work all nite catching
anchovies, sardines and mackeral to fatten the Tuna with where they are then sold to the highest bidder in the international market where they are
resold as a high end food item. The pens do not provide food for any of the locals nor to the masses in any country. Japan and other countries have
wiped out thier local fisheries and are now using the Mexicans greed to do the same to thiers. The bait boats used to service the handfull of pens
without having to travel very far, they now go as far south as Pta Santo Tomas and as far north as they can without crossing into US waters wiping out
the bait schools to feed the tuna with thus adversly affecting the fisheries from the border to just about SQ. Before the pens you could always count
on catching homeguard yellowtail year round and every spring thresher sharks could be caught in the bay followed by huge schools of baracuda and
Bonita along with seasonal schools of yellowtail that moved into the bay each summer drawn for generations to the abundance of bait fish. In the Fall
the bay would be filled with migrating whales. Now the tuna farmers and their pens have altered and probably forever changes the Ensenada fishery.
While you can still catch a fish or two if you work your @ss off there has definetly been a very noticible decline in the fish poulations over the
last 2-3 years which is most probably directly caused by this new form of farming. This is not a simple matter of a few innocent fishermen trying to
eek a living out of the ocean with a few pens, Im guessing that there are now at least 50-75 tuna pens stretching all the way from the Coranado
Islands to somewhere south of Ensenada and this is a multi multi million dollar operation that is abusing the lax mexican regulations and doing
serious damge to the locall waters.
Work is just something I do to keep me buzy between baja trips!
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DENNIS
Platinum Nomad
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Location: Punta Banda
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Bajabum ----
It couldn't have been better said. Too bad nobody heard it.
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Cypress
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Location: on the bayou
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bajabum. Thanks for taking the time to share your first hand knowlege of the impact of large scale tuna farming in your local area. The damage appears to be far more severe than most people are aware of.
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Crusoe
Senior Nomad
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Registered: 10-14-2006
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I can see clearly now......The Sea Sheppard Society has an important job to complete here..... ACTION TALKS.....and b.s. walks!!!!!
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Pescador
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Registered: 10-17-2002
Location: Baja California Sur
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As Bob and Susan replied, it seems to make sense to farm these fish but the issue is much more complicated than that. I have a good friend who did
the major studies on the salmon pens in British Columbia as a fisheries bioligist for BC and they found two problems. First, as has been adequately
explored here is the heavy concentration of netting for food fish for the penned fish. Instead of roaming where the bait schools take them, these
fish are confined to one small location, and normal ups and downs of bait populations are exponentially overharvested. And, they take the whole
school off bait instead of selective kill which knocks out the weaker and injured baitfish. So we are feeding baitfish to the tuna which otherwise
might have kept the hereditary survival of the fittest operational.
Secondly, since the fish are confined to a relatively small and overcrowded area, natural predation and survival of the fittest is not allowed to
come in to play, so they are effectively destroying a gene pool which keeps only a percentage of those most capable of providing genetic information
to their offspring. In addition, the overcrowding has led to serious issues of disease and parasitic intrusion which further depletes future
generation. There is always some escape from these enclosures so the escapees may or may not be nature selected breeding stock.
Finally, is the problem of having fish growing in such a small area and the concentrations of urea and fecal material far exceed the natural
cleansing ability of the ocean to cope and recover.
But, the economic pressures are significant so the practice will probably continue to grow until the whole situation caves.
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Skipjack Joe
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Pescador
So we are feeding baitfish to the tuna which otherwise might have kept the hereditary survival of the fittest operational.
Secondly, since the fish are confined to a relatively small and overcrowded area, natural predation and survival of the fittest is not allowed to come
in to play, so they are effectively destroying a gene pool which keeps only a percentage of those most capable of providing genetic information to
their offspring. |
Drawing too many conclusions about tuna pens from salmon aquaculture is a mistake. Salmon breeding habitat has been largely destroyed in many areas.
The gene pool of home grown salmon is dominating the species gene pools for many populations of salmon in the lower 48.
Tuna, on the other hand, are widely distributed across all oceans and their gene pools should be quite rich. Sure there is constant draw from the pool
by these pens but it's miniscule compared with salmon (due to habitat destruction). There's still plenty of natural selection going on in wild tuna
populations.
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Worldtraveller
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Farmed fish = less healthy & less tasty to eat; likely to pollute waters; potential of disease among both farmed & wild fish.
I try to eat only wild fish caught in sustainable ways among sustainable populations.
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Sharksbaja
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Salmon ranching is a hit and miss proposition. Hatching and raising salmon till they are smolts(junvenile salmon capable of plying rivers and ocean)
is common. Getting them to return to the same pens with regularity is different story. There are many variables that can affect the cycle and return
of a species to it's spawning ground, in the case of "ranching", concrete runs. Tuna are similar in that they range far. Salmon may go a thousand
miles or more in their natural quest for food. The tuna takes it a level higher. They are amazing for they can cross complete oceans with regularity.
Salmon raised in pens, then released into adjacent waters have a low return rate unfortunately. It was tried numerous times here w/o much success.
The down time between salmon returns was just not cost effective. You have to keep the facility viable while waiting only to have weak returns.
This was the problem ten years ago. Who knows it could succeed today.
I actually favor this way of raising salmon.It mimics more their natural life cycle . They travel to sea, feed on natural food sources and return to
spawn as did their forefathers. There is less gene degradation as they don't typically mix with wild stocks and return to other strains ancestral
breeding grounds. They hopefully return to the concrete waterways where they were reared. This cycle fortifies future strains by narrowing the gene
pool enough to keep them strong enough to compete.
THe fact that success was limited may be due to many factors, some political perhaps. I would like to see a return to this approach. These are
quality salmon with good flavor and firmness. Besides "ranching" for money, it also will support a local sportfishing opportunity. I've seen some
beauties taken years ago near this operation. Another plus is the ability to "ranch" other species of salmon.
Farmed salmon on the other hand is an inferior fish with it's roots in the N. Atlantic. These force-fed pool-raised fish are exactly what they eat.
Processed hi-protein pellets and food colors. It reminds me of raising Koi only without the concern for genetics. They are like clones. The tissue is
weak and soft. The flavor is not strong with no essence of the sea. The fish create waste which is harmful to other fish and aquatic life and now we
find out a large percent of farmed fish has been fed and raised on Chinese products. Some of which has killed pets and entered the food chain.
I'm confident there will be progress in farming and ranching fish in th future. Aquaculture is evolving. It has to be profitable or others won't
follow suit. The US should be at the vanguard of this science. As with oil, there is a finite amount of sealife on this planet. We are fortunate that
the planet has some flux. It gives reprieves once and a while.
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
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Hawaii offshore fish farms
As suggested in my earlier posts:
a. offshore farming is already occuring.
b. genetic variability is maintained because you're dealing with farmed native species (as opposed to reared fish from limited gene pool).
c. fish meal will soon replace baitfish and reduce problem of removing local baitfish, thus affecting other species.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5291579
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Pescador
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Igor, you may be right that there is no genetic degradation in pen raised tuna, but I contend that whenever you disrupt the natural occurence you will
always throw something out of control. When the great scientists brought rabbits to Australia, things got so out of hand there was a major crisis.
Tuna have roamed forever and to keep them closed up in a net enclosure will alter something, I suspect that we may not know exactly what that is.
Shrimp seem to be doing well with this approach but they never did migrate and move that much anyway.
I hope you are right that we can quit feeding them dwindling sardine supplies and maybe feed them organic soy bean meal. That sure makes for some
appetizing sushi.
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jerry
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tuna are a eating mechine their warm blooded and need to eat constently
they literally eat them selves to death their body simply get so big that they cannot eat enoff food to sustain themselves in the wild
raising them in a pen is a more effecent way of using feed
hence if a tune lives a year to be 100 lb in the wild
farm raised tune are 100 lb in 9 months it takes less food to raise thefarm raised tune simply because it doesent have to sustain its body heat as
long or use as much energy to acheave the same weight
if the problem of feeding local bait fish is solved by pellets or other sorces??
and the pens were constently moving so there would be no build up of toxic matter i think it is a very viable way to raise tuna as a food fish
jerry
jerry and judi
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Slowmad
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And with pellet feed it's easier to control the amount of antibiotics, food colorings, and growth hormones you give the fish...like with farmed
salmon.
The only requirement for love or chorizo is confidence.
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Skipjack Joe
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Pescador
Igor, you may be right that there is no genetic degradation in pen raised tuna, but I contend that whenever you disrupt the natural occurence you will
always throw something out of control. |
I agree with you 100% on this Jim. The people in Hawaii are saying they are monitoring their pens and find 0% water degradation. Are they monitoring
the ocean bottom, 20,000 feet below the surface? I doubt it. As you say there is a balance in nature. If you add any factor to the whole system
something has to change to compensate for that change. Be it at 200 feet or 20,000 feet. When all of that waste sinks to the bottom there will be
change in the fauna. You just can't have ocean farming in the wild with no repercussions.
Regarding the sushi: I agree with that too. When they start adding vegetable matter to the tuna food their meat just ain't gonna taste the same. The
tuna just won't be the same fish anymore.
It's a changing world.
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jerry
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you start feeding soy to fish and theres gona be a tofo shortage
jerry and judi
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Sharksbaja
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Skip. I assume these pens are for salmon, reared in shore-based pens and then tranferred when large enough. I've heard of these.
It sounds reasonable and the deep water would disperse fecal matter. That sounds ok too. Please explain how they rear tuna for introduction to these
cages. Are they also raised in tanks?? I've never heard that. Or are they culled from the wild and fattened up in there?
Jerry is right, tuna, like goldfish will eat themselves into oblivion given the chance. The farmers will fatten them as fast as they can for market.
Will tuna eat pellets?? I am confused as to exactly which species of fish are being studied as candidates for deep sea farming. I can understand how
salmon would thrive. I cannot however believe that tuna, cod or swordfish could be raised this way from juveniles to table fare.
I liken tuna farming to fish-slavery.
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cbuzzetti
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Something that has not been touched on hear is that the juvenile Blue Fin tuna they are catching and raising have not yet had babies.
This is not a sustainable fishery.
This is going on all over the world. The Blue Fin Tuna is being fished to extintion because there is no minimum size limit. This is a well documented
problem that is not addressed by the tuna pens.
Blue Fin Tuna will only breed in certain enviroments. That enviroment is not in a tuna pen.
The Japanese have been trying to raise BFT (Blue Fin Tuna) in nets in their natural breeding areas but have not yet succeeded in making babies.
I love Sushi as much as the next guy/gal. But I choose not to eat BFT due to the extermination currently in progress.
Eventually the BFT stocks will collapse and they will move on to another tuna (Albacore/Yellowfin) and wipe those out also.
It won't take long. IMO
BajaBuzz
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Sharksbaja
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Exactly
"This is going on all over the world."
Yep, so is murder so I guess it's ok.
DON\'T SQUINT! Give yer eyes a break!
Try holding down [control] key and toggle the [+ and -] keys
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Mexitron
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Worldtraveller
Farmed fish = less healthy & less tasty to eat; likely to pollute waters; potential of disease among both farmed & wild fish.
I try to eat only wild fish caught in sustainable ways among sustainable populations. |
And the price is too high to eat much anyway...which is why 95 percent of my fish intake is Tilapia now.
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Cypress
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This whole issue is much too complex for my little mind.It's obvious that the
"wild" fish stocks are in decline worldwide, even where strict catch regulations are enforced. Those Tilapia are tastey!!
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Skipjack Joe
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Sharks, I believe they net wild tuna and pen them. They are then grown to large size and sold to markets. I don't think they raise them from eggs.
Thus there is no introduction of pen bred fish into wild stocks (except by accident - winter storms, that sort of thing). So I don't see how they're
messing with the gene pool.
P.S. the day I have to be satisfied with tilapia ..... well I hope that day never comes.
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