Talk:Aquaculture

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This may need to be merged with the longer article on fish farming (though aquaculture is more general)

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[edit] Be careful with neutrality

Some of the suggested neutrality changes simply shift the view from a rosy view of aquaculture, to a negative view of aquaculture. It is important to discuss the pros and cons; not only one side.

[edit] This article does not appear to be entirely neutral.

"The total area occupied by Canadian salmon farms in British Columbia and the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick is about 8,900 acreas which is less than 0.01% of the coastal area where these sites are located." This quotation majorly underscores some of the fundamental underlying problems behind aquaculture. Granted, the farms themselves may be small in size, but their effects can be great.

"Wild Pacific and Atlantic salmon stocks have seen significant declines over the last several decades, before salmon farming operations started." This quotation suggests that aquaculture has fixed any issues of a declining fishery. This is not true, and this kind of inneuendo should not be found in a neutral article.

--INDEED, Aquaculture like any technology is a mixed blessing, it has caused as many problems as it has solved. Look below, and take the time to read the article by Kinsey.

While the article does explain some of the major problems with aquacultures in the final paragraph, it does little justice to the major problems facing the aquaculture industry. Escaped fish and water pollution are but some of the few problems that plague the industry; consequently, these problems deserve to be explored further within the Wiki.


However, if the Wiki does go into more detail about the industry problems, it could force the discussion to look at the original scientific literature and would expose some of this literature as being anti-aquaculture "advocacy science". There are a lot of broad claims of problems that seem to evaporate on closer examination. 72.67.40.148 03:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to clean up the critisms section. I can't provide any extra links at the moment but many of these have been previously reported on British TV, with proof. eg. they filmed 'dead areas' underneath the fish pens, salmon caught in the deep sea with serious parasite infection ( caught when they passed by the fish farms ) etcDavid J James 6 September 2006

Somehow the history section here seems to have been hyjacked by supporters of Dildo Island, Newfoundland. Does anyone really support the assertion that the first, largest, and most advanced fish hatchery in North America was the hatchery built in 1889 on Dildo Island, Newfoundland? Prior to that, hatcheries existed in Cold Springs Pond, NH, Troutdale Farm, AK, Willow Brook, MN, Caledonia, NY, and Plymouth, MA, as well as state hatcheries in Nevada and Nebraska. US Fisheries Commission hatcheries were in operation at Duluth, Leadville, Northville, Wyetheville, and Neosho. (ref: Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission Vol XIV for 1894. US Government Printing Office 1895. pp 295.) Note: I could provide dozens more references. I would like to remove the claims which ignore the extensive North American involvement in aquaculture. Are there any reasons why the false claims should be left? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drembody (talk • contribs) 22:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] question for aquaculturalists

What do you call a female fish filled with roe (or, how do you describe such a condition)? She isn't pregnant, since the eggs have not yet been impregnated ... Could someone answer on my talk page? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 23:07, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Cross posted to User_talk:Slrubenstein

Re:question for aquaculturalists

Hi there, I just stumbled across your question on talk:fish farming and talk:aquaculture. When full of eggs, female salmon are gravid. I don't know if anyone beat me to it, and if it's still any use to you now, but thought I'd leave you a note. Anilocra 21:37, 15 May 2005 (UTC)


Question on names...

It seems like names of fish are often changed for marketing purposes, but I have a problem with the liberal use of "catfish" by many different fish. One in particular is basa from Vietnam. As I understand it, the two fish are not closely related. In the classification system used by scientists, U. S. farm-raised catfish differ from basa to the same degree as house cats differ from beef cattle within the grouping of mammals. It seems like they are simply trying to capitalize on the name with an imposter fish. I know in the U.S., the government had to ban use of the name "catfish" for basa and tra from Vietnam because of the confusion it caused among consumers. I don't mind renaming a fish for marketing purposes when it is a new name, but when you are calling one fish another fish that people are familiar with, I do have a problem.

Answer on names: The scientific class of fish called "catfish" includes basa along with channel catfish and many other species of catfish. It is not like the difference between cats and cows. The scientists still consider basa (closely related to or the same as some of the "catfish" you buy in pet shops for your aquarium) a catfish, but the political power of the US catfish industry has dictated that the scientific name is not valid and only US channel catfish or blue catfish/channel catfish hybrids are "catfish". Looking in my local asian market, basa is higher priced than channel cats -- so much for the law. Deweaver 03:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


External links

The last external link seems to be a purely commercial link. Is this sort of link allowable, I know this link has been removed before! Como006 14:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Open-Ocean Aquaculture

I am hoping that someone could start a section on Open-Ocean Aquaculture (OOA). It has been called the future of fish farming. It consists of a large floating cage that is anchored in the open ocean. Jotogo 14:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

OCA is currently used to fatten up Tuna that are caught too young to sell in the eastern Mediterrean. IMHO if you cannot catch old enough Tuna to sell you are overfishing. In any case it does not remove one of the major problems : you are still feeding the farmed fish on caught wild fish. David J.James 6 September 2006.

Removing young animals from the wild and then fattening them up in a cage does not alleviate pressure on wild stocks. Not only are numbers of wild animals still being reduced, but by removing only young animals the wild breeding stock is reduced as the younger animals may well not have reached breeding age before capture, and removing an animal that is still at early breeding age prevents it from breeding again in the future... therefore reducing the breeding stock and preventing replenishment of the resource. aslan83 11/4/07

[edit] More Technical Information

I am interested in learning more of the technical aspects of aquaculture, less so the political, environmental or historical aspects. It would be great if someone knowledgeable in this field could expand on what is actually involved in farm raising fish.

[edit] This is a really important subject that has been poorly done here.

I've got a copy of "Seafarm: The Story of Aquaculture," and am considering doing a long paper on legal issues involving aquaculture, so I will probably work on this article soon. From what I understand so far, this is a technology that has existed in some form for many centuries and can/should become a major industry for the West, but which faces regulatory hurdles. --Kris Schnee 17:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV-section

I went through the criticism section's references and have found several of the sites to be what I would consider an unreliable source of information. Using an animal rights site on a subject such as this is just as bad as using the corporate site of a fish farming company as a source. I am afraid to bother putting the time and effort into finding better sources for this information: such as scholarly or PUBLISHED sources. I will however do it if I can get some consensus on how many people agree with my opinion that an animal rights website is a biased source. James g2 23:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

    • I will add that I did find some of the criticism section to be very well sourced. My only problem is with the use of some "animal rights" sites that do not cite any studies or provide any evidence that what they are saying is true. James g2 23:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


Glad to see someone who checks references. The Env. NGO's (ENGO's) have a highly variable report quality and often misquote research papers. However, I found an very good report by WWF on Salmon Diets using a URL from a publication. The report did mention that fish meal is not required for salmon feed, just need the correct proteins and fatty acids. Some of the aquaculture criticism's do reference reports in respected journals, but I think a lot of these "good" publications have some metholodical problems but they are often buried deep in implicit assumptions. Deweaver 02:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC

[edit] Proper reference format

The references on this page are not properly cited. Does anyone here want to hammer it out? --Eikenhein 21:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] merging with the fish farming article

I agree that this article should be merged with the fish farming article. I think the "Criticism" and "Environmentally Friendly Methods" in particular seem to be addressing almost exclusively fish farming. I will move those sections, but I do think that aquaculture can remain as an overview of the 'water organisms cultivation' topic. Mahograin 18:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

So if I understand you correctly, you want to retain Fish farming and Aquaculture as separate articles, but transfer the "Criticism" and "Environmentally friendly methods" sections from Aquaculture to Fish farming? SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that is correct. In general I think that the different articles on topics that fall under the umbrella of Aquaculture (Mariculture, Fish farming, etcetera) aren't organized as well as they could be - that issues they address overlap and/or have information gaps. I see this move as a first step, and I wanted to see what other people thought as well.
You know, it just might work! Could make Aquaculture the "parent" article for a lot of aquaculture-related articles, such as the others. Add a "forms" section and a few {{main}} tags, and it would actually look quite good. I imagine a structure similar to that of Washington Metro, which serves as a main article for a lot of smaller pages. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Looking at it all, I've come up with something of a list of things to get paragraphs and ((tl|main}} tags: Fish farming, mariculture, shrimp farming, and freshwater prawn farming. Put that under a big "types" header, perhaps. SchuminWeb (Talk) 13:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Abalone farming links here, but there is hardly any mention of the farming of anything except shrimp and fish. What about crabs, abalones and other shellfish, and kelp and other seaweeds? I think the fish farming article should be kept separate, with a smaller section here that links to it. This article should be reorganized and written with a more general view of aquaculture. Unfortunatly, I don't have the expertise to do it. --lk 19:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)