Carlos Grados
How does feeding the fish soy impact on the quality of the meat? Isn\'t soy an endocrine disrupter for the fish as well as for humans?
limbodog
Holy carp! This is what I\'ve been wondering about for years! (well, almost) The difference is that I want to see us raising fish like tuna from eggs to, say, fingerlings, and then released into the wild. Once they get past the first few days their odds of survival increase dramatically. I believe we could undo a lot of the overfishing by protecting the young long enough to give \'em better odds.
There\'d be no *direct* money in it, but if a few governments banded together to do it, I think the impact would be very positive overall.
Slowburn
Typical of environmentalists If it looks like a good idea, and somebody might make a profit, they are against it.
Simon Gray
It is great that something might help with an issue that is quite possibly bigger than climate change, in our future.
Nigel Allen
@slowburn: That\'s a really intelligent comment which contributes to the debate immensely. Of course I could have made some worthless vacuous comment about people who put profits before everything but that would be labelling people without having real evidence and that would be just childish wouldn\'t it?
Snake Oil Baron
What Slowburn said is literally what is happening here. With no reason--let alone evidence--to even suggest a problem they are opposing it. It is the classic precautionary principle nonsense at work: If something is new and untried it can\'t be proven to be 100% safe; so until it is proven 100% safe it should not be tried.
Snake Oil Baron
The comment about soy is worth considering but it may not be an issue. I don\'t know for certain but I doubt that hormones and their chemical mimics would bio accumulate and if not, they would only affect the fish--which are to be eaten anyway. If the soy made some of the males unable to spawn or even convert to female (as some fish do under certain natural conditions) it shouldn\'t affect the fish\'s muscles.
Another posibility is to use fish harvested this way for fish food, either for other harvests or for inland fish farms or even as high protein/fat animal feed.
If you had these in places like the Gulf of Mexico\'s so-called dead zone, where it is said that oxygen and nutrients are depleted because of river delta algae blooms from farm fertilizer, no one should be whining about releasing dispersed fish poop and the fish are close enough to the surface to be well oxygenated (their swiming could actually facilitate local mixing of water).
Slowburn
Re; Nigel Allen It is easier to convince people who put profits before everything to operate in a low environmental impact manner, than it is to get the so called environmentalists to allow someone to profit from solving environmental problems.
Ron Wagner
Sounds like a great idea! Especially for raising fingerlings as has been pointed out. The basket looks on the small side for large fish, but maybe the size could be increased. It would be great if we could lessen commercial fishing by providing this option! Commercial fishing has vastly reduced the average size of many types of fish, and harmed recreational angling.
Jim Sadler
Obviously farming fish will be wonderful for fish in the wild. Less long lines, less netting and the reduction of kills of non targeted marine life all benefit from fish farming. Fish flour can be used for very high quality feed stock for both man and beast.