http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2014/02/12/aquaculture-america-blog-us-aquaculture-farmers-missing-out-on-anti-trust-exemption-law/
Feb. 12, 9:21pm: Gulf of Mexico should replicate Alaska hatchery system, professor says
The Gulf of Mexico would benefit from taking a note from Alaska’s playbook, Daniel Benetti, professor and director of aquaculture at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, told Undercurrent.
“I consider the wild salmon fisheries in Alaska to be perhaps the most successful aquaculture initiative ever developed in the United States,” Benetti said, referring to Alaska’s robust hatchery program, which supplies the fishery with a significant chunk of the fish caught in the wild each year. “I think perhaps we should apply that concept to the Gulf [of Mexico].”
The Gulf could be restocked with red snapper, red drum and any and all other native species to that area.
Wild? “Wild salmon fisheries”? Well, they are not wild. Using this logic means we should be calling hatchery salmon that are cultured in hatcheries wild salmon? Juvenile salmon produced by ranch operations are artificially propagated so how can he call them “wild”. I am not totally against hatcheries because there is a place for them and the folks here in this province do a good job with them, but I think it’s hilarious that fish farm opponents try to convince people that ranched salmon are wild. With ranching operations, selected adult salmon are stripped of eggs and milt with the fertilized eggs cultured in a hatchery. In the wild, do we go out in the river in our waders and start selecting which male salmon are going to mate with what female salmon or are both sexes allowed to pair-up naturally on the spawning grounds?
With ranching operations, the hatched juveniles are transferred from freshwater to saltwater net pens where they are continued to be cultured. During this time they are fed feed pellets which can include antibiotics when required. They can also be received vaccinations because they are now in an environment and at a size where they are even more vulnerable to pathogens. Diseases like IHN are threats and can result in ranched salmon having to be destroyed (Hmmm…where have we heard this before???); however, protocols are in place to help reduce the risk of these diseases (Hmmm…would salmon hatcheries and salmon farms have protocols for pathogen control also?). This fish husbandry helps give them a head start and improves their survival early in their life cycle. Once large enough to compete for resources with wild salmon, these cultured salmon are released into the ocean where they forage for food and hopefully return back to the area of their release. Ranched salmon make up close to 40% of the commercial catch in Alaska. These ranching operations (also in Japan and Russia) have been successful, but when you look at the recent literature now at what cost to wild salmon?
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Topic: Get your facts straight? (Read 1687534 times)