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For more than a decade, our federal government has promoted and pursued plans to open our federal waters to the potentially dirty and dangerous practice of commercial-scale open ocean aquaculture.

The Bush administration argues that this industry, which likely involves farming carnivorous finfish in massive open net pens located between 3 and 200 miles off the U.S. coast, will increase the United States’ food security by developing domestic farmed seafood, rather than relying on imports. However, open ocean aquaculture can pose serious threats to human health, the marine environment and fishing communities and is unlikely to solve our seafood deficit.

Did you know that ocean fish farming could actually harm wild fish?

Raising one pound of carnivorous fish such as halibut or cod can require about two to six pounds of wild fish as feed. Common prey species such as anchovy are already fished to the brink of extinction in Peru. Industrial scale fish farming would only make the situation worse and further endanger our oceans. Read more in Hungry Halibut.

Offshore Aquaculture Poses Environmental, Technical, and Economic Questions

The U.S. government has been pushing to open public waters to offshore aquaculture –– growing fish in nets or cages between three and 200 miles from shore. However, commercial–scale open ocean aquaculture will neither ease pressure on collapsing wild marine fish populations, nor eliminate our seafood trade deficit. Fishy Farms: The Problems with Open Ocean Aquaculture explores the environmental, economic and technological problems with commercial–scale fish farms.

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