grandpa,
i stand by my post. we have no argument over the damage commercial fishing has caused, but i will not push another imo damaging industry just because it might put commercial fishermen out of business. that was my point, not that commercial fishing has no impact. i personally will not support industries i feel are bad for fisheries, and i believe aquaculture is bad. it creates a net-protein loss from our oceans (so much for the feeding the world nonsense), has major disease issues including fatal levels of sea-lice near farms. pushing it further offshore doesn't negate the negatives, it just moves the industry further out of sight and out of regulation. as for the earlier post about what would happen with dumping large numbers of dead and diseased fish, we allready know the answer. the canadians have allready dumped huge numbers of dead and diseased fish offshore (i wonder what fish have eaten them... maybe halibut).
as for commercial interests not liking fish farming... i wonder why. not every commercial fishery is damaging and farmed fish is low quality fish that damages the market for high quality wild fish and increases the incentive to overharvest because the cost is less.
chris