I don't think aquaculture is any different than agriculture, except that agriculture is a mature industry and aquaculture is developing.

Certainly agriculture has been hard on the environment in the past, but people need food and agriculture is the most efficient way to get it. With proper care environmental impacts can be managed.

The same is certainly true of aquaculture. The problem now is that proper care is not being taken. I think some environmental regulation is in order.

As for transgenic salmon, I wouldn't worry too much about them successfully breeding with wild fish. They don't seem to be very fit for survival in the wild, let alone breeding. Besides most of the farmed fish are atlantics which don't seem to compete favorably with pacifics.

The demand for salmon will not go away. If the commercial harvest is relied upon to meet demand, the price of salmon will skyrocket. The commericals will fish harder, the tribes will fish harder and lots of political pressure will erode existing conservative regulations to maximize $$$. You think this can possibly be good for anglers or fish?

I agree that the evirnomental impacts of aquaculture need to be controlled and that not all places are suitable, but I think its the lesser of two evils. Unless you have another way to produce lots of cheap salmon, its the best game in town.

Land Tuna and PNP:
I agree with most of what you said, especially PNP point that dollars drive decisions, not what is best for the environment and consumers.

However, the issues I understand you to hinge your position on are, in short:
1. Pollution to the sea
2. Bio-Mass required to produce fish is too great

Do you feel that the above 2 issues just cannot be overcome? I expect they could be, and it wouldn't take much. If Shamoo can live in a tank ON LAND, (I certainly don't condone this) and human wastewater can be treated and discharged, why not apply the same requirements to fish farmers?

If the fish are on land in tanks, it takes away escapment, and if the waste is treated in our existing sewer system, much like paper millls, etc., and uneaten feed is recaptured and recycled, doesn't that do it?

Other points you raised are certainly important, such as, wild salmon provide us a reason to keep their environment clean, and calorie to calorie, this will not be an efficient way to feed the world's population. But I view those 2 issues as separate, moral issues.

There should be plenty incentive to maintain healthy waterways, and while Land Tuna is probably correct, I still think that providing an option to any fish consumer to eat a safe, environmentally responsible, raised pen fish is better than that same person purchasing a Puget Sound wild salmon.

Are Goeduck and I woefully ill-informed, or just not living in reality?

The only piece my reasoning doesn't address is: It just seems weird to see such a great creature living in a tank in a field. Hmmm. That might be reason enough to abandon the idea.

Jeff,

No you are not ill informed it's just hard to get all the info needed and it is even harder to understand for most of us myself included that Industrial food production be on land or on the sea does not make the world a better place.

Not that many years ago I thought I was about to become rich money wise. I am in the private water quality world. I thought that Aqua culture would go inland and I would be in the right place at the right time. To solve pollution problems with inland aqua culture is easy. I could make effluent going into recieving streams cleaner than the natural flow of the river. But this will not happen because of the costs. Even going into our domestic wastewater systems would be way too expensive for the industry. There is a thing called B. O. D. which I will not get into and fish farms are so high in B.O.D that they could not pay the bills for dumping on our over taxed systems that we have now. I'm not sure how many out there know that the Salmon Aqua Culture Industry is not making much if any profit now and is world wide situation. One must remember that these companies are owned by very large companies where profit is not measured in what each company they own makes but more how they fit into the total profit making adgender of the entire company.

I don't want to get into politics here we are doing too much of that already. But one thing I like to put out there is what ever happened to the concept of seasonal eating and regional eating? This calorie to calorie consumed thing is really going to be an important issue in the not too distant future. It's funny but we are making such a big deal over fossil fuel and SUV'S but that is such peanuts in the waste of fossil fuel compared to the massive waste of fossil fuel producing out of season food and non regional food that we import. This is a first world problem that has very much effected many 3rd world nation that never had a food problem before. No I won't go there. But I ask the question considering the difficult situation we are all facing or going to be facing with fuel shortages and growing unrest we have all become oh so familiar with. But the question is Why should the great people of Kansas be able to eat a fresh salmon that before Aqua Culture was nearly impossible to find outside of the NW. Yes there was can salmon they could buy. Why should they be able to waste so much fuel in eating farmed salmon. Why should I be able to go into my local super market and buy strawberries in January from Chile? One strawberry grown indusrially, shipped to Seattle displayed as we display things these days uses 495 calories burnt of fossil fuel. We eat that one strawberry and we recieve 5 colories of life substaning nutrition. This is a loosing situation as time goes on. Ya know I wonder if we could all except Commercial Salmon Fishing done seasonally and for only regional consumption only. Done in the simpilist of proceedures in small ventures, very localized.

Also what happened to growing a garden and caning like what was done by all before the magor highway progam plan was developed after WW2.

Land Tuna,
Thank you for the reply. Your points make sense and I am now "smarter" The BOD treatment issue was new to me.

Regarding your seasonal commercial fishing idea. I think that would be great, and there is a couple commercial fishermen on Whidbey, who fish Puget Sound, that are trying to do that. They would use the farmers' markets as one place to sell, and the rest would be based on pre-orders by local residents. (I think the fish market opening here is part of that too.)

I have mixed feelings about commercial fishing in Puget Sound.

I appreciate you and PNP taking the time to explain the details. I'll pass it along when I get the chance.

Jeff

Here is another article on the topic.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/fish.html?tw=wn_tophead_5

This proposal talks about a next-generation design, 174 feet tall and 270 feet in diameter, called the Ocean Drifter. Unlike its predecessors, which are fixed to the seafloor, this enormous cage will roam the seas, propelled by three electric thruster motors attached to the rig's steel equator. Powered by a diesel generator mounted atop the central spar and steered by software, it will venture hundreds of miles from shore. When the fish are big enough to sell, it steers itself into harbor, for harvest.

Interesting to note that this article cites food conversion to fish weight stats that are significantly different from the PBS program.