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Aquaculture

is the farming of fish and shellfish. Its antecedents lie in the measures taken by many cultures to breed, rear, fatten, or maintain any number of fish species so they might be consumed in the best possible condition. Examples are too many to list but should include mention at least of pioneering fish farming in early China, where freshwater fish such as carp and mullet (see grey mullet) have always been widely kept in ponds and where salt-water fish are often kept alive in well-smacks—hulks with net bottoms—so that they are of the freshest when cooked. Then, in ancient Rome, fish were kept alive in sea enclosures, or fattened, even spawned and farmed artificially, in ponds. The friend of Emperor Augustus, Publius Vedius Pollio, kept Moray eels in his ponds, and fed recalcitrant slaves to them. What worked for Rome was equally effective in post-classical Europe. The stewponds of medieval monasteries and Georgian country houses; the tanks, ponds, and reservoirs that bred, fed, and fattened the freshwater fish so enjoyed in E. Europe; the tidal pools and the vessels equipped with wells which were used to keep sea fish in prime condition were all commonplace. And the culture of bivalves, mussels and oysters in particular, was well advanced by the 19th century.

However, aquaculture is more likely to be understood currently as the farming of salt-water species on a larger scale than has so far been mentioned. Salmon and tropical prawns are the two most important species, but it is of mounting significance as an alternative source for a slew of others. Some hold that aquaculture is the solution to the dilemma posed by a rising human population, greater demand for fish and diminishing wild stocks. Others would counter that the ecological damage consequent on fish farms is unsustainable; that the rape of the oceans for foods to give the farmed stock is as damaging as the overfishing the farms are meant to sidestep; that the methods of feed production (entailing the concentration by boiling of small fish such as sand eels) result in contamination of farmed flesh by chemical residues; that escapees from captivity interbreed with wild stocks to their disadvantage; that the spread of disease and parasites from the farms into the wild environment is impossible to control. These are big problems, but do not seem to be inhibiting the expansion of the industry, whether major offshore developments in the USA, controlled pens for salmon in Scotland, captivity of salmon in fjords in Norway, or large coastal farms, with drastic consequences for mangrove forests, for tropical prawns.

While salmon and prawns spend their whole life in captivity, other species may be caught as infant specimens and merely fattened in pens or enclosures. This was the case until recently with the bluefin tuna. While the arrangement eases some problems of supply, it is of no benefit to wild stocks.

Some of the species farmed around the world are as follows: carp are still raised in large numbers in C. Europe (where they also rear pike, zander, and bream) and China, where they also raise perch; tilapia is farmed in Japan and the Caribbean and many tropical countries; coko and chum salmon are farmed in Alaska; trout is often farmed in the UK, the USA, and European countries; sea bass has proved easy to farm, mainly in the Mediterranean, as, too, has gilt-head bream; halibut is beginning to be farmed in Ireland, Norway, and Scotland as is turbot; eel is farmed in the Far East and in Holland; mahi-mahi is farmed in Hawaii; bluefin tuna has now been bred in captivity, although the farmed product is at present more expensive than the wild.

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