While it's hard to ignore the bad news about fish stocks - U.N. statistics show 75% of wild fish stocks are depleted or exploited - the world's clamoring for protein sources is increasingly loud.
That's why a long-term sustainable fish farming experiment with a fish called Branzini (also known as European sea bass) is so promising.
Aquaculture is one key to supplying people with fish, and nearly half the fish consumed is now farmed rather than caught. But the most successful aquaculture experiments have not been entirely sustainable environmentally. And using smaller fish as the ground-up food for farming larger varieties has been decried as a huge waste.
The Center of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute has come up with a green fish, it says.
Well, actually silver-colored and farmed, with a delicate taste, but using much greener aquaculture methods.
UM is raising branzini in 12-foot-in-diameter tanks in 3,200 gallons of water that is constantly filtered and has wastes removed using microbes, with water temperature controlled by computer.
The tanks' artificially created seawater is kept as clean as possible and continually recirculated rather than being released into Baltimore harbor waters to create a closed-loop operation.
Key to the experiment is the group's experimenting with using plants and algae, rather than ground-up fish remains, to feed the branzini.
"I'm not a businessman," project leader Yonathan Zohar told the Baltimore Sun. "What really drives me is ... feeding the world."
Zohar is hoping to get funding to build a warehouse producing 200 tons of branzini a year.
And in the meantime, if you plan on having fish for dinner, don't shop for it at Trader Joe's, which garnered another "F" from Greenpeace for its lack of sustainable seafood at stores.
Instead, if you are standing at the fish counter wondering what's greenest, send a mail message to the Monterey Bay Aquarium FishPhone and you'll see whether your choice raises a red flag or is green for go.
Read more about green fish and fish choices at TreeHugger
::Mark Bittman on the Future of Fish
::Is This the End of the Line for Fish?
::Fish Farming Moves to the Condo
::The Carbon Footprint of Sushi
::Trader Joes Flunks Sustainable Seafoods 101 (Again)
and on Planet Green
::Feed 8 Friends for Under $100 with this Green Frugal Feast: Sustainable Fish Fry
Read more from Graham Hill on Huffington Post
::Bright Idea? Citizen-Controlled Street Lamps
::Naked Bikers and the True Cost of Traffic
::Jellyfish Spaghetti and Your Own Carry Container
::Twitter Feeding Your World
::Electric Cars Will Be Cheaper Than You Think
::E-Bike: Car-Free Encouragement or Bike Balkanizer?
::Put Down That CAFO Pork Chop
::Your Ungreen Brain Needs More Nature
Follow Graham Hill on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ghill
All invasive species inadvertently or intentionally released into US waters with harmful consequences. The Pacific Lionfish is particularly relevant, since Hurricane Andrew released these into the Atlantic when it destroyed aquaria in Florida containing them.
This is just plain dumb.
Far better to fish farm Atlantic Salmon in the coastal waters of New England, where they are native. If any escape or are released, it is of no consequence.
If we had no fishing zones in the ocean that were strictly enforced, these would dramatically enhance the restoration of the world's oceans.
If we threw back all of the large fish that are much more successful than smaller fish at reproduction, then we would dramatically restore the world's fish supplies. Old large fish do most of the reproduction in the seas. They reach a state cause senescence which allows them to be sturdy and the most capable of reproduction. Also, eating younger fish means they contain less toxins than the older ones. This solves two problems. Right now, we throw fish back if they are not big enough. What we should be doing is throwing fish back if they are too big.
Look it up. http://www.sciencedaily.com/
Alison Barratt
Monterey Bay Aquarium
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx
http://www.jaggartech.com/snsaqua/page2.htm
They feed the fish, the fish effluent feeds the plants, and the plants (along with the bacteria that grow in the plant beds) filter the fish tanks. The feed conversion ratio is essentially perfect because the energy wasted by the fish is almost entirely converted into veggies. They only need to add water to the system to compensate for evaporation and vegetative transpiration.
Another sustainable fish you may have yet to encounter is arctic charr, a member of the salmon family, which is basically the only carnivorous fish that has been farmed sustainably. They need fish oil and some fish protein in their feed, but they can be raised in unheated tanks in much of North America because they're adapted to a cold-water habitat, and that saves a ton of energy.