Low impact fish

Kona Blue Water Farms released an analysis of its kampachi that demonstrates fish farmed in a sustainable manner have an ecological footprint 60 times less harmful on the ocean than wild-caught fish.

The Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, company’s findings support Food and Agriculture Organization recommendations for an increase in aquaculture amid declining wild stocks and closures to key fisheries like West Coast rockfish, Gulf of Mexico grouper and East Coast red snapper.

• Aquaculture is moving towards sustainable substitutes in fish feed to lessen reliance on fishmeal and fish oil. Kona Blue’s current feed formulation includes only 35 percent fishmeal/fish oil from wild baitfish, of which approximately 3 percent is from capture fishery by-product. Contrary to outdated ratios of 5:1 or higher quoted by some environmental groups, the current ratio of “wild fish in to farmed fish out” has fallen to approximately 1.5:1 (0.5 pounds of anchovies producing 1 pound of sashimi-grade farmed fish).

By contrast, wild fish are subject to the laws of trophic transfer, where only 10 percent of their prey’s food value is transferred up each step of the food chain.

• Farmed fish have a life cycle that is estimated to be three to 10 times more efficient than wild predatory fish, since they are harvested at a young age, after their most efficient growth, and do not expend energy reproducing or competing to survive in the wild.
• Last consideration is bycatch. Some fisheries generate up to 11 pounds of bycatch for every pound that is retained, Sims said. Experts estimate that almost 30 percent of the global wild harvest is discarded. Farmed fish have no bycatch.

From: SeafoodSource.com