Which Seafood Is Better for the Environment: Farmed or Wild Caught?

There’s no doubt that fish is a great source of protein in one’s diet. But the debate about whether fish farming or commercial fishing is worse for the environment continues and, as you might suspect, there isn’t a straightforward answer.

Hosted by: Hank Green

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[pierrefrisch]

There is one topic that Hank forgot. 70% of the garbage plastic patch in our ocean areold fishing implements (nets, buoy etc) so fishing has some really serious consequence for our environment as most of this plastic end up in our food.

[DinJaevel]

You forgot to mention that one of the biggest reasons wild fish populations are being overfished is to use the fish as fodder. Not only for the salmon, that you mentioned briefly, but for chickens, pigs and other animals. Most fish where I live, Sweden, isn't caught for direct human consumption. We keep overfishing wild populations to eat other food.

[Kevan]

Why not layer the farms? Mix shellfish and fish in adjacent pens. Shellfish can eat the fish's waste.

[ClanWiE]

Let's not forget that commercial fishing is also the largest contributor to plastic litter in the ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of more than 60% fishing gear, almost all of which is from commercial fishing operations.

[God-ldll]

The road to hell is paved with marketing terms.

[Dafins]

So aquaculture that doesn’t actually focus on fish might be best if done well? I know shellfish like mussels and clams are pretty sustainable and you can farm lots other things like seaweed at the same time.

[NinaDmytraczenko]

I'd love to see a future episode on multilayer aquaculture! I've heard that combining seaweed, fish and crustaceans is much better for the ecosystem

[stephentroake]

I think "less damaging" is more accurate than "better".

[copastriker]

I'm a marine Biology student, seeing his wild fishing analysis I see he misses a lot of stuff. I understand it's a 10 minute video and he doesn't have all day, but he mentions fishing techniques that are extremely bad for the environment. He focuses on the CO2 emissions from the boats, rather than the (arguably more important and pressing issue) actual techniques used for fishing. For instance, he never mentions how fishing nets get lost at sea a lot, and then harm the animal life in that area. My opinion on this whole topic is that mainstream media and pop culture stress cleaning up our oceans and regulating CO2, but then they miss the entire point by focusing on the wrong things. This topic isn't as simple as "if we stop using plastic bottles and straws and stop CO2 emissions the world will be all better"

[supatvrd]

I am from Maldives, and all of these efficient methods are illegal in the name of protecting the biodiversity.

[Dornul]

One of the issues which is largely ignoring is throwing the small fishes back and killing/eating the big ones. Due tot this the populations decline because the big ones produce more offspring than the small ones. It also causes the species to become smaller in general, because less big fish means more chance for the small ones to reproduce and pass on their small fish genes.

[battleon]

Shellfish filtering the water is great so long as they don’t compete with native species. We already have enough trouble here at Lake Erie with zebra mussels hogging all the plankton.

[CatSingerB]

Love seeing attention brought to my field of research! Thanks for giving a balanced portrayal of a controversial topic! 👍🏻
One aspect that was not mentioned is breeding. Fish have been farmed and fished for centuries, however, the research and improvement of aquaculture genetics, of intensive farming and of sustainable practices is receiving more and more attention and resources. Things long known about land farm animals are just now being learned for fish, so judging this subject must be a continuous practice - not an end goal.

[guardsmennorheimofthetanit]

As a commercial fisherman I can tell you trawlers are the absolute worst. The only fisherman who like trawlers are trawlers. The rest of us want them shut down due to their absurd ammount of waste and habitat destruction.

[Amy_the_Lizard]

It's also worth noting that few wildcaught fish get clean deaths, oftentimes they're just left on the boat until the suffocate - which can take hours. Farmed fish usually get electricuted to death or are hit over the heads, and thus die faster. This plus the risk commercial fishing poses to endangered species is why I personally try to avoid eating wildcaught fish whenever possible.

[dandavatsdasa]

Seaweed seems to be the most ideal for ocean farming.

All open bodies of water are very much at risk regarding pollutants. Consequently pollution can get into fish, shellfish, and sea salt.

The small farm way appears best when dynamic methods are utilized.

Tilapia-fish are herbivores and can probably get most of their food from plants like Duckweed. The Tilapia fish tank can also help fertilize other food plants or beneficial plants. Duckweed can feed all kinds of herbivores as well as possibly food for people.

On a smaller scale the Duckweed could provide most food needs for rabbits and possibly red worms.

Large scale agriculture is apparently creating risks in a number of ways.

Thank you for sharing helpful and informative videos!

[shadowdagger]

What about the fish farm/rice patty combo? Fish give nutrients to the rice. Cleans the water, makes the rice healthier, and no antibiotics needed. That seems like the best of all words. More food all around

[thewetblueberry]

Since you did not go into detail on how we could improve wild fishing and how it can be sustainable I would like to add on a couple things to what you said. Love your vids btw. To start off with, different fishing tactics like bottom trawling and net trawling are extremely bad for the environment from the unsustainable amount of fish caught and environmental destruction but also because half of the ocean's plastic is from fishing nets. So if we want more sustainable, realistic, practices we should ban fishing tactics that include netting. We should also make fishing companies responsible for any plastic waste related to fishing (probably through taxation from the % of plastic found in the ocean that year? that may not be the solution but it's something). I also found studies a while back on how marine protected areas (MPA) that are highly protected or fully protected are able to produce 6 to 7 times more biomass in fish, and how that spillover from the protected area was able to improve populations. I would do your own research on MPA since it's extremely interesting on how it works but I don't want to make my post any longer or more boring. Thanks for reading as far as you did :)

[davep]

I would have reversed the emphasis on environmental effects of fishing, with GHG being last. The other effects are so much more damaging.

[SuperBryant]

Most of these negatives for aquaculture seem to be mostly due to issues with open pen style farming. Wish you had talked about modern indoor Recirculating Aquaculture Systems.