Even
Norway is getting on the closed-containment, on-land fish farm bandwagon. Even
though Marine Harvest, Cermaq (Mitsubishi) and Grieg Seafood don’t seem to notice.
Here
are some quotes from a January 26, 2015 article on The Fish Site:
“Problems
with lice and losses can be heavily reduced by placing farmed fish in closed
systems until the fish reach a weight of one kilo. This has been shown by
research conducted by scientists at Uni Research in Bergen Norway.”
“The open sea phase is reduced by half by
keeping the fish in a closed system until they weigh up to one kilo. Salmon lice
consequentially only have half the time they need to complete their life
cycles.”
Who’d a thunk it? Keep farmed fish on
land in closed containers and they don’t get lice? Brilliant.
“Norway is a fishing and shipping nation
and we need to think about the future. By using closed systems we can look
after both wild and farmed fish even better than we do today.”
Which means all the wild fish in all the
cold water oceans that fish farms have spread to can be saved from fish farms.
Good thinking.
“The fish farming industry needs to think
about sustainability, but it will undoubtedly benefit from a development which
involves improving the health of farmed fish and reducing environmental impact,
says Nr. Ebbesson [one of the scientists].”
Sounds good.
“During the first growth phase of up to 1
kilo the losses suffered in the Skanevik tank have been less than one percent.
This is actually incredibly low to most ordinary sea systems, the losses can amount
to 10- to 12-% and in some cases up to as much as 20%”
The results he is referring to are from
the Research Council’s Optimised Post-smolt Production Project (OPP) which has
involved cooperation between the industrial partners, Marine Harvest, Leroy,
Grieg Seafood and Smola klekllerj og settefish.
Oh, look: Marine Harvest and Grieg
Seafood seem to be a part of this. You will recall that Marine Harvest, here in
BC, Canada, pulled out of a beneficial relationship – it meant they did not get
bad press for almost five years – with CAAR in 2014, on the grounds that there
was no point in the five year relationship because CAAR – a Coastal Alliance
for Aquaculture Reform, for getting fish farms out of the ocean and on to land
in closed containment – was against their business model. That means in-ocean,
open net pens that use the ocean as a free, open sewer.
Mr. Handeland said: “In the even longer
term we could also discover whether or not closed systems are beneficial for weights of up to 4 kilos.”
You mean, the weight at which fish farms
are actually harvested – 4- to 5-kilos? Really. Norway is only finding this out
now? Now, if they would only find this out in BC, and put fish farms on land.
As before you will recall my post on
this site that now has 73, er 74, er, 125 different fish farm systems on-land in closed-containment
around the world and comprising more than 8,000 actual farms. Do note that this
figure now exceeds 10,000 as Denmark has 50% of all its farms on land, and the
new Kenya post will result in thousands of on-land farms.
To close:
“Mr.
Handeland is fully supported by Lars Ebbesson. “The lice problem is one of the big challenges being faced by the
industry and one of the biggest threats to fish health. It is otherwise
very important to realise that closed systems would not just help the large
fish farms along the coast, but the small farms as well.”
Well done. Now send this to the
Norwegian government, and all the governments around the world that are
reducing effectiveness of environmental laws because fish farms say they are
too heavily regulated. As before, my estimate is that fish farms in BC result
in $10.4 billion in sewage costs, more than all the sewage put out by all the humans
in BC, that we taxpayers, in essence, pay for. We don’t want to pay.
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