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Fish Farms: Underwater Factories


	"Conditions on aquafarms are so horrendous that on some farms, 40 percent of the fish may die before farmers can kill and package them for food."

Fish farming, or “aquaculture,” has become a billion-dollar industry, and more than 30 percent of all the sea animals consumed each year are now raised on these “farms.” The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the aquaculture industry is growing three times faster than land-based animal agriculture, and fish farms will surely become even more prevalent as our natural fisheries become exhausted.

Aquafarms can be based on land or in the ocean. Land-based farms raise thousands of fish in ponds, pools, or concrete tanks. Ocean-based aquafarms are situated close to shorelines, and fish in these farms are packed into net or mesh cages. All fish farms are rife with pollution, disease, and suffering, regardless of their location.


	"We don't take what Mother Nature throws at us. This is a factory for fish." —Bill Evans, Vice President of Mariculture Systems, Inc., Salmon-farming company

Aquafarms squander resources—it can take 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce just 1 pound of farmed fish—and pollute the environment with tons of fish feces, antibiotic-laden fish feed, and diseased fish carcasses.

Fish on aquafarms spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy enclosures, and many suffer from parasitic infections, diseases, and debilitating injuries. Conditions on some farms are so horrendous that 40 percent of the fish may die before farmers can kill and package them for food. In short, fish farms bring suffering and ecological devastation everywhere they go.

	Many land-based aquafarms are indoors, so farmers even control the amount of light that fish get.
	These farmed fish will spend their entire lives crammed together, constantly bumping against each other and the sides of their grossly overcrowded cage.