Scientific panel will evaluate proposals to establish commercial fish farms in Great Lakes
Department of Environmental Quality officials said in March they’d heard from two operators interested in raising rainbow trout in netted enclosures in Lakes Michigan and Huron. They would take fish from small hatcheries and raise them until large enough for the consumer food market. Among members are scientists with the NOAA Great Lakes Ecological Laboratory in Ann Arbor, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Michigan Sea Grant and others. The chairman is Roy Stein, a professor emeritus at Ohio State University. Bad idea Read the rest here 13:14
Big question concerning aquaculture is WHY???
Aside from eliminating the “middlemen” (fishermen) and owning the entire fish protein resource—from spawn to harvest—(and, I’m sure, ultimately through the patent process of a nice future “high-technologically advanced” GMO Franken-Trout), and aside from too much homeless capital on the hunt for an easy-to-catch new rapid-growth economic- driver in order to privatize a natural resource and secure obscene profits, the question is—WHY???
Aside from the ego-maniacal “we can do anything with our super-technology know-how” and plain ol’ fashioned 1%er GREED, what could possibly be the reason for raising these wild creatures under inordinate stress in little prison-pens, then saturating them with antibiotics, pesticides (in the case of farmed Salmon) and all manner of questionable unnatural feed? Don’t tell me, it’s because: “Wild Caught Fisheries can no longer keep up with the growing world-wide demand for protein” right? At least that’s the standard talking point spouted by NOAA’s Jim Balsinger and Sam Rauch, the aquaculture associations and just about every other “investor” interested in making a killing by corralling, controlling from spawn to harvest, and funneling directly into their pocket, the profits from owning a major source of the world’s protein!
When our oceans—and our lakes and streams—are teeming with fish, why are “conservationists” and their minion government regulatory agencies busily eliminating the independent fishermen? Why are they eliminating family fishing operations that have built-in stock population balancing restraints due to their limited funds and therefore vessel size and capacity. These family fishing operations also have the lowest carbon footprint per pound of protein of any other method of production. So why are a few unenlightened techno-profiteers being given the green light to play God, to try and out-engineer nature—at any cost to the environment, to the integrity of the fish, and the health of the consumer?
Why? Why aquaculture? Hey, nothin’ personal, just business! Profit and Greed!