{"id":70573,"date":"2023-05-26T15:25:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T14:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/veganuary.com\/blog\/problems-fishing-fish-farming\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T11:22:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T10:22:24","slug":"problems-fishing-fish-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veganuary.com\/en-us\/problems-fishing-fish-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problems With Fishing And Fish Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fish are inextricably tied to the water and literally suffocate in the air. Here\u2019s why eating fish instead of meat isn\u2019t the kinder option.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Image Credit: AdobeStock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Harmful perceptions about fish such as \u201cIs fish farming cruel?\u201d and \u201cDo fish even feel pain?\u201d persist despite plenty of evidence proving their intelligence and capacity to suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We wouldn\u2019t accept killing chickens by throwing them into a tank of water and waiting for them to drown, so why don\u2019t we object to fish suffocating on trawler decks?\u2019 <\/em>says Victoria Braithwaite, Professor of Fisheries and Biology at Penn State University and author of Do Fish Feel Pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does fish farming work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In fish farms, fish are packed into unnatural small, filthy enclosures. The overcrowded conditions cause a third of them to die, and an array of chemicals are used to try to prevent even more from dying. In this stressful environment, many fish will bite off the fins, tails, and eyes of others, a distressing behavior seen in other factory-farmed animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip Lymbery, Chief Executive of Compassion in World Farming, explains that salmon as big as three-quarters of a meter long can each be allocated the equivalent of a bathtub of water: “Packed tightly, these ocean wanderers swim as a group, or shoal, in incessant circles around the cage, like the pacing up and down of caged zoo animals.\u201d<\/em>1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often the cruelty is deliberately inflicted. Shrimps and prawns, for example, are blinded because most of those reared in captivity aren\u2019t able to reproduce, and having their eyestalks cut off triggers the maturing of their ovaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Eyestalk ablation\u2019 has been labeled \u2018cruel\u2019 and \u2018traumatic\u2019 by numerous scientists but it won\u2019t stop \u2013 it is an intrinsic part of shrimp farming and more than half of all shrimps consumed globally are farmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farming fish also contributes to the environmental destruction of sea fishing<\/a>. For one thing, farmed species such as salmon and trout are carnivores so they are fed fish taken from the oceans, thereby exacerbating the destruction. Fish farming also directly impacts the health of wild fish because they escape and spread diseases and sea lice among their wild counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sea lice cause inflammations and hemorrhages and attack the fish\u2019s organs, eventually eating them alive. The lice from farmed salmon are now spreading to wild populations of fish in parts of the world, while pesticides used to control sea lice in fish factory farms are proving harmful to wild fish populations.2<\/a>,3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Photo courtesy of Watershed Watch, re-used under a Creative Commons licence<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Transport and slaughter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Transporting fish is a stressful and painful experience for them. They may be injured when caught by the vacuum pumps and nets, and suffer as they undergo changes in water pressure and temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is common practice to starve fish for 48 hours before transporting them to slow down their metabolisms and reduce the contamination of the transport water from their feces. Some fish may even be kept out of the water during the transport period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only legal stipulation for slaughtering the tens of millions of farmed fish who are killed each year is that they be \u2018spared any avoidable pain, distress or suffering\u2019.4<\/a><\/sup> Fish on farms may be killed by asphyxiation or they may have their gill arches torn, an inhumane procedure that causes the animals to struggle violently for the four minutes it takes for the fish to die.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some fish are stunned before slaughter by a blow to the head, electrical stunning, the use of carbon dioxide, or immersion in ice-cold water. None of these methods are fully effective and fish often suffocate or bleed to death without being stunned at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many fish are killed for food?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly, this is tricky to answer. Fish are farmed in greater numbers than any other animal, yet are often the forgotten victims<\/a> of factory farming. Captured fish are still measured in kilograms, instead of being counted as individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An estimated 92.1 million metric tonnes of fish were caught in 2022.6<\/a> <\/sup>A 2024 study published by Cambridge University Press estimated the global number of fish caught from the wild annually from 2000-2019. The researchers calculated that between 1.1 and 2.2 trillion fish were caught each year. And these figures don’t include illegal fishing, fish caught in discarded gear, and farmed fish \u2013 each a huge topic in their own right.7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Photo courtesy of Alex Prolmos<\/a>, re-used under a Creative Commons licence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

How are fish caught in the wild?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Netting can capture tens of thousands of fish at one time, with animals becoming exhausted as they desperately try to outswim the net. When the nets are pulled to the surface, those at the bottom are crushed by the weight of fish above them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rapid change in pressure causes their swim bladders to overinflate, and their stomachs and intestines to be pushed out through their mouths and anuses. Their eyes distort, bulge, and can also be pushed out of their sockets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The animals are then dropped onto the ship\u2019s deck where those who are still alive will suffocate \u2013 a process that can take several minutes. Others, like tuna, are hoisted from the water with a hook, and killed by forcing a spike through their brains. Despite an ever-increasing number of studies that show aquatic species can feel pain, there are no still welfare laws governing the slaughter of fish at sea.8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overfishing causes habitat destruction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Industrial fishing is destructive to our environment. According to a recent report, one-third of assessed UK fish stocks are overfished and a quarter were found to be depleted to critically low population sizes.9<\/a> <\/sup>Globally, over one-third of fisheries are overfished.10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of cod, plaice, and sole has declined in EU fisheries since 1993. Around 63 percent of the assessed stocks in the Atlantic, 82 percent in the Mediterranean, and 66 percent in the Baltic are overfished.11<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuna, cod, swordfish, and marlin populations have declined by 90 percent during the last century, while the North Sea mackerel population, which collapsed in the 1970s, has never recovered.12<\/a><\/sup> This is just the tip of a devastating iceberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Habitats are decimated by the industrial fleet of fishing ships. Bottom trawling gouges scars in the ocean floor, destroying deep-sea coral forests and other delicate ecosystems. A 2024 study estimated that 8.5 to 9.2 billion tonnes of CO2 have been released from trawling into the atmosphere between 1996-2020. The same study also found that around half of all fish caught are used for fishmeal and oil, most of which is fed to farmed animals.13<\/a><\/sup> This means eating meat also contributes to the damage done to the oceans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch this powerful video about the effects of overfishing on our oceans and marine life:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n