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Burton
A couple of years ago when fishing the Potomac near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge with then President George Bush, I watched my perturbed companion reach into the water to pull out a partially deteriorated clear plastic bag.
“There ought to be a fishing tournament for trash,” he groused as he tucked the debris in a litter bag. “I don’t know what people think of when they dump things into the water.”
George Bush is now back in Texas where presumably there are also litter problems, but probably he would be interested to know that the time has come for, as he suggested, a fishing tournament for plastic waste. Hey, Bill Clinton never thought of that.
Trash isn’t really the target “species” of the 14th Annual Ocean City Sharkers Shark Tournament June 22 – 26 out of Ocean City Fishing Center, but there is within the competition’s structure a Trash Fish Division. The boat that brings back the most plastic ocean trash by weight from the Atlantic wins $100; second place wins $50.
That’s a big step in the right direction.
Tens of Thousands Unhappy Endings
Floating plastic in the ocean is a killer. Sea turtles mistake it for jellyfish, and it blocks their digestive tracts. Inky, the 325-pound female pygmy sperm whale doctored recently at Baltimore’s National Aquarium had the passageways to her four stomachs jammed by an assortment of plastic including part of a mylar balloon.
Treated for four months at the aquarium, she was released in good health recently off the Georgia Coast. A radio transmitter attached to her broadcast the message that she was eating regularly and doing just fine. A happy ending, but, I dare suggest that for every such cure there are thousands, probably tens of thousands, unhappy endings we never hear about.
Discarded plastic is a killer on the high seas, inland waters and on land. Six-pack plastic rings entrap birds and animals, plastic lines choke fish and animals that inadvertently ingest it while feeding. Such tragedies are unnecessary.
Not infrequently, fishermen come across varying amounts of plastic in the stomachs of sharks they clean for table fare. Sharks are indiscriminate feeders; in addition, plastic waste is often mixed in with the trash they feed on once it is discarded by boats large and small. Plastic doesn’t pass through the system easily, instead it often packs up to eventually pose a life-threatening blockage.
So, that’s why the Ocean City Sharkers have declared war on ocean plastic waste. It isn’t just that they want to spare sharks so they can catch them; it’s that they just want to save sharks. They appreciate them as a sports fish — and most of those they catch are released.
Sharks, you see, like many other marine species, are a troubled lot. Since about the time of the movie Jaws, both commercial and sports fishing pressure has intensified for most shark species. Shark steaks have long been marketed as steak fish in seafood markets — and now are used by some as the fish in fish and chips. A slab cut from a fresh mako shark is equal in taste and texture to a prime cut of broadbill swordfish.
Add to this the rape of the fishery by profiteers who target sharks to sell only the fins to meet the growing demand, especially among Orientals overseas and here, for the making of sharkfin soup and other delicacies. This is now outlawed, but some renegades persist. The quick profits are too tempting to resist.
Many of the sharks mutilated for just their fins are dumped back into the ocean to die. Unable to navigate without fins, they starve — unless they are first feasted upon by other sharks and predators who instinctively realize they are defenseless. Life in the sea is tough.
From Ocean Trash to Local Sharks
We’ll get into the shark tournament later, but first let’s go into sharks some more — sharks not of the ocean but of the Chesapeake. Yes, we have them in the Bay, some as far up as waters off Rock Hall well north of Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
In the mid-’70s when rockfishing was in its heyday at the Bay Bridge, shark sightings were reported, but few believed. Occasionally, a fisherman would reel in part of a rock, but the missing tail end was blamed on bluefish.
One day while fishing with Capt. Ed Darwin of the charterboat Becky-D out of Mill Creek, we were casting bucktails near the Stone Pile at the Bridge when Darwin hooked a large rock. At first it put up a great scrap, then stopped. Darwin thought the fish tossed the hook, but when he reeled in he still had the head. The fish was cut off clean as the proverbial whistle at the gill plate.
A bluefish? Hardly. The size of the head indicated the whole rock would have weighed about 20 pounds. That convinced Darwin to never again send his mate — his son, Peter — overboard to dislodge a hung anchor. A season or two later, a large nurse shark was caught in a net near the bridge. Not long thereafter, a few large sharks of different species were taken in nets by fishermen out of Rock Hall.
About a dozen years ago, a couple of Baltimore fellows boarded a bass boat out of Sandy Point State Park with the intention of taking a shark by chumming. It was a wild day, with winds blowing nearly 30 knots, but by late afternoon their heavy tackle had landed a shark of between 300 and 400 pounds — the largest fish of any species I recall ever being taken by rod and reel in Maryland’s share of the Chesapeake.
That shark almost won the battle. Landing it in a whitecap-covered Bay was more than the anglers bargained for, but they finally managed to lash it to the stern of their boat. This brought the rear gunwales precariously close to the water line — and a couple of times they were nearly swamped.
This writer has endured a couple of close encounters with sharks elsewhere through the years. One day when the sea at Assateague Island was flat, I waded out to chest-high waters to cast for sea trout. I caught a couple and attached them to a line around my waist. Just before dark I noticed a fin cruising between me and the beach. Then another.
Nothing unusual about sharks cruising close to the beach, but they were between me and the shore, and I had heard stories of sharks panicking when they feared having their path to open water blocked. I also realized I had a couple of wounded sea trout lashed to me, and I appreciated the reputation sharks have for smelling blood on anything injured.
Gradually, I retreated to the shoreline, untying the trout as I did, then tossing them aside. It’s an eerie feeling being alone in the surf near dark; add a couple of sharks and it can be frightening. I edged my way ashore safely, and I’ll never know whether or not the two sharks had a sea trout dinner.
A couple years later, Bill Shockley at Shockley’s Fishing Center in Berlin weighed in a shark of nearly 200 pounds that was taken by a surf fisherman who was dunking large menhaden baits for blues at the very same spot my two kids were riding the breakers a couple hours earlier.
It is said that as one approaches death, his lifetime flashes before him, and after a hair-raising encounter with a huge shark in the back bay at Chincoteague, I believe it true. As I fell overboard from a skiff onto that shark, I relived part of my life, and recall thinking this is a hell of a way to go: to a shark of all things.
My companions, including well-known decoy carver Cigar Daisy and a few others, were fishing for flounder in two 18-foot skiffs when we noticed the fins of three large sharks. Knowing they were worth several cents a pound, and seeking adventure, we decided to try for them.
I rigged a makeshift gaff with a long boat pole and huge hook from my tackle box, and we pulled alongside one of the sharks. All three had become stranded in a back bay basin when the tide dropped below normal; they didn’t have a deep enough channel to return to the sea.
The first was gaffed, brought aboard and tied securely. It weighed about 300 pounds; the second was about 100 pound larger and also posed no problem.
The third was the largest and least obliging. As I balanced myself with one foot on each gunwale at the bow of the boat, I set the hook, and it became aggressive. Unwilling to admit defeat, I held tight. The shark turned and rammed the boat, inflicting a large crack on the hull severe enough to cause me to lose my footing.
The drop from the bow gunwales was only a couple of feet, but as I headed down on the broad black back of an angry shark parts of my life did flash before me. I figured it was all over, but thankfully the shallow water slowed the shark’s maneuverability. It couldn’t turn around quickly.
But I recall the feeling of its sandpaper-like hide on my bare legs and the jolt to my chest when it struck the bow. A companion reached over and grabbed me, and with his help I was back in the skiff, though my watch and camera weren’t.
Young and foolish, I was determined to resume the scrap, chased after the shark, boated it and headed for the docks where it weighed in at 450 pounds. It was identified as of the lemon species, known for sometimes attacking humans. Never since have I chased after sharks in a small boat.
At Ocean City many years ago we fished for sharks on heavy rigs with gallon glass jugs for bobbers and caught 200 and 300-pounders for market. We chummed them to the inlet on an ebb tide; our catches drew curious sightseers — until the mayor and city council asked us to stop. They didn’t think it was good for OC tourism.
For a time in the late 1970s, fishermen from the boardwalk pier also fished for large sharks, including hammerheads, and caught them. City officials again stopped the practice. Just the mention of sharks makes them jittery. What would bathers and surfboarders think? You will note that when a great white shark was taken there a couple years ago, it was kept a secret. The same when a smaller one was caught last year; then another a couple weeks ago.
In a reprint of the 1928 edition of Fishes of Chesapeake Bay by Samuel F. Hildebrand and William C. Schroeder, I note that in 1886 it was reported that great whites were common in the outer harbor of Baltimore, not far from my Stoney Creek home. However, I’m told that such reportings were probably a case of mistaken identity.
But that book also tells of nurse, smooth dogfish, Milberts, shovel-nose and hammerhead sharks in the Chesapeake. Hammerheads, which can be dangerous indeed, were reported so common at the mouth of the Miles River across the Bay from us that fishermen were forced to abandon their nets in 1876.
As for the Ocean City shark competition (phone 800/322-3065 if you’re interested), much of the action will be targeted to mako sharks, considered the most sporting of shark species. When hooked, they leap six to 10 feet above the water, make exceptionally long and strong runs and never give up.
It was in this tournament’s third year that New Yorker Grace Czerniak caught a 1,201-pound tiger shark, which remains both a Fishing-In Maryland and tournament record catch. Also, it’s the biggest hook-and-line catch ever while fishing out of a Maryland port. The best mako taken off Ocean City was just shy of 700 pounds.
The upcoming tournament stresses releases. Last year 30 makos were taken, but only seven brought back to be weighed in. The days when the stereotype shark fisherman was a fellow chumming with leftovers from a chicken processing plant to reel in sharks to sell or just kill is a thing of the past. Indiscriminate killing of any living species should not be tolerated in this age. That includes the killing of cownose rays, which incidentally are nothing more than primitive sharks that resisted the evolutionary process to long, sleek and fast configuration that make predators so efficient. Enough said .x
Fish Finder by Bill Burton
What’s with the mid-Chesapeake bluefish? For a week they were in fairly good numbers at Sharps Island Flats, then suddenly they virtually disappeared, as waters farther up the Bay got their first run of the year. Did “our” blues go there? The void has been filled by a return of black drum and the best hardhead fishing in many years. A closer look:
MID-CHESAPEAKE: Pretty much confined to a rejuvenation of the black drum run at the Stone Rock at Sharps Island Flats. Best drum so far, an 88-pounder. Get into the mouth of the Choptank, and hardheads are plentiful for bottom fishermen, especially in the area of Cooks Point. Some spot and white perch are mixed in with them. Headboats are doing well. More schools of blues are needed, though, to make up for the slack days of drum fishing.
Drum can’t be relied on to bite everyday, but this is the peak of their season so maybe they’ll be available most days. Surprise, a few red drum have been mixed in with schools of blacks. They’re not as big but are excellent scrappers and the same for table fare. If you decide to troll for blues, use green and red surgical hoses.
Crabbing badly needs a shot in the arm.
LOWER BAY: The bluefish remain here, mostly two to four-pound fish, with the best action off the mouth of the Potomac and at the Middlegrounds. Chumming is still the most effective for the blues. We need more of those blues to work up the Chesapeake, which they probably will — but when?
Flounder fishing is improving gradually, spot are fair at best. The hardhead run remains excellent in Cornfield Harbor, Tangier Sound, Hooper Straits and the Honga River. Most of the hardheads are keepers, some go 12 to 14 inches, and they remain the most popular catch for those fishing from the public pier at Point LookoutState Park.
UPPER BAY: Some bluefish have been taken as far up as Love Point, a few at Swan Point, but otherwise trollers must settle for catch-and-release rockfish, which appear abundant. The hardhead fishing is very good, especially off Hacketts. At the mouth of the Magothy it’s mostly white perch, the same at Hart and Miller Island. Anglers are catching many medium and large catfish, more than in a decade. The same with big eels, prompting the question of why eels and catties are coming on so strong. Is there any significance to this?
OCEAN FRONT: If you’re heading for the beach, headboat fishing is picking up a bit for sea bass, tautog and ling, and inshore sea trout fishing is improving at the South Jetty for those jigging bucktails. The first of the tuna have arrived at the far offshore canyons; marlin can’t be far behind. Bluefish runs at the Jackspot and just inshore of there are erratic. An increase of a few degrees in water temperature should get things really perking.
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Laughing Gourmet
Cold Soups for Hot Summer
The discovery that savory, comforting soup could be enjoyed in summer as well as winter stands as a bright memory in Laughing Gourmet’s gustatory education.
It was, I remember, a white-glove kind of day. I chaffed at white gloves and promptly smudged their seamed, fingertips. But Mother, I understand now, required them for the badge of extraordinariness they pinned on everyday events. It was not, however, the white gloves that made this hot summer day special.
It was the startling soup Vernon Dalton served us for lunch that day at his St. Louis restaurant, The Ranch House. Vern was a familiar family friend: how could he concoct something so special, I wondered, as I savored the icy thick potato soup, so creamy, with currents of spice submerged the way a vein of cold water will run through the warm waters of the Bay.
I have loved Vichyssoise ever since, just as I’ve long since come to expect the extra- in ordinary life.
Here are a handful of cold soups to put savor in your summer.
Vichyssoise
Back in the Roaring Twenties, when refrigeration and cuisine were first getting together, chef Louis Diat of New York’s Ritz Carlton put a cold spin on a hometown taste. The result was was Vichyssoise, named for his French home. Here are both the very rich classic recipe and a lighter, modern version.
1 med onion
4 leeks — only the white
2T butter
5 med potatoes
4 C chicken broth
1 T salt
2 C each milk, medium cream
1 C heavy cream
Brown sliced vegetables in butter before boiling in stock — or skip the first step and simply boil together. Zap thru blender. Add milk and cream over light heat, bringing almost to a boil. Season to taste, cool. Add cold heavy cream at end and garnish with chives.
To cut down on fat while enjoying nearly as delicious a soup, use skim milk and no-fat sour cream (beaten in with wisk) in place of milk, medium cream and heavy cream.
For an extra tingle, season mildly with curry and/or cayenne during cooking.
Gazpacho,
Gazpacho, meaning “soaked bread” in Arabic, was invented in Andalucia, a southern province of Spain, during the Moorish occupation between 700-1500AD. Most people in the northern provinces of Spain have not even tasted gazpacho because the difference in climate calls for a warmer cuisine. The phrase “sunny Spain” only refers to the south.
Gazpacho should be prepared at least an hour before serving to let the flavors blend and chill. You may also prepare extra chopped vegetables to serve so your dinner guests can personalize their soup.
In more modern recipes, a food processor is used, but traditionally the vegetables are chopped by hand to preserve the flavor.
11/2 white onion, peeled and quartered
11/2 medium cucumbers, peeled and cut in pieces
2 small green peppers, seeded and cut in eighths
6 large tomatoes, peeled and cut in eighths
5 garlic cloves
1 C tomato juice
1/2 C light olive oil
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 small piece chili pepper
1 T salt
(This recipe makes 11/2 qts.)
Chop the onion in the food processor, turning on and off rapidly, for 4 or 5 seconds until finely chopped. Transfer to a large bowl. Repeat with cucumbers. Add to onions. Repeat with green peppers.
Skin tomatoes by boiling them for half a minute. Process 5 tomatoes until evenly chopped into small pieces. Add to same large bowl. Process remaining tomatoes with garlic, tomato juice, olive oil, and chili powder to form smooth liquid. Combine with chopped vegetables in a covered container.
Chill and add salt.
And, when you eat, dunk your bread.
Sunset Soup
1 1/2 C fresh tomatoes, peeled and seeded
1 C orange juice
dash Tabasco
pinch salt
fresh ground black pepper
sour cream (optional garnish)
In a processor or blender, puree the tomatoes. Add orange juice, Tabasco and salt; whirl to blend. Chill for at least two hours. Taste and add seasonings if desired. Serve in chilled bowls topped with a spoonful of sour cream.
Apple and Onion Soup
1 large Vidalia onion, sliced thin
2 large Granny Smith apples, cored and sliced thin
3 C beef bouillon
1/2 t curry powder
dash Tabasco
1 C lite sour cream
In a microwave bowl, put onion; cover with paper and cook for three minutes, until softened. Add apples; cook another three minutes or until soft. Add broth, curry and Tabasco . Cook 10 minutes, stirring every three minutes. Puree in processor or blender. Stir in sour cream and chill at least three hours. Taste. Adjust seasonings.
Chilled Black Bean Soup
1 can black bean soup
1 soup can cold water
3 T sherry or tequila
2 dashes Tabasco
1/4 C finely chopped onion (Vidalia preferred)
Heat all ingredients. Chill for four hours. Taste; adjust seasonings to your liking. Serve topped with sour cream and chopped green onion.
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Politalk
Burton on Politics at the Top of DNR
Col. Franklin Wood’s sudden resignation as commander of Natural Resources Police raises speculation throughout Chesapeake Bay Country. Curiously, Wood, of Deale, is succeeded by John W. Rhoades, a crony of Parris Glendenning, who is now considered the front-runner in the race to be Maryland’s next governor.
Could there be any connection between this choice and fears that a new administration will clean house at DNR? Can it be that some DNR officials serving at the pleasure of the governor would like to be able to tell an incoming Glendenning (if he makes it) “Hey, we looked out for one of your guys x”
Wood’s resignation came out of the blue. He was doing a great job; he had started a Citizens Police Academy and was establishing safe boating programs better than any on the East Coast. In his 26 years with the force, he was known as a hard and effective worker.
DNR claimed no connection between the abrupt resignation and several complaints and lawsuits filed by minority DNR police personnel alleging racial discrimination and sexual harassment. Problems on those two fronts were inherited by Wood when he took over the top spot two years ago upon the resignation of Col. Jack Taylor.
Morale on the 223-member force has been low for years, but not primarily because of racial discrimination and sexual harassment issues. Instead the rank and file of DNR Police complain the department has bent over so far backward to avoid such charges that non-minority groups endure reverse discrimination.
Many DNR policemen are coming to the defense —anonymously, of course — of Wood, but the deed is done. His resignation is effective July 1. Then Rhoades will have all the headaches.
—Bill Burton
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Earth Journal
Animal Stories
We hear such good animal stories that we can’t help reporting them to you occasionally. We offer this one under the heading of
In Rapport.
Bramhalls’ Family Farm, in Lothian, is Signore’s estate. Give Signore the Italinate trill he deserves, dropping the g and “aying” his final e. Roll his r if at all possible, for he is a dashing character.
Signore, a Bantam rooster, preens a fine iridescent coat of green and brown. He appears chesty with pride; so might you in such a coat and with such an estate on which to strut your stuff.
But Signore’s life has not been easy. His mother and father, Beth and Bob, were improbable refuges, intended to be sacrificed in Satanic rites, or so the Bramhalls assure me. If I sound doubtful, it is because I can find no corner of my consciousness inclined to the ritual sacrifice of chickens, though animal rights purists might doubt me, for it is true that I eat chicken.
Be that as it may, the rescued Beth and Bob prospered; Signore began life as one of a clutch of eggs. All those chicks hatched, and the goodhearted Bramhalls scooted them into a portable dog caddy at night to keep them safe. But Beth and Bob’s progeny fell on hard times. One by one, “something” plucked them out of the trees, leaving only Signore — and a freefall of gorgeous feathers — behind.
Signore is not unaware of the danger. He has abandoned the lower trees in which foolish young chicks and roosters roosted for the night. Now of a night, he sleeps in the front yard, high in the branches of 40-foot tall pines.
Signore is now unique; he might be lonely, except that he is cultivating a friend.
Bob Bramhall (this Bob is the farmer, not the paternal rooster) is also, in a way, unique. Lately retired for perhaps the second time, his daily world has become the organic farm he and his wife Pat cultivate with the finest of care. As Bob tills and mows and mulches, as he sharpens blades and refits handles to the heads of axes and mauls, he finds Signore more frequently in his sight.
From watching, Signore has moved closer and closer until he follows Bob from chore to chore. Not infrequently, Bob will walk into the kitchen for a graham cracker. The cracker is for Signore, who in turn comes closer and closer. Pat says that rooster would come right in the kitchen if she let him. Bob says “He’s come that close,” and the distance he measures is about the length of a man’s arm.
The man and the rooster are becoming friends. They share the summer and the estate.
Landscaping for the Bay
If you think your perfect, well-fertilized, weedless, emerald rug of a lawn is a thing of beauty, you may want to take a Sunday afternoon ride down to some of the backwaters along the Bay. Here, you’ll see small estuaries, shallow bodies of water that are home to wintering swans and a myriad of ducks, nursery to billions of crabs and the Happy Hour haunt of kingfishers.
If you look closely, you’ll see that the run-off from over-fertilized lands is changing some of these lovely vistas. You’ll see thick yellow-green scum in huge rafts. These rafts do many things, none of them good.
First, they cut off light, killing the bottom grass. Next, the scum dies and sinks to the bottom, turning the water into a cesspool unfit for even such an unpicky critter as the blue crab.
What does this have to do with your gorgeous lawn, you ask? The lawn you slave over endless weekends, water daily and fertilize regularly, spray for disease, unwanted pests and noxious weeds? The lawn that is the envy of your neighborhood?
What do these dying little backwaters have to do with me, you ask?
The Alliance for Chesapeake Bay can tell you.
In a meeting last week to give a push to its Bay Scapes program, the Alliance had plenty to say about lawns, gardens and the health of the Chesapeake Bay.
The ambitious program of lawn-lover education can make a difference in the Bay’s waters, participants learned. If we’re careful, fish, crabs, and other aquatic life will be healthier and more plentiful. Ugly blooms of scum will vanish. Bottom grass will return. Erosion will diminish. And that’s just for starters.
Maryland has more acres of lawn under cultivation than acres of corn. These acres are, in many individual cases and in entire communities as well, over-tended. Many long-held practices have proved to be wasteful of both water and pesticides and fertilizers, to say nothing of time and money. Here are two examples:
• Commercial spraying is quite often overkill. A regularly scheduled spraying is frequently not only expensive but unnecessary. What’s more, the runoff from spraying can be deadly; the water you see running along the gutters in many communities is a soup of nutrients gets into the Bay through the storm drain system.
• Routine watering wastes time, money and water. Daily watering encourages a shallow root system, making the lawn vulnerable to disease and drought. Your lawn will tell you when it needs water: when you step on the grass, it doesn’t spring up.
This is what dying estuaries are all about: Excess fertilizer and excess water have drained off the surrounding land and found their way into the estuary, unbalancing the tender ecology of the water.
In other words, that immaculate pampered lawn you love is a deadly weapon against the Bay.
For more information or a Lawn Evaluation Kit, call the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay: 800/662-CRIS.
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Commentary
For Future Fish Fillets, Better Look To The Farm
by Anne E. Platt and Hal Kane
All 17 major fishing areas in the world have either reached or exceeded their natural limits, according to the United Nations. Nine of these areas are in serious decline. With fish catch declining in two of the past four years and the population expanding, the per-person catch in the world is falling fast.
Most countries face the effects of overfishing, overpollution and destruction of coastal habitat. An estimated 200 million people worldwide depend on the fishing industry for their livelihoods. Many of them fear for their jobs. Almost 50,000 Canadians have lost theirs since 1992 because of vanishing cod stocks in the North Atlantic.
Last year, commercial fisheries spent nearly $124 billion to catch $74 billion worth of fish. Governments financed the difference of $54 billion with low-interest loans and subsidies for boats and operations — expenditures that encourage overfishing rather than effective management.
If fish stocks are given time to replenish themselves, the global catch could stabilize in the future. Even so, the world now faces the prospect of declining seafood catches and rising seafood prices for as far as we can see into the future.
Fin Farms for Food
Aquaculture produces 90 percent of all oysters sold on the market. Almost half of all salmon are raised on fish farms. More than a quarter of all shrimps and prawns are farmed.
About two-thirds of aquaculture production comes from inland rivers, lakes, ponds and artificial tanks. The rest is coastal — grown in bays or the open ocean.
China dominates world fish farming, producing almost half the world total. Production from fish farms there is as large as the wild catch. Indian overtook Japan in 1988 to become the second largest producer. With those three countries in the lead, Asia produces 80 percent of the farmed seafood worldwide.
Aquaculture has an advantage over its competitors — the pork, chicken and beef industries — because fish farming is more efficient. Growing a pound of beef takes about seven pounds of feed. A pound of pork takes four pounds of feed. Chicken is the most efficient of the land-raised meats, requiring about 2.2 pounds of feed per pound of meat produced.
But fish need two pounds or less of food. Suspended in the water, fish do not have to expend many calories to move about, and since they are cold-blooded, they do not burn calories trying to heat their bodies.
Despite its advantage, fish farming shares many of the problems of the livestock and poultry industries. Each depend on feed, water and land to grow. For aquaculture, the required land often is expensive coastal, lakefront or riverfront property. Shrimp farming especially often requires the clearing of coastal forests that are the sanctuary, nursery and breeding grounds of many kinds of life.
As with other meats, farmed fish produces wastes that have to be either disposed of or used. Organic waste from farmed fish can ruin clam beds and produce algae that consumes the water’s oxygen, causing fish to suffocate. And a fish farmer, like any other, has to buy supplies and equipment — antibiotics, vaccines, hormones and equipment. That’s in part because dense populations make fish, like people, more vulnerable to the spread of disease.
Despite these problems, there is strong incentive to grow fish. But if fish farming continues to increase at present rates, it will require roughly two million additional tons of grain every year — a high cost to pay.
In the future, aquaculture could be constrained by this need for grain as well as its requirements for land and water.
Issue 13