Line drawing of a fish, by arif fajar yulianto from the Noun Project — Fish

Where does your fish come from?

Fish can come from two different places: it can be farmed or it can be fresh-caught. 

Both options can have serious impacts: on consumers and on the environment.

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image by Gan Khoon Lay from the Noun Project

The good and bad of fresh-caught fish

To some extent, that’s true. But the problem is when they are overfished.

Overfishing has become more common for two main reasons: more people are eating fish, and fishing technology is getting much more efficient.

Fishing has become more dominated by factory ships that catch hold much more fish than smaller, less commercial ships.

Overfishing: fishing at a rate so high that fish stocks become too depleted to recover naturally.

The mesh used in fishing nets has also become smaller, meaning ships are catching smaller and smaller fish.

Since oceans are all connected, overfishing in one place can hurt fisheries around the world.

Line drawing of a fishing boat on a waterway with a net trailing behind it in the water. — image by Gan Khoon Lay from the Noun Project

One global issue with overfishing is bycatch. A lot of fishing methods catch way more than just the fish they are looking for—it’s cheaper and easier to sort out the “wrong species” later.

Bycatch: capturing unwanted sea life when fishing for a different species.

But that means that even if the fish we are eating has abundant populations, other sea life can still be affected by fishing.

Line drawings of common bycatch: sea turtles, dolphins, and sea birds — images by ProSymbols, Tatyana, and Bernd Lakenbrink from the Noun Project

These issues don’t just affect ecosystems, either. Coastal communities can be dependent on fishing for their economies and their food. If we deplete aquatic resources, it impacts marginalized communities more than anyone else.

So, what about farmed fish?

You might be thinking: so, farmed fish must be better, right?

Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. There are different issues that are specific to farmed fish.

First, farmed fish can be managed like CAFOs—in dense populations. Just like in CAFOs, such close quarters can lead to disease and pollution. Then, the water, including pollution, waste, and sometimes antibiotics from the fish farms can seep into the environments around them.

Many people eat fish for the health benefits. But in fish farms, a lot of the nutritional benefits are lost because fish are fed corn and soy.

Lastly, a lot of fish are predators. That means a lot of farmed fish still need to be fed other fish. And where do these feeder fish come from? Wild fish populations! –that brings us right back to the same problems we already saw in wild-caught fish.

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