Using fish as livestock feed threatens global fisheries

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com, November 18, 2009 Fish doesn’t just feed humans. Millions of tons of fish are fed every year to chickens, pigs, and even farmed fish even in the midst of rising concerns over fish stocks collapses around the world. Finding an alternative to fish as livestock feed would go a long way toward preventing the collapse of fish populations worldwide according to a new paper in Oryx. “Thirty million tons – or 36 per cent – of the world’s total fisheries catch each year is currently ground up into fishmeal and oil to feed farmed fish, chickens and pigs,” world-renowned fishery researcher and co-author, Daniel Pauly, told the University of British Colombia (UBC). The majority is fed to farmed fish: in 2002 it was estimated that 46 percent of the fishmeal and oil was used to feed aquaculture. Poultry and pigs each received over 20 percent of the fishmeal and oil. The fishmeal and oil fed to livestock is usually taken from fish low on the food chain, described as ‘forage fish’, such as anchovies. The practice is not only impacting fish populations, but local food security. “Twenty-five per cent of infants in Peru—which produces half of the world’s fishmeal using anchovies—are malnourished,” says Pauly. …