We’ve written a lot about the pending menhaden decision by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), and after their annual meeting in Newport, RI next week from November 9 to 12, I imagine we’ll have more to share.
A friend sent an interesting article written by Ian Urbina that was part of a larger investigation conducted by an international team of journalists through the Outlaw Ocean Project. The report revealed that through overfishing, pollution and labor abuses in fish farming and ‘fishmeal’ production, aquaculture as a sustainable answer to feeding the planet may actually ignore the bigger picture.
“More than half the seafood eaten worldwide is farm-raised, but much of it fed ‘fishmeal,’ a product made from wild-caught fish,” wrote Urbina, explaining how this investigation found that “fish farming is often worsening the very problem it hoped to solve and harming the people it was meant to help.” Essentially, the investigation detailed how the most popular types of farmed seafood, including salmon, are fed “fishmeal,” a protein-rich powder or pellet made from the very kinds of wild fish that aquaculture is supposed to be saving.
“The business of fishmeal — often out of public view — can involve using forced labor, poisoning communities, and eradicating the livelihoods of local fishermen,” the investigation revealed, explaining how fishmeal production has led to “chronic chemical exposure, violent protests — typically spurred by the stench from fishmeal factories — and escalating transnational tensions as countries compete for catch.”
The Outlaw Ocean Project mapped roughly the entire global fishmeal industry, including more than 1,400 fishmeal factories across 64 countries, through the work of dozens of journalists from over 15 countries who visited factories and farms and boarded fishmeal ships at sea. For those curious about bunker being processed into fishmeal to feed salmon in Canadian fish-farms, the story doesn’t reference menhaden specifically. However, the report did explain how most of the vessels in the investigation are purse seiners – like those used in the menhaden reduction fishery – which deploy vast nets to capture dense schools of fish, “Both gear types are associated with high levels of waste, routinely hauling in large volumes of non-target species.”
According to Urbina, five of the world’s largest salmon companies increased their use of fishmeal and fish oil made from whole wild fish by as much as 39% between 2020 and 2024. In a separate piece appearing on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) website, he pointed out how Canada has more than 200 fish farms, most relying on fishmeal or fish oil that, when made domestically, comes primarily from Pacific anchovies, chub mackerel, herring, haddock, pollock, sardines, and frigate tuna.
“Canada prohibits boats targeting fish for the sole purpose of making fishmeal or fish oil, so domestic fish meal is typically made using skin, bones and other byproducts of processing that would otherwise be thrown away,” Urbina noted in the CBC report, adding how that’s widely viewed as a more sustainable way to produce feed protein than using whole human-edible fish.
Urbina goes on to point out to Canadian readers how, quote, “whether domestically raised or imported, the most popular types of farmed seafood consumed in Canada – salmon, shrimp, trout, sea bass, sea bream – are fed fishmeal, which is made from the very kinds of wild fish that aquaculture claims to be saving, thereby accelerating ocean depletion.”
If the CBC report is true – that Canada prohibits targeting of fish exclusively for making fishmeal to feed farm-raised salmon – then perhaps the United States should follow suit. Over 25 years ago New Jersey led the way coastwide in banning the menhaden reduction fishery from operating inside 3 miles; it’s time for the same to be done in federal waters, outside the 3-mile-line.
Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to see the ASMFC make that opening salvo next week? An American can dream, eh.
