A nine-year study by the University of British Columbia has found that 90% of small fish caught in the world’s oceans every year are… ground up as animal feed.
“It defies reason to drain the ocean of small, wild fishes that could be directly consumed by people in order to produce a lesser quantity of farmed fish.” – Pew Institute for Ocean Science Institute
“Although feeds derived from soy and other land-based crops are available and are used, fishmeal and fish oil have skyrocketed in popularity because forage fish are easy to catch in large numbers and, hence, relatively inexpensive.”
According to the study, small forage fish account for 37%, or 31.5 million tonnes, of all fish taken from the world’s oceans each year. Of this amount, 90% is processed into fishmeal and fish oil.
Current figures show 46% of fishmeal and fish oil is used as feed for aquaculture, 24% for pig feed and 22% for poultry.
“Society should demand that we stop wasting these fish on farmed fish, pigs, and poultry.”