Billions of tonnes of wild fish used in aquaculture Billions of tonnes of small, oily fish are being taken from the wild every year to feed farmed fish, a […]

Billions of tonnes of small, oily fish are being taken from the wild every year to feed farmed fish, a new report finds.

The scale of practice risks collapsing the marine food webs in which these kind of wild fish play a key role, threatening food security in the process, finds the report, by Compassion in World Farming.

Wild fish such as mackeral, sardines and anchovies are caught and turned into fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture feed – a multibillion pound global industry that lacks transparency and is exacerbating overfishing, the report finds.

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Human consumption

The report finds that about a fifth of the world’s total catch of wildfish is turned into fishmeal and fish oil – about 90 per cent of which is good enough for human consumption. Much of the fishmeal originates in the seas around West Africa and Latin America.

“Urgent action is required to increase the transparency and sustainability in the aquafeed industry supply chain and to wean it completely off its reliance on fish caught in the wild,” said Natasha Hurley, of the Changing markets Foundation, a campaign group which worked on the report with Compassion in World Farming.

The situation in West Africa

As many as 45 fishmeal factories have been built along the West African coast in recent years, from Senegal to Mauritania. Many of these are Chinese-owned, turning pelagic fish – which tend to be more oily – into fishmeal.

Meanwhile, a recent report found that every year 150,000 tonnes of Peruvian anchovy, intended for human consumption, are used for illegal production of fishmeal.