Rambles about feed fish ( Crosspost from Tumblr)

So according to a post on the EA forum 170 billion to 700 billion fish are farmed and fed to Chinese Perch each year.

For comparison, about 70 billion chickens are killed each year ( majority of farmed tetrapods), 111 billion fish are farmed for human consumption, and 35-150 billion fish are raised to be released to be fished later.

It’s crazy that it’s highly likely a giant portion of the global vertebrates farmed for food is to feed one genus of carnivore that is 0.5% of the fish farm output of 1 country.

Other carnivores like salmon will eat dead stuff, so we kill trillions? of wild fish to feed them ( and omnivores) maybe that's a more fare comparison than other farmed animals, (let me check statistics real quick)

OK so about 1.1-2.2 wild fish are caught and killed for food each year, and about 0.45-1.1 trillion become fish meal/oil (aka livestock feed) , so even compared to wild caught feed fish this is an absolutely huge number

Ok, so I knew that Fish farming was exponentially growing while the amount(weight) of fish caught has been stable for awhile, that plus the whole " fishing smaller/lower trophic level fish" trend thing, I assumed the feed share of caught fish/ total number of fish caught was growing or stable, But apparently not!https://fishcount.org.uk/studydatascreens/2016/fishcount_estimates_analysis.php in 1990-2007, about 0.98-2.75 trillion fish were caught each year, in 2007-2016 , it was 0.79-2.33 trillion fish, a reduction of 200-400 billion fish. ( because we are getting better at feeding farmed fish other stuff) (the decline in weight was much more mild/didn't happen cause we are talking about much smaller than mean fish)

This is almost entirely do to "feed fish" , Peruvian anchoveta, the most exploited vertebrate on the planet, make up most of the decline, 57-77% of the total. the rest is mostly made up by other "feed fish" like other anchovies, sardines, sand eels , capelin etc to. There combined weight fell from 14 million tons in 1999, to just 6 million tons in 2019.

So by my calculations in 1999-2007 "feed fish" were about 13.5 million tons, and in 2007-2016 about 9 million tons. if a decline of 300 billion fewer "feed' fish meant 4.5 million tons, than by 2016 it was likely "only" about 400 billion "feed" fish.

which would mean the number of farmed fish fed to Chinese perch (435 million (probably mostly carp fry)) is likely larger than wild "feed fish" fed to farmed fish globally? that's crazy

so if it's 400 billion in 2016, what is it now? well fluctuations aside it seems to be declining rather linearly, and it's been about another 9 years, so lets say in 2025 it will be about, 100 billion, maybe? less than the number of fish farmed? and basically none by 2030?

Ok , questionable projection aside, look at that decline! hundreds of billions of fewer feed fish! that's real progress, up against the hill of growing farmed fish numbers, with relatively little attention to it! I hope it continues. We really need to spend more advocacy points than we do here, Imagine If we could bury this trade in the ground! ( in particular Salmon are the most farmed fish in Europe, and contribute a large share being carnivores unlike tilapia/carp/catfish, salmon farming is also big in the vegan friendly Pacific northwest, and already in trouble for environmental reasons)

the Chinese perch trade meanwhile.. seems to be growing fast, atleast 1990-2010 https://thefishsite.com/articles/cultured-aquatic-species-mandarin-fish

But ..... while some of this is a shift to plants/byproducts, some of it is to crustaceans and insects.

about 113 billion krill (and growing fast, some also for Omega 3 pills) , 14.6 billion brine shrimp, and a smaller but unclear and possibly likely to grow number of insects https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mr7XkanNbda0rqsI1Tluyl19bYNSvXbR/view

so, still a net improvement!

(while I'm at it I should probably mention the 0.085-2.1 billion rodents killed for reptile food each year, and the 1-10 billion fish used as "bait" in the US ( about 0.2-2.4 trillion globally then ?, but I bet it's higher than average in the US) . )

Before you get too optimistic, other invertebrates used for food eclipse the fish feed numbers.

-3.9 billion cephalopods ( increasing)

- 2.9-7.7 billion land snails(thankfully decreasing) (I bet marine snails like conches/whelks/abalone are higher),

- 440 billion farmed shrimp(increasing) and 25 trillion wild shrimp (mostly Acetes shimp) (increasing?),

- 0.42-1 trillion silk moths. ( increasing?)

-1-1.2 Trillion insects killed for food and feed and growing.

- 1.4-4.8 trillion adult honeybees at any moment, the most heavily farmed species on the planet and still increasing.

so this is a massive major improvement that is happening in Animal Welfare globally, impacting incomprehensible numbers of fish, It's doesn't change my "general pessimism" I'm afraid. The number of farmed animals, whose our impact on well being are clearly stronger than wild animals, is still growing rapidly. and the number of wild animals caught for food is likely increasing with the rise of the Acetes shrimp trade. And the total weight of fish caught has barely nudged, suggesting increasing catches of larger "food fish", and likely no decline of the fishing industry in the medium term even as farmed fish production rises.

Anyway I hope that EA post makes it to some Chinese animal rights advocates that can utilize that info somehow. the chinese perch are such a tiny share of the industry, not something giant like chickens or even tilapia, Imagine the impact a targeted campaign (public advocacy? corporate commitment/bans? ) by people with knowledge on the ground could produce.