The British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association, NOAA and private companies have made notable strides in funding, promoting and researching the replacement of wild forage fish in aquaculture feed. Initially driven by the rising cost of fishmeal and fish oil, the reduction in the percentage of wild forage fish contained in aquaculture feed has been significant. However, this reduction cannot be assumed to remove the great pressure on forage fish species.
The exploited Peruvian anchoveta is still used by aquaculture feed manufacturers which are certified as having Aquaculture Best Practices. Fish-In Fish-Out ratios of the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association can also mislead us. They refer to the lowest possible ratio of wild fish and wild fish replacements among several feeds used during the lifecycle of an Atlantic salmon.
Although aquaculture feed companies have reduced the percentage of wild fish used in their products, the total amount of wild fish used may remain unchanged or increase in relation to the number of salmon raised and the accompanying amount of feed required to grow them.
(Bostok 2010)
Farmed Atlantic salmon are still Red-Listed by the Monteray Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, partly due to the concerns over just how much feed is used and where it comes from. Salmon farmers use approximately 400,000 fewer metric tonnes of wild fish in their feed than they did ten years ago. Unfortunately, the management of most forage fish species like the anchoveta means that these don’t simply remain in the ocean. This, with rising demand for farmed salmon makes it likely that pressure on our wild forage fish species will likely increase in the years to come.