As seafood consumption expands worldwide, aquaculture (also known as aquaculture) is developing rapidly to meet consumer demand. Indeed, according to the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA), catches of fish species caught directly from the ocean (such as tuna, cod, and pollock) have plateaued at about 80 million tonnes since the early 1990s, while aquaculture is accelerating. 2024 Report The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recently announced this.
Increasing demand for farmed products is putting ever-greater pressure on small wild fish that are caught as food for certain farmed species. These small wild species, such as Peruvian anchovies, Atlantic herring and West African sardines, collectively known as forage fish, are essential to healthy and diverse marine environments because they serve as food for a wide range of marine predators, including seabirds, whales and seals.
Feed production puts pressure on wild-caught fish
Prey fish
As the SOFIA report points out, fisheries play a key role in supplying aquaculture, using around one-fifth of catches to produce ingredients such as fishmeal and fish oil for aquaculture farms. For example, five of the 10 species with the highest catches in 2022 are feed species that are also used, at least in part, in aquaculture.
This is primarily because the production of “fed” fish species such as salmon, sea bream, and shrimp accounts for a much larger (and growing) share of the aquaculture market than species such as mussels that do not require feed. Although alternative feed products have been developed and farmers say they have become more efficient at using wild fish, the demand for wild fish is still likely to increase as the production of fed species increases. This is similar to someone who buys a new car that is 20% more fuel efficient than their old car, then drives twice as many miles per year as before. Despite the increased efficiency, overall fuel consumption has increased.
As the demand for feed fish in aquaculture increases, so too do calls for more careful management of these fisheries. These small fish are highly abundant, but populations can fluctuate widely in response to environmental changes. The health of sensitive predators is closely linked to the availability of prey fish. Seabirds, for example, can experience significant declines in reproductive success if prey fish populations decline significantly even in a short period of time.
One proven approach to better manage forage fish is ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), which helps ensure that targeted catches do not threaten ecosystem functioning.
EBFM asks decision makers to leave enough fish in the water for predators, to measure success by ecosystem health rather than the number of one fish, and to reform fisheries policies to meet these new objectives. And there are already concrete steps managers can take to adopt and implement EBFM.
Beyond the parameters of EBFM, managers need to set fisheries policy goals based on how the catch will ultimately be used – for example, giving greater consideration to how fishmeal production and trade affects the availability of food for direct human consumption.
Government improves forage fish management, but more needs to be done
Political momentum has begun to shift towards EBFM in recent years: Following the adoption of state-level protections for the bait fish Atlantic menhaden in 2020, the US introduced federal bait fish protection legislation in 2021. Similarly, Canada will introduce revised catch limits for another bait fish, capelin, in 2023, aiming to keep enough of this species in the water to sustain populations of its main predator, cod.
This year, the UK also took important steps, imposing total restrictions on catches of sardines, an important forage fish in the Northeast Atlantic, and working with the European Union to request scientific advice on the ecological role of several North Sea forage fishes. And in West Africa, management plans are emerging for small pelagic species, including sardines, a forage fish central to local food security. Mauritania will introduce a plan in 2022, and neighbouring Senegal and Gambia have pledged to follow suit soon.
Internationally, regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) are stepping up protections for forage fish. The Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission, which manages the forage fishes whiting and herring, agreed this year to develop ecological targets that could influence management of those stocks, and the North Pacific Fisheries Commission is laying the groundwork to adopt science-based, precautionary management of Pacific saury, to be implemented by 2027. Other RFMOs and countries should follow these examples and take ambitious new measures for the forage fish they manage.
Many of the world’s largest fisheries supply feed to the aquaculture market, so fisheries managers and actors in the aquaculture supply chain must ensure that the use of feed fish does not impact ecosystem protection. For aquaculture to meet the growing demand for seafood without negatively impacting wild fish populations and all the species that depend on them around the world, fish feed must be sourced from feed fish managed under EBFM regimes.
Jean-Christophe Vandevelde is manager and Daniel Steadman is director of the International Fisheries Project at the Pew Research Center.
