The World Aquaculture Society meeting, held in Honolulu last month, started out with a bang: Jane Lubchenco, a well-known, eminently respected marine scientist, addressed the 700 delegates, challenging them to understand the “global context” of aquaculture over the last 20 years. Over the next few days, however, in most of the hundred or so panel discussions devoted to the more arcane and technical aspects of the care and feeding of fish and other aquatic animals and plants, the gauntlet Lubchenco tossed down remained in the dust.
Lubchenco, a distinguished professor of zoology at Oregon State University, a former Pew Fellow, past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Ecological Society of America, and holder of other honors and awards too numerous to mention here, reminded her audience that in the last two decades, sustainability of any enterprise involving use of natural resources has become a critical issue. More and more, she said, “ecosystem services” – the value provided by nature to human health, welfare, and economy – have emerged as a significant issue in discussing manmade alterations to the environment, including those wrought by aquaculturists. Those engaged in the business would be well-advised, she suggested, to pay greater heed to the impacts of their operations – impacts that include, among other things, nutrient-loading in coastal waters, alteration or destruction of important habitats that provide valuable ecosystem services, and the continued (albeit diminishing) reliance on fish meal as an important component in the diet of cultured fish.
But her words had hardly stopped echoing in the cavernous ballroom of the Hawai’i Convention Center before a contrary voice was heard: Geoff Allan of Australia, the president of the World Aquaculture Society, rose to aquaculture’s defense. Environmentalism, he said, was the “new religion of Western urban communities.” Although agreeing with Lubchenko that “environmental sustainability is a necessity for aquaculture,” he argued that in the main, aquaculture had embraced this need already.
Thus was the stage set for the next three days. Several sessions, usually lightly attended, tackled forthrightly the problems associated with aquaculture production, including weakening of natural salmon stocks, pollution, invasion of areas by escapees from aquaculture operations, and the like. But by far the most popular sessions were those that addressed one or another of the practical problems involved in the care and feeding of organisms raised in commercial aquaculture operations.
Kahala Keiki
Researchers and practitioners of aquaculture in Hawai’i saw the occasion of the world convention as an opportunity to showcase their achievements. One of the first to do so was Charles Laidley of the Oceanic Institute in Waimanalo. The OI has led the way in efforts to raise open-ocean fish in captivity, with Cates International’s cage aquaculture of moi (Pacific threadfin) off O’ahu’s Barber’s Point being the most conspicuous commercial result to date of this research. In recent years, OI has been working at developing techniques of breeding and raising kahala (longfin amberjacks) in captivity.
In January, Laidley and his colleagues stocked 1,800 captive-reared kahala fingerlings in Cates International’s cages to see how they fare in an aquaculture setting. Cates has three cages in place, with a fourth on the way. Areas within the cages can be segmented off, so the predatory kahala don’t end up eating the 600,000 moi present in the cages at any given time.
So how are the caged kahala faring? “They’re doing great,” Laidley told Environment Hawai’i. And even though it’s possible that the kahala might be able to grow out to full size – up to five feet or more in length – they’ll not get the chance. Optimum market sizes for the fish, Laidley said, are about one kilogram for fillets or two kilos for sashimi. The fingerlings reach the smaller market size within about six months.
With age, Laidley said, “the food conversion ratio goes down,” which means the bigger the fish, the more the production costs per pound.
Ciguatera, the toxin that keeps wild-caught kahala off the market, is not likely to be a problem in the cage-raised fish, he said. The toxin bioaccumulates up the food chain, with high amounts found in the larger predatory fish. The caged fish are fed pelletized feed, manufactured by Moore-Clark to specifications developed by OI for warm-water pelagic fish. This, said Laidley, reduces the opportunity for exposure to ciguatera. Even so, he added, the fish will be tested for the toxin after they’re harvested.
As OI conducts its ocean trials, Neil Sims and Dale Sarver of Kona Blue Water Farms are gearing up for their own cage culture of kahala. The day before the World Aquaculture Society opened, Sims announced, KBWF had received the last permit it needed for launch of its cage farm in about 200 feet of water near Keahole Point. The Kona operation will involve six submersible cages where the kahala will grow to market size. KBWF will raise its own fingerlings at its facility at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai’i at Keahole.
From World Aquaculture Society president Geoff Allan down to the lowliest catfish farmer, many voices at the conference could be heard grousing about subsidies for the “capture” fisheries of the world. Fishing vessel owners often receive low-interest loans for capital purchases, subsidized fuel, and other government benefits targeted to their industry, with some estimates of the subsidies running as high as 20-25 percent of costs. Yet aquaculture has also received generous government support. In the United States, the Department of Commerce has put a high priority on aquaculture, with a policy that calls for development of 600,000 jobs in the sector by 2025, with the value of aquaculture products targeted at $6 billion annually. (At present, about 180,000 people work in the sector, with production valued at $900 million a year.)
Hawai’i is one of four areas targeted by the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for offshore aquaculture development. According to a presentation from a representative of the U.S. Advanced Technology Program, Kona Blue Water Farms received $1.5 million to develop techniques for feeding kahala, mahimahi, opakapapa and other fish in their earliest life stages. Oceanic Institute received some $8.2 million to assist in research on shrimp cultivation, with Kaua’i’s CEATECH operation the largest beneficiary to date. Millions of dollars in federal funds from a variety of other programs went toward development and demonstration of the cage technology being employed in Hawai’i.
Tuna Travails
While Cates and Kona Blue Water Farms have permits in hand, two other prospective cage aquaculture operations are foundering. Harry Ako, a professor at the University of Hawai’i, wants to grow out tunas in pens about two miles off O’ahu’s Wai’anae Coast, but is having difficulty winning over skeptics. His proposal differs from that of Cates and KBWF in that instead of raising fingerlings from broodstock, he wants to use wild juvenile ahi and bigeye tuna, caught by commercial fishermen, as stock for his operation. And instead of raising them in submerged cages, he proposes floating two to three arrays at two sites, with nine open pens in each array. Each of the two sites would cover about 80 acres of open ocean. A similar proposal for a tuna farm off Kawaihae, on the Big Island, has been floated by Ahi Nui Tuna Farming Company.
Sims described the permitting process as a long, methodical slog, in which rational discussion ended up mooting opponents’ concerns. Ako had a different take on it: “The process has nothing to do with science,” he said at the WAS conference. “It is all political.”
The Record in Hawai’i
If aquaculture proposals are given the cold shoulder by Hawai’i communities, part of that may be the fault of the industry itself. Leonard Young, an aquaculture specialist with the state Department of Agriculture, described some of the problems over the last 30 years. In that time, he said, about 33 of the species introduced for cultivation have become “problem species.” Over and above that, he continued, the state is responsible for introduction for food purposes of about 31 aquatic species that have become problematic, and roughly a dozen species for other purposes (such as mosquito control).
Young explained the state process that aquaculturists and others must go through to bring live organisms into the state. Although some growers complain the process is too burdensome, involving an application to the Department of Agriculture, review by two separate committees, and a final approval by the Board of Agriculture, in 2002 some 350 permits were issued. Some were for one-time imports, but most were for unlimited imports of the permitted species over the one-year period in which the permit is valid. By contrast, Young noted, in 1998, fewer than 250 such permits were granted.
Statewide, he said, there are between 70 and 100 land-based aquaculture farms. Even though escapes have been identified as a critical issue, he said, most farms continue to have insufficient containment systems and no plans to address contingencies that might arise in the event of floods, storms, or earthquakes.
Most of the recent proposals for ocean aquaculture in Hawai’i involve animals or plants that are found here naturally, which minimizes the problems associated with their accidental release to the environment. Examples include a pearl oyster farm off the Honolulu reef runway, the moi and kahala cage operations, and an ogo farm off Moloka’i. The oyster farm has been permitted, but full operation is stalled pending revision of the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation rules. Nonetheless, according to Sims, vice president of Black Pearls, Inc. (as well as Kona Blue Water Farms), an experimental pilot project, conducted under a research permit from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, has already yielded pearls.
In the past, the introduction of non-native species has led to areas being overrun with invasives. Hawai’i now has saltwater tilapia in coastal waters, in addition to ta’ape and roi, to say nothing of invasive corals and algae. But problems here pale in comparison with those discussed at the WAS conference. The weakening of strains of native salmon in both the Atlantic and Pacific by interbreeding with escapees from salmon farms was discussed by scientists who had studied the issue in Scandinavia, Ireland, New Brunswick, British Columbia, and Washington State. The cultivation of non-native oysters in Puget Sound was thought to be benign until recently, a century after cultivation began, the oysters began to take over rocky coasts, displacing a native rockweed. While no one is certain what led an unassuming, mild-mannered species of oyster to change its character so quickly, researchers from the University of Washington have speculated it may be the result of local warming of sea temperatures or genetic adaptation of the non-native oyster to local conditions.
Practically speaking, blocking the spread of an organism that has been introduced into a favorable environment is nearly impossible once the organism has been released. One economist proposed requiring bonds be posted by aquaculturists, refundable when an organism is shown to be benign. But the long lag time between introduction and the manifestation of invasiveness can be decades, so such bonds might end up being non-refundable – more like an insurance policy than a bond.
Legal options are likewise limited, once the invasive horse is out of the barn. One of the most innovative lawsuits sparked by an invasive species was launched by environmentalists in an area of southern Puget Sound, where non-native mussels have become widely dispersed in the coastal areas. The environmentalists alleged that the operators of a mussel farm had violated the federal Clean Water Act by failing to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for waste (including seed) from mussel rafts.
The case ultimately ended up before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined that mussel rafts were not a point-source of pollutants and in any event, the discharges did not amount to pollution.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 14, Number 10 April 2004