Catch sizes now regularly exceed sustainable levels and the demand is increasing.  As a result, we have now started farming fish (aquaculture) and this has become the world’s most rapidly expanding area of animal production.  The United Nations say that all seventeen of the world’s major fishing areas have reached or exceeded their natural limits, and nine are in serious decline.

Farmed fish are fed meal made from wild fish.  More than 3 tonnes of wild-caught fish are needed to produce 1 tonne of farmed salmon.   This means that a large part of the overfishing problem is just to feed farmed fish – in order to meet our demand for eating even more fish!

If the demand of eating fish is reduced, we might be able to start tackling this problem.  If you choose not to eat fish, that’s one less person demanding more fish …

Fish are dragged from the deep in their millions to suffocate slowly in the air or be crushed to death by the weight of their dying companions.  Decompression causes their eyes to pop out and their swim bladders to rupture. Those that survive get gutted alive. In addition to this, many unknown species of fish and plants are destroyed in the trawling process, plants and animals who have a long lifespan and take long to grow, in some cases over a hundred years.  See the Marine Bio trawling video on YouTube.

Fish are sensitive to stimuli (more than we are) and have a highly developed sense of touch – they feel pain.  It’s pain that motivates a fish to fight vigorously when hooked, in an attempt to get away.

(Parts of this text have been quoted from some of The Vegan Society’s booklets.)