I think one thing Brian might not have been aware of at the time is that many wild fishes are caught to feed farmed fishes, so fish farming might be good for reducing wild fish populations.
For whatever it’s worth, I was aware of that at the time. :) I’m uncertain about the net impact of fish farming, but like for most other farmed animals, I err on the side of thinking it’s bad in expected value because it’s bad for the farmed animals directly, and I’m fairly clueless about the indirect effects. For example, maybe reducing populations of small forage fish increases zooplankton populations. Or if the small forage fish are fished sustainably, then maybe fishing them just kills a bunch of them painfully without affecting their populations too much.
With things like crop cultivation, I’m also fairly uncertain. Some crop fields in the US Midwest have higher net primary productivity than native grassland, and in places like California, where there’s a lot of irrigation, it seems pretty plausible that crop cultivation increases invertebrate populations.
That said, I tend to agree with Michael’s thought that the indirect wild-animal impacts of diet may be more significant than many of the kinds of interventions that WAI could pull off because WAI-type interventions may not be focused on reducing numbers of wild animals, and without reducing numbers of wild animals, it’s difficult for me to know if suffering is actually being reduced in light of cluelessness.
Oh ya, you would probably have been aware of fishes caught for feed, but a recent estimate for their numbers is surprisingly huge (to me), to the extent that fish farming’s welfare effects could pretty plausibly be dominated by the effects on wild fishes (and other wild aquatic animals). From the Aquatic Life Institute:
● Approximately 1.2 trillion aquatic animals are fed to other aquatic animals each year. This is approximately one-third to one-half of all animals fished.
● In order to produce the billions of fish that end up on the human plate, trillions of fish are processed, or fed live, as fish feed.
● Many of the fish we feed Salmon have similar welfare needs, thus creating a ‘welfare pyramid’ effect, as each farmed salmon must eat the biomass equivalent to 9 herring, or 120 anchovies, to be brought to harvest weight.
I think ALI is going ahead with recommending the replacement of fish feed, but this seems plausibly a bad thing to do (and more so the more weight you give to fishes than invertebrates), although I’m not sure either way.
That said, I tend to agree with Michael’s thought that the indirect wild-animal impacts of diet may be more significant than many of the kinds of interventions that WAI could pull off because WAI-type interventions may not be focused on reducing numbers of wild animals, and without reducing numbers of wild animals, it’s difficult for me to know if suffering is actually being reduced in light of cluelessness.
I do think WAI could come up with interventions that we could agree net reduce expected suffering while keeping populations roughly constant by reducing causes of suffering or death, paired with (more) humane population control (wildlife contraceptives, sterilization, or CRISPR to manage fertility rates, or more humane methods to cull or euthanize animals). However, these seem much harder to implement and scale to me, due to the costs, complexity and public disinterest or opposition. Humane insecticides in particular seem promising, though.
Great discussion. :)
For whatever it’s worth, I was aware of that at the time. :) I’m uncertain about the net impact of fish farming, but like for most other farmed animals, I err on the side of thinking it’s bad in expected value because it’s bad for the farmed animals directly, and I’m fairly clueless about the indirect effects. For example, maybe reducing populations of small forage fish increases zooplankton populations. Or if the small forage fish are fished sustainably, then maybe fishing them just kills a bunch of them painfully without affecting their populations too much.
With things like crop cultivation, I’m also fairly uncertain. Some crop fields in the US Midwest have higher net primary productivity than native grassland, and in places like California, where there’s a lot of irrigation, it seems pretty plausible that crop cultivation increases invertebrate populations.
That said, I tend to agree with Michael’s thought that the indirect wild-animal impacts of diet may be more significant than many of the kinds of interventions that WAI could pull off because WAI-type interventions may not be focused on reducing numbers of wild animals, and without reducing numbers of wild animals, it’s difficult for me to know if suffering is actually being reduced in light of cluelessness.
Oh ya, you would probably have been aware of fishes caught for feed, but a recent estimate for their numbers is surprisingly huge (to me), to the extent that fish farming’s welfare effects could pretty plausibly be dominated by the effects on wild fishes (and other wild aquatic animals). From the Aquatic Life Institute:
I think ALI is going ahead with recommending the replacement of fish feed, but this seems plausibly a bad thing to do (and more so the more weight you give to fishes than invertebrates), although I’m not sure either way.
I do think WAI could come up with interventions that we could agree net reduce expected suffering while keeping populations roughly constant by reducing causes of suffering or death, paired with (more) humane population control (wildlife contraceptives, sterilization, or CRISPR to manage fertility rates, or more humane methods to cull or euthanize animals). However, these seem much harder to implement and scale to me, due to the costs, complexity and public disinterest or opposition. Humane insecticides in particular seem promising, though.