The unsustainable practice of killing fish for human consumption not only harms them but countless other marine animals die as “unintended” bycatch in reckless fishing operations or lose their lives to the fishing industry’s widespread ocean pollution and habitat destruction, which is damaging our ocean beyond recovery—all for the pursuit of maximum profit.

Fish are unique animals with complex inner lives. They communicate with one another, recognize human faces, and even feel excitement when they see other fish. Like land animals, fish can feel pain. However, our broken global food system kills billions (maybe even trillions) of these sentient individuals for human consumption every year.

While humans have caught and eaten fish for the past 40,000 years—with anglers taking to the water and waiting hours to reel in the perfect catch—global demand for seafood products has turned fishing into a multibillion-dollar industry.

Industrial fishing operations breed fish for human consumption and keep them in crowded tanks or pens. This kind of factory fish farming dominates today’s seafood market, raising many ethical and environmental concerns.

The fishing industry generally overlooks the welfare of fish entirely in its pursuit of profits. It doesn’t even measure fish as individuals—only referring to fish in “tons.”

Aquaculture refers to farming fish and other marine species in barren, overcrowded tanks or pens—a far cry from the natural freedom of the sea. Aquaculture is highly industrialized and involves subjecting fish to the same intensive confinement as land-based factory farms. Aquatic farms cram as many individual fish as possible into small tanks or nets, leading to the fish barely being able to move. The overcrowding and filth make the water a breeding ground for parasites and pathogens. One particular parasite, sea lice, spreads rapidly and feasts on the flesh and blood of fish, causing painful lesions.

While fish farms and wild-capture fishing operations may seem far removed from the factory farms on land, these profit-driven industries share a close connection. The fishing industry turns 20 million tons of fish into fishmeal—ground-up fish bones and flesh commonly used for animal feed—each year, according to a 2017 NPR article. These “protein pellets” provide factory farmers with a cheap way to feed chickens and pigs before they are slaughtered. And, in a grotesque and cruel cycle, 70 percent of fishmeal goes back into aquaculture.

According to a 2019 Greenpeace report, the rampant growth of the fishmeal and fish oil industry in West Africa has threatened food security and people’s livelihoods.

Fish farms raised and killed up to 171 billion as of 2023, generating more than $271 billion in profits globally in 2018. The industry’s profits are expected to grow by at least $100 billion more by 2025. Fish farming derives all this profit from the pain and suffering of sentient beings treated as mere raw materials.

“Be it recreational angling, large-scale fisheries, ornamental fish—any way that we use fish, we need to consider treating them better, as if they experience pain,” Lynn Sneddon, director of Bioveterinary Science at Liverpool University, told Science Focus, stated a January 2024 Sentient Media article.

The global seafood market was valued at more than $65 billion in 2019, and the industry’s profits are expected to grow even larger, reaching an estimated 103 billion by 2027.

Meanwhile, the U.S. commercial fishing activities generated $154.7 in 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Around half of the 8.34 billion pounds of fish caught in 2022 in the U.S. came from Alaska alone. As of 2020, the U.S. was the world’s eighth-largest seafood exporter.

Shrimp is the most popular seafood in the U.S. Wild fishing and shrimp farming pose devastating ecological consequences, turning large pockets of the ocean into barren wasteland.

Commercial fishing harms countless marine species and habitats. Although humans cannot see the extent of the fishing industry’s destruction, the entire planet will feel its effects as vital ocean ecosystems disappear. Some of the practices........

© Eurasia Review