Sci-fi Fish Scaring the Hell Out Of Us
If you subsisted on a diet entirely of fish, which would kill you first: mad-cow fish or super tuna? Two stories this week make you wonder. First, Reuters reports on the risk of mad cow disease from farmed fish. Scientists are concerned that the fish, who, curiously enough, dine on pieces of cow, may transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease to humans.
I'll repeat that: Fish dine on pieces of cow.
On the bright side, the risk is very remote and may have more to do with scientists getting their names in the paper than any observable threat.
The second story discusses Japanese scientists' plan to breed a super-tuna that is stronger, better-tasting, and more disease-resistant than the humdrum bluefin currently in oceans. Bluefin are endangered, which adds a sense of urgency and beneficence. The super tuna would be raised in farms, where they will eat cow bits but presumably not die as easily. (Actually, I don't know that these particular tuna will eat cows; it could as well be sheep or goats or other farm animals, who knows.)
The underlying presumptions in the tuna article are:
1. Bluefin is hugely profitable
2. Extinction is a problem because bluefin is so profitable
3. Disease in fish farms is a problem because it kills profitable fish
And so the fact that bluefin carry a high mercury load — and that farmed fish tend to be even more toxic to humans — is not worth mentioning.
Not that we need scientists to church out super-fish anyway: the sea is churning them out on its own! Good thing they aren't smart enough to avoid the hook.
Risk of mad cow disease from farmed fish? [Reuters] (Thanks, Cory Johns!)
Japanese Scientist to Breed Super-Tuna [Telegraph, UK] (Thanks, HiPwr!)
(Photo: river seal)
Carrie McLaren & Jason Torchinsky are coeditors of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. In previous lives, they worked together on the hopelessly obscure and now defunct Stay Free! magazine .
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Comments:
I'll repeat that: Fish dine on pieces of cow.
The fish in the picture looks like he'll eat whatever he damn well pleases.
Can we put a credit card in that fish's mouth and take another picture at an angle better suited to capture its fish-cleavage?
That picture explains why WC Fields used to say "I never drink water because fish f*ck in it."
It seems like it would make more sense to repopulate the oceans with fish than to farm them since farming causes problems with toxicity.
Getting anyone to do this would be quite something else.
Frankenstein food soybeans anyone?
@bohemian: Public aquariums have scientific programs that do just that. Tuna raised for release account for more than half of the tuna currently in the wild. (They have a really hard time surviving when they're young)
That fish looks like a wolf eel - but something isn't quite right about it. I see wolf eels all the time - but that one is a bit "off"
Beef. It's whats for dinner.
@Jason Goodmanson: it's the teeth. They're usually in better condition, from what I've seen. These all look fairly broken off.
@Jason Goodmanson: While pulling an abalone off a rock, I looked up and there was a wolf eel less than a foot from my face. Scared the crap out of me.
There are bigger problems with some of the farmed salmon coming out of Chile than the cows they use. Mostly poor breeding practices and the fish are too close together so they have to use exotic (see illegal in the US) antibiotics which are not safe for human consumption.
But are they leaving the Horse fed Horse alone??? I love that double horsed in goodness. But I like the Horse Pepsi.
@xredgambit: Then you get beef-fed fish. If you want chicken you get beef flavored chicken: [consumerist.com]
I'm waiting for a story about someone finding the spinal cord from a salmon in their pork chop (and then everyone going ape-shit in the comments because that's normal).
@TechnoDestructo: The same gets done with grains (corn) that's not meant for human consumption -- it gets fed to cows that humans eat. Never mind that cows aren't designed to eat corn. They also feed cows to cows. They used to include parts from downer cows in this as well but I believe they've stopped this part of it.
I am writing to express my concern about a recent paper which appeared with a press release 15-June-2009 titled “Farmed fish may pose risk for mad cow disease.” According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, this article is sorely dated and fails to recognize that Canada introduced new feed controls in 2007 that ban the use of specified risk materials (SRM) in all animal feed. SRM are the parts of cattle where BSE can be found. For more information, please refer to the following: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/heasan/disemala/bseesb/enhren/publie.shtml http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/feebet/rumin/enhqueste.shtml http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/newcom/2007/20070712e.shtml Our salmon farm feed companies do not use any SRM products in their feeds. As well, the idea the BSE could be transmitted by fish is acknowledged by the authors as highly speculative. There is absolutely no evidence presented that this could occur, only wild speculation that if a lot of highly speculative criteria were met, it might be possible. In Canada this is not the case. Again, we DO NOT use any SRM materials in our feed. Mary Ellen Walling BC Salmon Farmers Association
Okay, okay, so we can't feed the downer cows to people...we'll just feed them to fish that we feed to people. Whew! Problem solved, and it hardly cost us anything!