by Robin McKimm and Dr Martin O’Farrell, Fish Management
Systems, UK
A pest control business known to us has an introductory paragraph which reads, ‘most people don’t think about pests, but when they discover that they have a pest problem in their home, they can think about nothing else’.
In the world of aquaculture, a similar concentration of the mind applies to fish harvest methods. Many fish farmers are concerned about the fish harvest methods they deploy. They know that regulators and society in general, as represented by the consumer, are concerned, and they know they must do better! Their fish deserve better.
A pest control business known to us has an introductory paragraph which reads, ‘most people don’t think about pests, but when they discover that they have a pest problem in their home, they can think about nothing else’.
In the world of aquaculture, a similar concentration of the mind applies to fish harvest methods. Many fish farmers are concerned about the fish harvest methods they deploy. They know that regulators and society in general, as represented by the consumer, are concerned, and they know they must do better! Their fish deserve better.
We have attended many aquaculture tradeshows throughout Europe and the USA and, during discussions at our booth, we meet aquaculture managers who tell us how they are currently harvesting fish. They describe batch electrical systems deploying AC electric fields where several minutes of operation are required to ensure that every fish in the batch is dead. They know they need to improve on harvest practice because their harvested fish have a high percentage of bloodspots.
They also know that regulatory authorities and the consumer will not continue to ignore harvest practices which fail to meet humane standards. They also understand that poor handling/harvest practices during the last minutes of fish life are compromising their good husbandry practices from egg to harvest time. And they inform us about their experiences e.g. operators of percussion stunners complain that up to 30 percent of the fish are not correctly stunned before bleeding/operators of dry-electrical stunners state that up to 7 percent of the fillets have bloodspots.
In the world of wild fish management in freshwater environments, the generation of electric fields in water has long been a useful tool in the non-destructive capture of fish for scientific study or selective removal from water bodies (electrofishing equipment) and also in the blocking/guiding of upstream/downstream migrating fish and the exclusion of invasive fish species (electric fish barriers).
Read more HERE.
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