Monday, May 16, 2011

The success of tilapia may pose threats to health and ecology

A common Bible story says Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, which scholars surmise were tilapia. But at the Aquafinca fish farm here, a modern miracle takes place daily: Tens of thousands of beefy, flapping tilapia are hauled out of teeming cages on Lake Yojoa, converted to fillets in a cold slaughterhouse and rushed onto planes bound for the United States, where some will appear on plates within 12 hours.

Americans ate 215 million kilograms of tilapia last year, four times the amount a decade ago, making this once obscure African native the most popular farmed fish in the United States. Although wild fish predominate in most species, a vast majority of the tilapia consumed is "harvested" from pens or cages in Latin America and Asia. Read more ...

This blog is written by Martin Little, The Aquaculturists, published and supported by the International Aquafeed Magazine from Perendale Publishers

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