Southern Bluefin Tuna - Negative Impacts

Negative Impacts

Sustainability is the key issue here, and with feed conversion ratios (feed to tuna growth) of approximately 10:1 or higher, though this is purely a consequence of the carnivorous diet and high metabolic costs of the species. Removing tuna from the wild before they have spawned is another obvious impact, which hopefully the closed life cycles of SBT at Clean Seas will alleviate some of the pressure on declining stocks. Tuna farms are point sources of solid waste onto to the benthos and dissolved nutrients into the water column. Most farms are more than a kilometre off the coast, thus the deeper water and significant currents alleviate some of the impact on the benthos. Due to the high metabolic rates of SBT, low retention rates of nitrogen in tissue is seen, and there are high environmental leaching of nutrients (86-92%).

Other environmental impacts include the use of chemicals on the farms, which can leach into the surrounding environment. These include antifoulants to keep the cages free from colonial algae and animals, and therapeutants to deal with disease and parasitism. Toxicants, such as mercury and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), can build up over time, particularly through the tuna feed, with some evidence of contaminants being more elevated in farmed fish than in wild stocks.