Genetically tracking farmed fish escaping into the wild
Wednesday, August 20, 2014 - 06:30
in Biology & Nature
European sea product consumption is on the rise. With overfishing being a threat to the natural balance of the ocean, the alternative is to turn to aquaculture, the industrial production of fish and seafood. But this raises issues of sustainability and ecological impact. For example, it requires dealing with cultivated fish escaping into the wild and finding methods for tracing them. Not to mention, preventing them mixing with natural and fragile species. Now, an EU-funded project, called Aquatrace, due to be completed in 2017, aims to set up genetic-based tools to quickly and accurately identify farmed fish.