Aquaculture Ecology (SUSTAINABLE OCEAN FOODS) with Ben Halpern

Summary

Podcast Summary: Aquaculture Ecology (SUSTAINABLE OCEAN FOODS) with Ben Halpern

Podcast Information:

• Title: Ologies with Alie Ward
• Host: Alie Ward
• Episode: Aquaculture Ecology (SUSTAINABLE OCEAN FOODS) with Ben Halpern
• Release Date: June 18, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of "Ologies," Alie Ward delves into the intricate world of aquaculture with marine biologist Dr. Ben Halpern. The conversation explores the complexities of farming seafood, its environmental impacts, and its role in sustainable food systems.

2. Ben Halpern's Background

[05:06] Ben Halpern: "I am a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the director of an environmental science research center called the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis."

Dr. Halpern shares his journey from budding marine enthusiast in Oregon to a leading figure in marine ecology, emphasizing his initial skepticism towards aquaculture and how his perspective evolved over time.

3. Understanding Aquaculture

[09:01] A.L.I.E. Ward: "I totally accidentally stumbled into aquaculture. I did not seek it out as a research direction."

Dr. Halpern defines aquaculture as the farming of aquatic organisms in water environments, encompassing both marine and freshwater systems. He highlights the vast diversity within aquaculture, noting that unlike land agriculture's limited dominant crops, aquaculture involves hundreds of species ranging from seaweeds to finfish.

4. Environmental Impacts of Aquaculture

a. Shrimp Farming and Mangrove Destruction

[11:01] A.L.I.E. Ward: "Why did it get such a bad rap?"

[12:36] Ben Halpern: "Something like 30% of the world's mangroves were cut down by shrimp farms back in the 80s and 90s."

Dr. Halpern explains how early shrimp farming practices led to significant mangrove deforestation, particularly in regions like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. He acknowledges ongoing restoration efforts but notes the long-term ecological damage caused.

b. Salmon Farming Pollution

[12:58] A.L.I.E. Ward: "But even the best restoration efforts mean potential decades of that lush ecosystem trying to fully recover."

[13:06] Ben Halpern: "Salmon farms, in the early days, they had a lot of pollution... they would get this burst of algae... create a dead zone under the farms."

Early salmon farming resulted in pollution and dead zones due to poor management practices. Additionally, reliance on wild-caught fish for feed further strained marine ecosystems.

5. Sustainable Aquaculture Practices

a. Shellfish and Seaweed Farming

[17:35] A.L.I.E. Ward: "Or am I making up the drama?"

[17:37] Ben Halpern: "Shellfish... they create habitat. They also filter the water as they eat."

Dr. Halpern emphasizes that farming shellfish like oysters, mussels, and clams, as well as seaweeds, can be environmentally beneficial. These organisms naturally filter water, remove excess nutrients, and provide habitats for other marine life.

b. Benefits to the Environment

[18:18] A.L.I.E. Ward: "It's like miracle grow, but for kelp, right?"

[19:00] Ben Halpern: "If you want some guilt-free food to eat... farmed shellfish."

Seaweed and shellfish farming not only provide sustainable food sources but also aid in pollution remediation by absorbing excess nitrogen and sequestering carbon.

6. Challenges in Aquaculture

a. Disease and Antibiotic Use in Shrimp Farming

[21:07] A.L.I.E. Ward: "Is this still an issue?"

[21:11] Ben Halpern: "There's a lot of problems with shrimp... disease outbreaks... use a lot of antibiotics."

High-density shrimp farming often leads to disease outbreaks, necessitating the use of antibiotics, which can pollute surrounding waters and contribute to antibiotic resistance.

b. Labor Issues in Shrimp Farms

[21:35] A.L.I.E. Ward: "Is this a viable strategy?"

[21:44] Ben Halpern: "Because most shrimp are grown in countries that aren't quite as wealthy... there's incentive to find ways to do it more cost-effectively."

Labor practices in shrimp farming, particularly in less affluent regions, can be problematic, with concerns about worker welfare and exploitative conditions.

7. Innovations in Aquaculture

a. Feed Conversion Efficiency

[28:42] Ben Halpern: "The conversion ratio for salmon is about one to one."

Advancements have significantly improved feed efficiency in aquaculture. For example, salmon farming has reduced its feed conversion ratio from five pounds of wild fish to one pound of farmed salmon, surpassing even land-based livestock like cows.

b. Alternative Feed Sources

[30:58] Ben Halpern: "They're developing new kinds of feedback... using bacteria or wood pulp that they can ferment."

Innovations in feed are transitioning from fish-based to plant-based or lab-grown alternatives, reducing reliance on wild fish stocks and minimizing environmental impact.

8. Nutritional Comparison: Farmed vs Wild-Caught Fish

[68:58] Ben Halpern: "Seafood is a really good food, full stop."

Dr. Halpern affirms that both farmed and wild-caught seafood are nutritionally superior to many land-based proteins, offering essential micronutrients and omega fatty acids. However, he notes slight differences in fat content and color due to diet, which can influence consumer preferences and cooking outcomes.

9. Certification and Sustainable Labels

[65:44] Ben Halpern: "Monterey Seafood Watch... they're a great place to start."

Certification organizations like Monterey Seafood Watch provide guidelines and ratings (red, yellow, green) to help consumers make informed choices about sustainable seafood. While not flawless, these certifications serve as valuable tools in navigating seafood sustainability.

10. Historical and Indigenous Aquaculture Practices

[59:51] Ben Halpern: "Shortly after the Polynesians arrived in Hawaii... they started creating fish ponds."

Dr. Halpern highlights the rich history of aquaculture among indigenous cultures, such as the Polynesians' fish pond systems in Hawaii and clam gardens in British Columbia and southern Alaska. These traditional practices demonstrate sustainable and integrated approaches to aquaculture.

11. Audience Questions and Discussion

a. Farmed Salmon Color and Feed

[50:20] Ben Halpern: "Without astaxanthin, the flesh of your farmed salmon would fall somewhere between gray and beige."

Farmed salmon often have their flesh color enhanced using natural pigments like astaxanthin or ground crustacean shells, as their farm diets lack the natural pigments found in wild diets.

b. Land-based vs Sea-based Aquaculture

[53:04] Ben Halpern: "Land-based systems are very energy-intensive... generally better in the ocean."

While land-based aquaculture offers controlled environments, it is more energy-intensive compared to sea-based farming. Dr. Halpern suggests that sustainable sea-based aquaculture typically has a lower environmental footprint.

c. Animal Welfare

[55:29] A.L.I.E. Ward: "Many aquatic species live far more complex social and emotional lives than previously understood."

Aquaculture practices strive to maintain appropriate stocking densities to ensure fish welfare. While challenges remain, especially with species exhibiting complex behaviors, farmed fish generally experience better conditions than many land-based livestock.

d. Backyard Aquaculture

[77:02] Ben Halpern: "Backyard aquaculture is encouraged in developing countries... you can make a pond in your backyard and stock it with tilapia."

Home-based aquaculture is feasible, particularly with hardy freshwater species like tilapia and catfish. These systems can provide nutritious food and integrate with other household farming practices.

e. Nutritional Value

[68:58] Ben Halpern: "Seafood is an amazing food, whether it's farmed or wild caught."

Both farmed and wild-caught fish offer substantial nutritional benefits, including essential fatty acids and micronutrients that support human health.

f. Carbon Footprint

[71:14] Ben Halpern: "The emissions from transporting food are a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions that come from food production."

While transporting farmed fish from regions like Norway and Scotland does contribute to the carbon footprint, the primary environmental benefits of aquaculture outweigh these emissions, especially when compared to land-based livestock.

12. Future of Aquaculture and Climate Change

[82:34] Ben Halpern: "Aquaculture is not a way to really mitigate climate change because it's just not sequestering enough carbon."

While aquaculture alone won't solve climate change, it plays a crucial role in creating sustainable food systems that reduce reliance on high-emission livestock. Additionally, integrating aquaculture with conservation strategies can enhance ocean health resilience to climate impacts.

13. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Dr. Ben Halpern passionately advocates for a re-evaluation of aquaculture practices. He underscores the potential of sustainable aquaculture to provide nutritious food, support environmental conservation, and enhance food security. Alie Ward concludes by encouraging listeners to educate themselves and make informed dietary choices that support both personal health and planetary well-being.

Notable Quotes:

• Ben Halpern [05:28]: "It's easy to say, but I'm open to someone giving a lot of money, and I'll change the name."
• Alie Ward [83:46]: "Rethink aquaculture. Just pause and take some time to learn a little bit more about it."
• Ben Halpern [85:36]: "I'm happy to stand on my soapbox with my bullhorn."

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Resources and Links:

• Ben Halpern's Research: National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
• Monterey Seafood Watch: Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch
• Ologies Playlists: Alie Ward's Show Notes

Merchandise:

• Visit ologiesmerch.com for exclusive merchandise.

Support the Show:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/ologies to submit questions and support future episodes.

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This comprehensive overview captures the essence of the episode, providing listeners with a deep understanding of aquaculture's role in sustainable food systems, its challenges, innovations, and the pathways toward more environmentally friendly practices.

Transcript

[Ben Halpern]

For 140 years, MultiCare has been in Washington prioritizing long term solutions, partnering with local communities and expanding access to care. Together, we're building a healthier future.

[Tanks]

Learn more@ multicare.org what's up podcast Listeners? It's Tanks, host of the It's Me Tanks podcast. Join me weekly on It's Me Tanks as I dive into topics like relationships, why it's okay to feel lonely, fighting summer comparison, and pop culture's hottest takes. I don't shy away from getting candid about my personal experiences and I want to share all the advice I have learned with you. I'm even joined by some of my friends like Claudia Ashre, Connor Wood and Amanda Hirsch each Friday for our new Office Hours episodes. You can listen to It's Me Tanks every Monday, Wednesday and Friday wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss an episode.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh hey, it's the waitress who forgot your margarita. I hi, I'm A.L.I.E. ward and you are here to learn about farming stuff in the ocean or your home or lake or whatever. Last week we got to the bottom of how kelp sticks to the seafloor and what seaweed is and how it's not plants but you can eat it. And this week, as promised, we are diving into aquaculture, which is apparently very heated topic. So I'm talking to a wonderful marine biologist I was lucky enough to meet and spend time with. Two years back I was on Catalina island at USC's Wrigley Institute for Environment and and Sustainability. There's a story maker symposium they do where I was left on an island with a bunch of climate scientists via Liz Neely and Ed Yong to give this talk on scicom to some people who are just trying to save planet Earth. It was a good time. They were all cool as hell. And I've interviewed several for this show, including this one who studied biology at Carleton College and then went on to get a PhD in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at UC Santa Barbara. They are the lead scientist for the Ocean Health Index Project. They co founded the Conservation Aquaculture Research Team. They're a professor at UC Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and the director of the UCSB national center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. Now on the island. Two years ago we chatted next to a boat on a dock and I said I'm coming to your house to talk to you about farmed fish one day. Deal with it. And they did. And here we are and we are going to get to the episode in just a minute. But first, thank you to all the patrons who sent in questions for this episode. You can do so for as little as a dollar a month via patreon.com ologies thank you for wearing my name on your body via ologiesmerch.com and thank you for $0 for leaving reviews which truly helped the show and my mental health more than you'll ever know, such as this one from Cap1e who wrote this podcast is like gently flipping over a log expecting to find a hand, roly polies or maybe a millipede, but instead finding those lovely critters, a salamander and the infectious excitement of passionate people talking about anything and everything right on the money. That's honestly one of the best compliments ever. So Cap 1E, let's set sail for some fish stuff. Okay, so I headed up to Santa Barbara. It was this gorgeous Saturday. I was with your podmother Jarrett. Say hi. Hello everyone. Good work. And we also brought our 12 year old daughter, who is a dog, to this guest's gorgeous century old historical landmark of a preserved home. And we prayed our dog would not pee in it even though she never pees inside. And that part went well. So this guest has studied ecology from locales including the Caribbean and the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, Solomon Islands, Indonesia. They've been to various parts of the South Pacific and California and Chile. And they know their stuff in terms of how to save the things living in the ocean. One way is to not overfish it. So consider this episode a long overdue look at that topic. So all aboard to hear about what percent of your fish menu is farmed versus wild and how to tell if you should enjoy a cruise ship shrimp buffet where oysters are even coming from. Bycatch food, fish guilt, animal welfare of our aquatic friends, the anthropology of ordering the fish, salmon who wear makeup where we're at with global marine populations why you can ditch iceberg lettuce for seaweed the marine treats you can feel not terrible about eating and the ones you kind of could feel terrible about eating and a gentle nudge toward a more plant based diet with super cool dude researcher and aquaculture ecologist Dr. Ben Halpern.

[Ben Halpern]

My name is Ben Halpern, he him. I am a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the director of an environmental science research center called the national center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. Easy to say, easy to say we go encease is how we say it a lot of people know it, so we keep it. But I'm open to someone giving a lot of money, and I'll change the name.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Like, can I get a rebrand?

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Money in science. Not the easiest thing to come by. So you'll save it for the aquaculture.

[Ben Halpern]

Exactly. Here we go.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Have you always been somewhat of a water baby? Are you a Pisces? What drew you to marine stuff?

[Ben Halpern]

I'm a Scorpio. I'm born in November. Twins feel good, though. It's the classic story of, like. I grew up in Oregon. I would go to the coast with my family. The coast is beautiful there. My mom was a biology teacher, so she'd take me into the tide pools and identify the critters. So that. And then it's just beautiful lakes and rivers. And so I'd go swimming in the streams over the summer and stuff like that. So that's how I kind of got connected to the ocean. And after college, I was working for years doing nothing connected to the ocean. But I was living in Boston, and I started volunteering at the New England Aquarium.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh.

[Ben Halpern]

And I was like, this is pretty awesome dream. And then I got a job actually doing tide pool critters for first to third grade classes, where I'd load them up into the van and drive all over New England. Seeing their excitement got me excited, and I was like, I want to do marine conservation.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

So his college life didn't have much to do with the ocean. And after college, he was working at mit, he says, doing computer stuff. But it wasn't rewarding any inner passion. And he wanted to connect back to nature. And hence the New England Aquarium in Boston caught his eye and his heart.

[Ben Halpern]

I volunteered for a while as a docent in the aquarium. And I don't know if you've been, but they have this giant center tank that's a coral reef, and it's four stories tall, and so you can spiral around it, and it's just magical space.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

So when volunteering and catching the contagious enthusiasm of taking fourth graders to look at hermit crabs, he wanted to switch his life path. And he asked around about a future in marine conservation. And people told him, you'd better do some graduate school, my dude. You're like, graduate school, Gotta do it. Do you start just applying at different places that are nearer the water, or how does that work?

[Ben Halpern]

Well, yeah, I was looking for a program that was good in marine biology. I looked at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which is outside of Boston. I look at Scripps, which is at San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, University of Miami, University of Hawaii, and University of Washington. I was like, I got to cover every corner because I really didn't know where I wanted to go. I didn't really actually know what I was doing. I was like, I need a graduate degree in order to get this job I want, so I guess I should apply to graduate school. And I was living in Boston and so I knew that corner of the world. And I was like, well, I need to go visit California to check out the schools there. And I booked my trip to go in January and I landed in Santa Barbara and It was like 75 degrees out. And I was like, I think I'm gonna come here hooked.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And he's been there ever since. And the day that I'm there, it's like 72 degrees, clear skies, bees buzzing around his native garden plants, and the beach is about two miles away. Just he casual California paradise.

[Ben Halpern]

But then you have to get in, right? So I ended up getting into UC Santa Barbara and then I was like, well, I'm definitely coming here, but after the first year in graduate school, I was like, I love this science stuff.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, cool.

[Ben Halpern]

And I was like, I think I'm gonna stick around for a PhD. And so I did. And yeah, never left science after that.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Did you study aquaculture for your PhD?

[Ben Halpern]

No, I was a classic kind of marine ecologist. My advisor had a house in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, summer field station house. I spent my summers in the Virgin Islands chasing coral reef fish to count them. But I also was doing conservation research on the side. But I was all about like, I'm going to save the oceans. And at that time. We can talk about this more later. The narrative around aquaculture is that it was awful, really terrible, terrible for the ocean, and it's the worst thing you can do. And so I was very much an anti aquaculture person. Such a hater, dude. I didn't even think I would ever study it, let alone like embrace it. And so I was very much on the like, we gotta keep that out of the ocean. And I was focusing on things that we could do to protect biodiversity and yeah, help the oceans.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Well, you know, I asked not smart questions. So what exactly is aquaculture? Is it farming of kelp? Is it having doughboys full of shrimp in your basement? Like, what exactly is it?

[Ben Halpern]

I mean, technically it's farming sea creatures or sea things. Ocean things. Although freshwater aquaculture is also aquaculture. So it's farming, but you're farming in water instead of farming on land. That's like the basic definition.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay.

[Ben Halpern]

And then you can farm all sorts of things. So there's hundreds and hundreds of species that are farmed in aquaculture. There's all sorts of seaweeds. There's a whole bunch of shellfish, mussels, clams, shrimp, things like that. And then tons of different species of fin fish, the fish that actually have fins and swim around. So, yeah, I mean, across the planet, I think there's something 6, 7, 800 species that are farmed. It's very, very diverse. It's not like agriculture on land where we've got our seven dominant crops of corn, wheat, rice, et cetera. Like, it's really, really diverse in aquaculture.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Why did it get such a bad rap? Why, especially at that time, were people like, fuck aquaculture? Yes. Well, also, I'm so sorry that my dog is absolutely taking over your house. She just had. Is that okay? She headed upstairs.

[Ben Halpern]

There is cat food up there.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Remy. She looks guilty. Okay. So people were pissed about aquaculture.

[Ben Halpern]

So in the early days, it was bad, so it deserved the negative reputation. So the big early growth in aquaculture was in shrimp and in salmon, and they still are two of the most commonly grown aquaculture species. But in the 80s, when it was really taking off, and into the early 90s, shrimp farms are grown right along the coast, and they're warm water, and so they're particularly good in kind of calm, enclosed bays where mangroves grow. And so the shrimp farmers were cutting down huge amounts of mangrove forest to make room for the shrimp ponds.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And this occurs in places like Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, but also in South America, like Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela, are seeing steep declines. According to the 2001 paper, Mangrove Forests, one of the world's threatened major tropical environments. And while there are over 50 different species of mangroves, a mangrove area can have a lot of different species that are growing in tandem with it. And they can grow in saltwater on the ocean's coast. And their dense, green habitat and their barriers to erosion started to disappear off the horizon, replaced with these expanses of ponds laid out in grids.

[Ben Halpern]

So something like 30% of the world's mangroves were cut down by shrimp farms back in the 80s and 90s.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, yikes. Do they grow back?

[Ben Halpern]

They do.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay. Okay.

[Ben Halpern]

And there's a lot of restoration effort, and actually things are coming back, and so there's ways of saving grace there. But it was pretty bad in the 80s, and that's when I was basically growing up and learning about this stuff.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

But even the Best restoration efforts mean potential decades of that lush ecosystem trying to fully recover.

[Ben Halpern]

And then salmon farms, in the early days, they had a lot of pollution. They weren't really super well managed. They were also in protected areas. So, like in the Norwegian fjords or the British Columbia fjords, because it's really protected water, but you don't get a lot of circulation. And so they would feed them and the food would drop to the bottom and then they would get this burst of algae and other things on the bottom and it would suck away all the oxygen and create a dead zone under the farms. And so they were not so good. Plus you had to harvest a whole bunch of wild caught fish in order to feed the salmon. So you were taking from the ocean. And so there were problems with it that justified the negative reputation. So that's what I came into graduate school with, that same narrative in my head of, like, this is what aquaculture is and it's bad. So we can jump into it now. But, like, I totally accidentally stumbled into aquaculture. I did not seek it out as a research direction. And yeah, it's a huge pivot point in my career.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Well, this is just a technicality. But when they're doing that, do they have all the fish in nets or do they dam up the end of a mangrove where it meets the sea? How are they? Do they have cages? Like a shark cage, but skinnier bars? I don't know how people. Aquaculture.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah. So it depends on what you're growing. So shrimp ponds, they basically take away the mangroves or whatever there. They build a little earthen wall to create a pond, and then they flood it with water. And then they put the baby shrimp in there and they grow the shrimp. And often they have like a bubbler to keep aerated. So that's what they do for shrimp farms. They do something like that for, like tilapia too. That's more of a freshwater species. So those are ponds where they form like a wall, usually out of dirt, for almost all of the fin fish, the ones that swim around with fins, like salmon or sea bass or whatever, those are in cages. And we can talk about this. But the technology in cages now is insane.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

What do they do?

[Ben Halpern]

Oh, my God. So in the early days, they were just like a net with floating wood buoys to hold up the edge of the net, and they would just stay in the basket of a net and then they would get fed. Now the Chinese have built these things that look like sci fi oil rig structures. They're enormous. They're so huge, they're 10 stories tall, hundreds of feet wide, and they can hold like 2 million fish at a time. So the technology has scaled this up to just unbelievable scales from what it used to be. However, most aquaculture is small. It's like mom and pop aquaculture. You can have seaweed, you can just stick a stick in the mud and seaweed or algae will grow on it. Or you can have ropes hanging down from buoys that you can put the little seaweed spores on and they'll grow from that.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And last week we talked to Dr. Charlie Yarish, the chief [e-mail] and the so called grandfather of seaweed farming, all about different types of kelp and seaweed and where it's grown and how nori is a red seaweed and kelp is a brown seaweed, which has captured red seaweeds in its cells like pets. But yeah, the seaweed farming industry has been growing in the last few decades.

[Ben Halpern]

Oh, it's interesting, but, you know, it's out of necessity, you see, and today we find in Western countries we need to expand food production. People don't realize that the land can only bear so much fruit. And, you know, we want to be able to minimize adding too much fertilizer or pesticides. And that's what really now is taking place in North America, in Europe, Scandinavia, we are seeing this expanding and we're very much approaching the capability of going to scale. The only problem, what we see is the markets haven't caught up with us.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Right. So, yeah, ropes, buoys, kelp.

[Ben Halpern]

That's how they do a lot of mussels and oysters. They put them on rope lines and they put the little seeds on there. They call the babies seeds, and then they just grow out in the ocean and then you pull up the line and harvest them that way.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Well, is there a really big difference between doing macroalgae and kelp versus doing animals? Like, is the kelp like, whew, thank you for the carbon sink. But the animals are like, okay, you're depleting some natural sources. Like, is there a big division?

[Ben Halpern]

Yes.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Or am I making up the drama?

[Ben Halpern]

No, no, it's. Well, so most people who think negatively of aquaculture are focusing on the fish side of it. But shellfish, the oysters and mussels and clams and things with shells and seaweed are actually quite good for the environment. This is the thing that I learned through doing all this research is like the many benefits that come from these kinds of aquaculture. So, for example, algae and Kelp, they pull nutrients out of the water, so you can actually use it as a pollution remediation technique for coastal waters. If you've got runoff from land, you wouldn't necessarily. Well, you could eat it because it's just taking nitrogen from fertilizers that's run off the land that can cause problems in coastal oceans.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And yeah, when you said coastal runoff, I was like, like mercury. But no, it's like nitrogen, which just comes from fertilizers, which is just a nutrient that they can use.

[Ben Halpern]

Exactly.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

It's like miracle grow, but for kelp, right?

[Ben Halpern]

Exactly.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And from sewage, as we learned in last week's seaweed episode.

[Ben Halpern]

And they also pull carbon in, so it's called sequestering carbon. So they're not a major solution to fighting climate change, but they help a little bit and then they create habitat. So there's a lot of creatures that love to swim around in there, little fish or other invertebrates. And it's the same with mussels and clams and oysters. They also create habitat. They also filter the water as they eat. And so you don't have to feed these things. They're just naturally fed by the ocean.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Because mussels and oysters and clams are filter feeders. So they're just eating those usual plant and tiny animal plankton and poop and stuff. And according to an article titled Can Clams and Oysters Help Clean up Water Waterways? Via Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, adult oysters can reportedly filter up to 50 gallons of water a day and help rebalance the water quality. And this article says that too much nitrogen, often from fertilizer runoff and septic tanks, boosts the growth of algae, which overwhelm water bodies and ultimately reduce oxygen levels in them. And oysters, clams and other shellfish are efficient filter feeders that help remove excess nitrogen from waters by incorporating it into their shells and tissues as they grow. Shellfish farms tend to be heavily monitored for water quality. Some other stuff you'd want out of the water gets filtered by them and then pooped into the sediment. So think a shellfish next time you see one. And growing filter feeders doesn't require dumping a bunch of smelt or soy into a pond for them.

[Ben Halpern]

So there's none of that input and risk of pollution from overfeeding things. That happens sometimes with fin fish. And so when I talk to people now about like if you want some guilt free food to eat, yes, what is it? Farmed shellfish.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Unless you're a vegan or allergic to.

[Ben Halpern]

Shellfish but people think, oh, does that mean shrimp? Shrimp are called shellfish, but shellfish, I think of the bivalves with two shells that clamp together. So oysters and clams and mussels, these things. And seaweed guilt free. Most people don't eat seaweed, but lots of people eat shellfish. And yeah, they, they take no inputs that you, once you put them in there, they grow on their own, they help clean the water, they create habitat. They're great.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Well, I think a lot of people think shrimp and they think, I'm just getting the bugs of the sea. Look how little they are. It's kind of like eating crickets. Side note, we do have an episode all about eating bugs and it's called entomophagy anthropology. We'll link it in the show notes. And I've also heard that aquaculture with shrimp, maybe the labor used is not above board.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Is that still an issue?

[Ben Halpern]

It is. I don't know a whole lot about it, but because most shrimp are grown like in Ecuador or Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia, because the conditions are good for that, there's some shrimp farming in Africa too. These also tend to be countries that aren't quite as wealthy as like the United States. And so there's incentive to find ways to do it more cost effectively.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And I'm sorry, shrimp lovers, one of whoms is me.

[Ben Halpern]

There's a lot of problems with shrimp too. When you grow something really, really high density, there's issues of disease. And like when you pack a whole bunch of people together in a room, there's disease transmission. Right. Same thing with the little shrimpies. And so they have these disease outbreaks that'll wipe out whole ponds. So they use a lot of antibiotics to try to fight that. So there's a lot of that kind of pollution input into the ponds. And then if they get a disease outbreak, they just bust open the pond and flush it out into the ocean and then start over.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Bye.

[Ben Halpern]

So yeah, shrimp, I actually don't eat shrimp because of that, unless it's wild, caught and carefully. There's some really. Like here in Santa Barbara, there's a spot prawn that's wild caught and it's totally sustainable to eat. So I eat those, but I don't eat farm shrimp.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And I understand if you live in the Monterey Bay area and you like smaller urchins and you can dive for them, those little purple urchins, you can get like 50 a day per permit and just load up because of the.

[Ben Halpern]

Kelp forest there's too many urchins. They call them urchin barrens, where they, like mow down the kelp and they just get this blanket of urchins on the sea floor. And urchins are crazy. We're digressing. But urchins are crazy. They can live for a really, really long time without eating. And so if there's not enough food for them, they just sit there and wait and they can wait years. And so if you crack them open and they haven't been eating, they're basically hollow. There's nothing in there.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, whoa.

[Ben Halpern]

It's basically a hollow test, the hollow shell. So they've actually started an urchin ranch, which I just love the idea.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

This urchin ranch, I looked it up, is called uni. It's spelled O O dash N E E. And they make the compelling argument that after decimating a kelp forest and creating an urchin barren, starving urchin will lie dormant for many years old, only to start feasting on any newly regenerated kelp. And I do want to mention that we have an echinodology episode about sea urchins specifically. And in it we do discuss why they like to wear tiny, small cowboy hats, which seems appropriate for a ranch that involves a buffet for them because they're hungry.

[Ben Halpern]

So you go harvest the urchins from the ocean when they maybe haven't had enough food, and then you put them into a tank and you give them good food. Like they just eat seaweed and kelp and stuff like that. After, I don't know, I think it's a couple weeks or maybe a little longer, they'll kind of fatten up, they'll grow the insides back and then you can harvest them and then you've got good uni.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And when it comes to oysters and scallops, we've done an episode on scallops. We learned about diver scallops versus farmed. But how do you know? I imagine the diver scallops are not as sustainable.

[Ben Halpern]

The diver ones are okay because they're kind of, they're supposed to be anyway, kind of hand picked and more selectively harvested. It's the big trawls that just scooped up the whole sea floor to get scallops. Those are the ones that are not sustainable. So when you go to the restaurant and they say diver scallops, if they're honest, and they actually are, those are sustainable from a wild caught fishery. It's the ones that don't label that. And then usually, yeah, farmed scallops if you can get them, are great.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And we talk about their farming in the pectinidology episode about scallops, but it involves baby scallops having a notch or a hole through part of their shell. And then sort of a scallop banner or a scallop festoon gets strung together in the water until they're harvested. Unless they're diver scallops, in which case they're harvested by a diver who goes down and roots around in the sand like a mermaid who wants to feed you. What about oysters? How do you know?

[Ben Halpern]

Almost all oysters are farmed?

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

That's good news. It is, right?

[Ben Halpern]

And we love oysters.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Right.

[Ben Halpern]

And we get all into the provenance, oh, these are the oysters from this bay or that bay. And if you like oysters, you can actually taste the difference. It's just like wines or beers, they've got a different flavor to them. And so it's really fun from a, like, culinary perspective to go try all these different oysters.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Do you still have to worry about warmer conditions, like only eat oysters in months that have an R?

[Ben Halpern]

There are not a whole lot of wild oyster populations out there that people can harvest. But yes, that is true. That's when you get these blooms of cyanobacteria or dinoflagellate bacteria that cause the domoic acid. So the algae that has a toxin in it, when it blooms in these seasons when the water is the right conditions, it builds up these blooms of the algae and they have this toxin in domoic acid and then it bio concentrates in their tissue. And so I don't know if you've been to the beach in the last month or two, but there's a lot of dead animals. There's seals, cormorants, there's even been some dead dolphins on the beach because they are eating things that have been eating the shellfish that we're eating, the little microalgae that have this toxin in them. And it gets worse and worse as it gets further up the food chain. That's why you get that recommendation to not eat them in those particular seasons. But oysters, because they're almost entirely farmed, Oyster farm is basically doing that for you. They're paying attention to that and harvesting them when they're good and not harvesting them when you can't do that.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

How do you feel about tanks of shrimp in people's basements as a get rich quick scheme? Have you seen this?

[Ben Halpern]

I have not.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

There's a Reddit thread that's like get on my level. You want to make money, people? All you need is two big tanks, some big bubblers. You farm shrimp in your basement, you're going to be a millionaire before you know it. And is this a viable strategy?

[Ben Halpern]

I do not think so. It is not easy to get, like, the balance of everything just right to avoid disease outbreaks and to make sure your water is not getting contaminated and feeding them just right. I'm definitely not going to be doing it in my basement. I can't fathom it being a big money maker.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

What about homestead living, where it's like, get yourself a chicken coop over a tilapia farm. They eat the poop, you get the tilapia.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Is that viable? I don't know. What? I can't place what tilapia tastes like.

[Ben Halpern]

It's super bland. It's a very white, bland fish. So people like it because you can then flavor it with other stuff. It doesn't have much flavor on its own, but, yeah, that's like this kind of mixed systems. I mean, they're doing it in aquaculture, too, where you can combine algae or seaweed and shellfish and fish together, because, yeah, the poop from the fish can help feed the shellfish, and then the algae or the seaweed can help clean the water. So you get this harmonious connection between the systems. So, yeah, you can do that on land, too. I mean, it's like a mixed agriculture system where you can get chicken poop feeding the tilapia, and then you can eat the tilapia. You can do that with crops and other things, too.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

What is happening since you've been working in it, that you've seen, like, big shifts in aquaculture that are exciting. What are you like, yes, we're going in the right direction?

[Ben Halpern]

Well, farmers of animals have to feed their animals, right?

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Yeah.

[Ben Halpern]

So this has always been one of the problems with any farm system, but with aquaculture is how efficient are you at turning feed into animal that we can then eat? And this is one of the big problems with salmon. In the early days, it would take something like five pounds of wild caught fish to grow one pound of salmon.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oof.

[Ben Halpern]

So the conversion ratio is pretty terrible there, and that was why people were very upset about it.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

So it used to be five to one for comparison.

[Ben Halpern]

For cows, it's like eight to one. It takes eight pounds of feed to create one pound of cow. There's many problems with cows, but that's one of them. Now the conversion ratio for salmon is about one to one.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, how did they do that.

[Ben Halpern]

Right. So what's cool about aquaculture is you can combine like entrepreneurship and thinking creatively with technology and innovation and you're growing food and farmers on land are doing this too. But it's really exciting what's happening in aquaculture too. And so the innovations in feed are where there's some really exciting stuff happening, where you're seeing the whole industry change because we're developing new kinds of feedback. So one of the ways they did that was actually replacing fish with things like soy and other plant based proteins. And they can do that to a point. They can't do it completely because the fish eat fish. They need it naturally. I always like to remind people wild salmon eat fish too. Right. And their conversion ratio is much worse.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay. So farmed salmon has one of the lowest feed conversion ratios of all animal protein with about 1.15 to 1. Chicken is 2, pork can be up to 5. And according to a paper in an environmental research series called Redefining Agricultural Yields from Tons to People Nourished per Hectare, livestock production is the single largest anthropogenic use of land. And around 75% of all agricultural land is dedicated to animal production. And animal products, even on land, generally have a much higher water footprint than plant based foods. But yes, the feed conversion ratio of farm salmon is lower than wild caught. Okay.

[Ben Halpern]

Right. Because they gotta go hunt and find it and they don't always catch it. And so the amount of effort and what they can actually get out of eating the fish they do is much less than if you hand it to them in a cage. And they don't even have to work for it. So it's much more efficient actually feeding farmed salmon than it is in wild systems.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I was wondering that because I was like, the wild system also takes a while for them to grow to maturity.

[Ben Halpern]

Exactly.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And catching it, there's a lot of bycatch, Right, Exactly.

[Ben Halpern]

So not a lot of bycatch. But anyway, there's some stuff that's not meant to be caught, but it's just a lot of effort and it takes a lot of fuel to go chase those fish. I love wild salmon. Wild salmon are great too. So I'm not trying to like diminish that. But you get so many people like, I'm only going to eat wild salmon. And I'm like, well, actually farmed salmon is pretty good too. So yeah, the feed innovation is really exciting, the stuff that's happening there. And there's all sorts of new innovations in feed that use bacteria or like Wood pulp that they can ferment basically. And then you can get pride products from that that you can then use as feed. And so they're starting to develop ways to grow all the feed you need in a tank and not have to take any fish out of the sea or any crops from land. And we're not there yet, but that's where it's heading. And so I think there's just a lot of really cool innovations in how to grow fin fish more environmentally friendly.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Well, how do they synthesize what they need from like a plant protein? And I know human beings, obviously a plant based human being is going to be like, hello, I'm a flesh and blood person that hasn't eaten meat since fourth grade. How did the salmon convert that?

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah, so you'd hear about like omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. So there's components of what come from the ocean that are super important. But you can grow those kinds of components, the fatty acids that are these omega 3 and omega 6s in tanks. And algae, the reason they're in the fish is because it's the wild algae and plankton. That's where it comes from. And they eat that. And then that's why you get it from sardines and anchovies and why the salmon habit, because it's up the food chain. It started from algae.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Please see last week's companion episode on Seaweed because y' all algae, More like palgi, because seaweed is your friend. That's what we learned. And Ben says that aquaculture farmers can actually grow some supplemental foods in labs and kind of tinker with the amount of protein the farmed fish are getting and make sure that their microbiomes are optimal. Although you should note the fish can be food deprived before harvest to empty out their guts. And when they're harvested, it's usually by percussive stunning, which is a blow to the head, or electrical stunning. And older methods like just taking them out of the water are being phased out for those somewhat more humane stunning methods. But if you are looking for the most guilt free meat, please see our Roadkill Ecology episode with Ben Goldfarb. Roadkill, it's what's for dinner. But if you're eating meat, you just have to come to terms that it involves some sad stuff. Living in the planet involves some sad stuff. Having a house means a lot of animals were killed and displaced. It's just sad stuff.

[Ben Halpern]

So it's a bunch of tinkering. These farmers, research and development labs have been for decades figuring out all the ways they can substitute this versus that and try to figure out how to optimize what the food looks like, what it's made of, in order to make the fastest, healthiest fish.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Well, what about the bioaccumulation of like heavy metals like we hear obviously with big tunas. Don't even think about eating tuna every single day. Does that happen with fin fish too? Other fin fish? That is.

[Ben Halpern]

Sure. I mean, it depends on what water you're growing it in. So you want to make sure you're not growing it in super polluted water. But most farmers are pretty aware of that. So, like the fjords of Norway have beautiful clean water because there's not much going into them. Same with the fjords of British Columbia. There's an amazing farm not of salmon, but of this fish called kampachi, that's a type of tuna that's grown on Hawaii. The waters are crystal clear. A lot of aquaculture is purposefully put in really good water. And actually there's, they call it offshore aquaculture, where you push the farms further offshore. And they're doing that because the water flows stronger there and kind of flushes it out and keeps it from having to worry so much about pollutants from heavy metals and stuff like that. In general, you're probably safer with farmed fish. Or at least they're checking it and they're being careful about it. A wild fish, you don't know where it's been.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I always wonder how come no one's there in the rivers in spawning season in Alaska. Just, it's like Snicker bars, just a river of Snickers bars going past you. Like, how come no one's sitting there with a bucket? Oh, they are, they are. They're called bears.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah. You've seen Fat Bear week, right?

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I love Fat Bear Week. Oh, I love it. You can see our two part Ursinology episode All About Bears to learn more about this as well as things like the Arctic means it has bears. Antarctic literally means there's no bears. Also, betting on the absolute dump trucks of bears before they go into hibernation is a joy everyone should experience. Glutes of a God. They are built with fish.

[Ben Halpern]

So yeah, certainly the indigenous communities have long done that up there. But Alaskans all have a quota that they're given as residents of the state that they can go with these nets and they just like stand at the edge of the river and just scoop up salmon. I have relatives who are in Alaska and every year they do that and they fill their freezers with just hundreds of salmon and then they eat them all year long.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Well, let's say that you have a special occasion or you're cooking for a date and you want to be like, I got salmon from the farmer's market or whatever in the fish market. Let's say you're going to have some salmon. How do you know that you're getting ones that are more sustainable from a good farm where they're treating people well and fish well. How do you shop for that?

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah, obviously there's a lot of people who focus on wild caught versus farmed salmon. Wild caught is still good for the farmed salmon. There are places like the Norwegians are very, very, very careful and invest a lot of resources in doing things as sustainably as possible. So if it's Norwegian, you're good. In general, that's true of Scottish salmon. The people from Scotland do not like the salmon farms there because they want nature to be unadulterated. But it's good growing conditions. And the Scottish salmon farms are generally seen as really good. In Chile, there are some farms that people are less happy with and then there are some that are better. And that's where it gets a little bit more confusing because you don't know which farm it came from. So I would say, if you can see that, where it came from, like Norwegian and Scottish salmon farm salmon are generally seen as really good options. There used to be salmon farms in Washington State. Those have since been closed down.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, how come?

[Ben Halpern]

Because the people didn't want them there.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Yeah, how come people generally don't want them there? Is it the space, the sea acreage they take up?

[Ben Halpern]

The main issue is concern about polluting the wild populations of salmon. Okay, what happened? There was a huge storm came through and the salmon farm company hadn't maintained their pen quite well enough and it got basically sunk and ripped open and like something like 300,000 salmon swam free. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. And they went all over. Right. And most of them die because they can't handle the wild. They don't know how to feed. If they'd survived, which not many did, there's a harsh truth to face. No way I'm going to make it on the outside. They don't know how to breed, but occasionally it happens, and that's the concern that they will genetically pollute the wild populations and.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, got it.

[Ben Halpern]

Salmon is sacrosanct in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. It's like, culturally so, so important. People Just didn't want that risk anymore. And there are salmon farms in British Columbia still, but the political pressure is to take those out as well.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

What about, you mentioned Chile. What about like Chilean sea bass? I understand it's kind of threatened. This just in. Chilean sea bass are giant and they can live for up to 50, 50 years, which is I guess why their face looks like a grandpa falling asleep drunk in a recliner. And in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, every yuppie menu featured this cold water whitefish to the point where populations could not rebound on their own. And there were crackdowns and it's doing much better now. It's rated yellow. Not great, not the worst when it's caught by South African fisheries in the Prince Edward Islands. But it's red rated. Don't do it when it's gotten chilly. And just a side note, Chilean sea bass is actually called Patagonian toothfish. And toothfish versus sea bass. It's a lot like when my goth friend Ben asked us to call him Sebastian. It's a good rebrand.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Are they using aquaculture to cultivate types of fish that are not doing well in the wild?

[Ben Halpern]

They are. And there's like a market dynamic that's behind that. Like, oh, if you can flood the market with a farmed version of it, then the value of the wild caught one will go down and it won't be economically viable anymore and then the fishery will effectively shut down. And that's a way to protect the species. It's questionable how well it can work. It's basically, it's hard to flood the market enough to kind of do that. There's another fish in the Gulf of California called the Tatuaba, which it's called Fish bladder is seen as a medicinal cure in a lot of Chinese medicine. So it's super high value and it's been overfished and it's very, very few of them left. And they've been trying to farm this fish to basically provide a source of this swim bladder medicine, but they just can't go fast enough. And there's still pressure to catch them in the wild. And so yes, people are thinking about doing that. How effective it'll be is pretty uncertain.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

This fish is also called a weak fish, which seems unnecessarily mean, but the price is powerful. The swim bladder or its maw of this six foot long fish is prized for fertility and skin remedies and some circulatory medicines. And one MA can fetch 10 to 15 GS which I read about it. It rivals the street value of gold and cocaine. And in fact, in 2023, U.S. customs seized 91 poached swim bladders of this endangered fish. They were hidden among some other fish fillets valued at $1.4 million. And that was probably not even including the cost of the fish fillets, which was like $35. Now, I don't know what border agents did with the $1.44 million of fish bladders, but I have a feeling it wasn't the same vibe as like, finding a briefcase of cocaine. And then what comes across your desk? Do you have farms being like, ben, help me out. I got too much food on the bottom. Or like, are there conferences? What is going on in the community that I am not privy to?

[Ben Halpern]

Oh, there's a conference on everything, Ellie, of course. But yes, there's definitely a conference on aquaculture. There's a lot of ways of connecting. So, no, I don't get called by farms because that's really the R and D development side and that's not the kind of research I do. Like, how do you make a slightly better feed? I'm much more interested in thinking about how aquaculture fits into the broader ecology and ecosystem and how we can think about integrating it into our conservation planning and strategies for making the oceans as healthy as possible while still meeting the needs of people. So it's really that bigger picture type of questions that I look at with my research.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

So Ben isn't the bat phone for fisheries trying to maximize their profit. He's on the academic side. He's doing studies. He's crunching numbers to figure out the best way to counter wild population depletion.

[Ben Halpern]

For example, how does aquaculture compare to all other kinds of foods in terms of its environmental footprint? Right. That's the kind of question I ask in my research. So, no, I don't get calls from the farms like, how do I make my feed better? Or yeah, I'd have to just say, sorry, but yeah. And I don't tend to go to conferences anymore because of a lot of reasons, but environmental costs of travel for conferences too. But they are very exciting. And that's where a lot of these side discussions happen.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

So he is not out there working with a farm to figure out how to make salmon flesh pinker. How do you even do that? We have so many questions. We have questions from listeners.

[Ben Halpern]

Okay.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And they're good ones.

[Ben Halpern]

All right.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Can I ask them of you, please? Okay. But first, money. Let's give some away to Ben's Choice, which is NCEAS UCSB EDU, which, established in 1995, was the first synthesis science center in the world, and their approach has helped transform ecology and environmental science to generate bigger insights and inform solutions more efficiently. So that donation will go to research continuing to improve our ecosystems. So thanks Ben, and thank you sponsors for making that possible. Have you ever thought about Personal style and how there's like an art and a science behind it? There's neuroscience behind that. We don't have time to get into that. But having some confidence really changes the decisions that you make day to day. If you're like Personal Style, I don't know where to begin with that. Perhaps Daily look can help you out there. They are a styling service. They use data, science and your own personal stylist to help you find your perfect balance between style and comfort. If you're like, what's Daily Look? Daily look is the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women. You can get started, you take a style quiz and then from there your personal stylist takes the time to kind of understand what your preferences are and creates a box of timeless and really versatile pieces just for you. How many things are in there? There's up to 12 premium pieces per box and you get to keep what you love. You return the rest. My first Daily look box, I was like, everything in here so fits my vibe. A lot of black, a lot of angular things and there were really lovely brands, pieces that I can hang on to for a while and I love that I can try it on at home. Anyway, elevate your style by signing [e-mail] today. Take your style [e-mail] and get 50% off your first styling fee with code Ologies Daily look. You're looking good. So am I. You know me, you know I love Squarespace. I've been using Squarespace since before Ologies launched. Here's the deal. I needed a website. I put it off for three years. I heard an ad about Squarespace on another podcast in one night. I put up my own website and then I was able to launch Ologies with it. You need a website. You need Squarespace straight up. They have amazing cutting edge design tools. Anyone can build a bespoke online presence that totally fits your brand or business. They make it so easy. They have these really intuitive tools. They have built in analytics. So if you're a data dork, you can get into the numbers with website traffic, you can track money, you're making from bookings or invoices or product sales all in one place with Squarespace to get paid 12 out of 10 no regrets. Anyone who needs a website, either for their personal brand or if they're launching a business or if they're selling classes, I'm like, squarespace. Use my code, save some money. Head to squarespace.com ologies for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code OLOGIES to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Do it. Make a website. You will not regret it. I'm with you, holding your hand in spirit, not creepy. This is an advertisement from BetterHelp. Are you a man? How's that stigma surrounding men's mental health? It's not going great. Understood. Bottling things up can lead to depression or unhealthy habits, or maybe an explosion of feelings later that you wish you hadn't kept under a tight, heavy lid. It's okay to struggle and it's okay to talk about what you're going through, what you're feeling so you can be your best for yourself and for other people in your life. If you are a man and you are feeling the weight of the world, you are not alone and it is good to talk to someone. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. They've served over 5 million people globally. I like that it's convenient. Starting therapy can be very intimidating. I love that Better Help is easy to onboard. They'll match you with a licensed therapist and it's convenient you can join a session with a therapist just by clicking one button. So if you've got a busy life, it's a great way to do it. Also, you can switch therapists anytime if you are not vibing. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professional professionals with a diverse variety of experience. Talk it out with better help our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Ologies that's BetterHelp.

[Tanks]

H-E-L-P.com Ologies what's up podcast listeners? It's Tanks, host of the It's Me Tanks podcast. Join me weekly on It's Me Tanks as I dive into topics like relationships, why it's okay to feel lonely, fighting, summer comparison, and pop culture's hottest takes. I don't shy away from getting candid about my personal experiences and I want to share all the advice I have learned with you. I'm even joined by some of my friends like Claudia Ashray, Connor Wood and Amanda Hirsch each Friday for our new Office Hours episodes. You can listen to It's Me Tanks every Monday, Wednesday and Friday wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss an episode.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted?

[Tanks]

If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Disc is accepted at 99 of places that take credit cards nationwide and every time you make a purchase with your.

[Tanks]

Card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the Now It Pays to Discover.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Learn [e-mail] credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report now patrons, we're about to dive into your questions and you too can submit questions before we record by joining Patreon.com Ologies which costs just $1 a month to support the show. Now, many of you wondered about farmed salmon, such as Matt Thompson, Scott Hanley, Olivier Callis, Luis Reynolds, Kristin Annie and Kat Bachlars. And I was tickled pink. That deli dames wanted to know is it bad when the farmed salmon are super orange farmed salmon not as pink as wild, say, sockeye? What do they feed them? Or is that a concern? Do people see a too light salmon and go not for me, no.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah, so the pink comes from the little shrimp that the wild salmon are eating out there and they have the pink in them and that's what turns their flesh pink. So yeah, if you don't feed that to the farm salmon, their flesh will be almost white. It's not quite. It's more of a yellow color. So they can either feed that to them in the farm or they dye it. And so I guess it's hard to not pay attention to the color. Farm salmon tends to be a little fattier too. So you'll see the lines between the muscle tissue will be slightly wider in farm salmon. So some people don't like that either. I actually kind of like it. It makes it easier to cook. It's harder to overcook it because you have a little more fat in there and it helps keep it moister. And so from a cooking perspective, if you are not feeling like an expert in cooking salmon, farm salmon actually makes it easier for you because of that. But the pink color is. Yeah, if you care about it. You can get farmed salmon that has been dyed pink.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Or I wonder. I'm sure it's something Natural and not like FDC number 40 or whatever, 46 or whatever they took out of Skittles in California recently. Yeah, I always wondered about that. Okay, so according to a Time magazine article, so according to a Time magazine article titled simply how farmers turn their salmon pink, Consumers will pay more than a buck a pound more if this salmon has a deeper orange, red salmony color because it looks more like wild salmon. And so it carries that cachet, which can cost triple the price of farmed. So they want to pay more for something that looks like wild salmon. Now what is the bronzer of the farmed fish world? Okay, one way to do it is to grind up crustacean shells or algae that they would typically eat in the wild and or use astaxanthin. It's orangish, it's safe for people, but it costs a lot. But without it, the flesh of your farmed salmon would fall somewhere between gray and beige. So as far as your entree goes, salmon is the new greige. Now the next question is from the audio tier and from the south of the Great White North. Hey, this is Erin Ryan from Vancouver, Canada. I've heard that lamb based aquaculture are generally based better for the environment than sea based aquaculture. Does that have any merit? Second, I'm an animal welfare scientist and I'm wondering if you can speak to any of the animal welfare aspects of aquaculture. Thanks. So first off, land based versus sea based. Yeah, and also critter wise is better.

[Ben Halpern]

So a lot of land based aquaculture is actually freshwater species, not marine species.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay.

[Ben Halpern]

But there is interest in doing aquaculture of marine species on land in big tanks basically. And they're called recirculating aquaculture systems, I think. Ras. Ras. Yeah, it's just a giant tank on land. And the environmental argument for it is once you put the water in there, it's recirculating. And so you are controlling the environment. You don't have to worry about disease as much because you're controlling the environment. You have that first batch of water and then you don't need more water. They're very, very energy intensive. When you pump water, water is heavy and when you're circulating water. So the climate emissions side of these on land systems is way, way higher than putting the farm in the ocean. And so there's still debate going about which is better. But if you can do a sustainable farm in the ocean, it's going to be generally better than doing it on land. I also feel like, man, the land is crowded with so Many other things. Like where are we going to put all these fish farms anyway? So that's the debate about on land aquaculture. Animal rights is a very good question. Of course, fish love to school. That's why we call them schools of fish. They're pretty happy together. And the farms have worked a lot to figure out the right stocking density to keep the fish happy, basically because if they're not happy, they're not going to feed. If they don't feed, they're not healthy. And then you lose money. Right. So there's a huge incentive to make happy fish. And so they stock the right number of fish in these pens to kind of keep them as happy as possible. I don't know what a fish experience is, so maybe it's like a miss running free, you know, so maybe. But they got a lot of friends around them and they're swimming and they're getting fed. So I don't know for like, I like. It's. It's not the same as, like, the chicken industrial farms where they're like, terrible.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Mm. If you want to hear all about chicken farming and eggs and roosters and squirrel bandits and perhaps be convinced to build a coop in your yard, you can see our chickenology episode with Tova Danovich. And yes, chickenology is the actual term established in the academic literature. Some of you wrote me letters thinking it was too silly, but you can argue with research gate about it. I did not make that up. But yeah, about animal welfare, these fish.

[Ben Halpern]

Farms, for the most part, like salmon farms, for sure. Other fin fish, they're trying to be careful about that. I can't say they're all perfect by any means, but they're probably better than a lot of other animal welfare issues, certainly for a lot of livestock.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And they have some room to swim around. Like, it's not like seaworld miniature.

[Ben Halpern]

No, I mean, they're packed in there. I mean, they're not going to be able to, like, go have a quiet moment in the corner anywhere it's crowded. But again, fish tend to be okay schooling. Now, I know salmon, maybe when they're in the ocean, they spread out and, you know, like, five buddies can go swim by themselves for a while and then rejoin the school. I don't really know, but I don't get that. But I think it's probably generally okay.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

But a 2021 article in the journal Science Advances titled Animal Welfare Risks of Global Aquaculture did note that, quote, many aquatic species live far more complex social and emotional lives than previously understood. For example, it says a 2014 review of the scientific literature on pain found that fish and decapods, such as shrimp, display hallmarks of the ability to experience pain. Similarly, some fish have complex cognitive abilities, including tool use, individual personalities, and strong preferences about the environments in which they live. And the paper concludes that focusing on farmed seaweed and bivalves, those are food sources with less complex needs, reduces the welfare impact on the more social and emotional species. But more research is needed now. As long as folks eat farmed salmon, how are more salmon made, like in the same tanks? Is it a multi generational living situation? Are they mating in there and having little. Little eggs and babies?

[Ben Halpern]

No.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

No. Okay.

[Ben Halpern]

They harvest them before they get to that stage. Because when you start investing in reproduction, that's less energy put towards growing meat.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, that makes sense.

[Ben Halpern]

So they don't let them grow past that.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Octopuses. Jason Lowenthal Ziz wanted to know. Jason said, I work in hospitality. And it occurred to me one day as we were serving octopus. Are there octopus farms?

[Ben Halpern]

There are octopus farms.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

How do they not jailbreak all the time? I know. And end up putting the humans in the tanks?

[Ben Halpern]

That is an exc. Excellent question. But yeah, there are a growing number of them. They actually, you know, octopus don't live that long, I don't think. Really? Yeah, they only live, I think, a year or two. So like. Or maybe even less the whole, like, octopus. What was the movie? Octopus Friend? Octopus Teacher. My octopus teacher.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I haven't seen it, but I understand it will rip your heart out with all its tentacles.

[Ben Halpern]

Yes. And the dirty little secret behind that is it was multiple octopuses. It wasn't one because the one they were following was dying and then the next one would come and I feel so betrayed. Me too. Yeah. So octopus don't live that long, which means they grow quickly. And so from a sustainability perspective, farming octopus is actually a pretty good thing. I personally can't do it.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Yeah, I get you.

[Ben Halpern]

Because they're just such fascinating, smart creatures. I can't eat that.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I get it. I get it. So consider the term speciesism. You know, dogs raised in terrible conditions for the meat industry get saved and flown to the western world to be rescued. But we can drive past veal farms and pork plants with kind of agnotological blinders on. And agnotology is the study of willful ignorance. And yes, I will link that episode in the show notes. And I am not preaching at you or anyone from a top plant based pulpit. I had a sandwich with turkey and bacon today and I know, even though I've written reduced my consumption, I am nowhere near eliminating it to a fully plant based diet. Eating meat is the worst thing about me. I feel like I know that. And given all these numbers, I'm much more compelled to steer further away from land based meats now. Speaking of the future history era, Victor Lilly, Erin Everton wanted to know, Lily wanted to know. I'd love to hear about indigenous and ancient examples of aquaculture and if any modern systems lean on these time tested traditions and do they look to nature for biomimicry, like indigenous aquaculture? What do you got?

[Ben Halpern]

There's some awesome stuff. So indigenous aquaculture. So shortly after the Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, maybe within 100 years, they started creating fish ponds. And there's still many there. Many have been filled in, but there's still many there. Some of them are active. I actually got to go and help restore one when I was there a couple years ago. But they basically there'd been opening a narrow opening to the ocean with a graded wood fence there. And the little babies would swim in and then they grow up inside the pond and then they couldn't swim out, so they'd be trapped in there and then they would be managed and fed in there and then harvested for different reasons. So the Hawaiians have long been doing fish pond harvest. So it's farming up in British Columbia and southern Alaska. There is this system of kind of building a little barrier on the intertidal to trap sediment and then clams will grow more in there. So they're called clam gardens. And you can actually see them from space even. So they've been doing that for thousands of years. So that's indigenous. And there's the first known record of aquaculture is actually freshwater like tilapia and stuff like that from China. And they think what happened is there was a flood. It washed some of the river fish into ponds. And then the people were like, hey, look, there's fish there and they can make them grow. And so they learned how to farm fish. The Egyptians learned how to do this as well. The ancient Romans actually used to for the wealthy, they would build fish ponds underneath the wealthy people's homes.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

How'd that smell?

[Ben Halpern]

Well, no, they weren't dead, they were alive.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I know, but smell that.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah, but so the water would. So same kind of thing as the Hawaiian fish ponds. There'd be an opening to the sea with a gate and they'd just get the fish in there and then the water would be flowing in and out.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, okay. So it wasn't stagnant.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah. Anyway, so there's really fascinating stories of both indigenous and ancient aquaculture, but it really didn't take off as a major food source until really the like 50s and 60s is when there are a lot of the 1950s and 60s when the innovation started happening and then it was the 80s and 90s, it just started to rocket grow. And actually just a few years ago, I think 2021, 2022 is when we now have more fish grown by aquaculture than is caught. Wild caught really.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I wasn't sure what the percentage was. Patrons Leanna Schuster, Stabby Crabby and Curtis Dog asked in Curtis Dog's words, my friends keep telling me that there are plenty of fish in the sea, is that not true? And if you heard the pectinidology episode about scallops, my friend Miles Thompson, who's a James Beard nominated chef who just opened his own restaurant, it's called Baby Bistro in la. It's amazing, he joined to give you tips on just how, how to cook scallops. And I have a friend who's a chef and he does a lot of seafood and he was telling us, he's like, man, we're like the last generation that's going to get to eat a lot of these. And where are wild populations at? I mean, how critical are we doing with wild populations?

[Ben Halpern]

Depends on where you are in the world. So the wealthier countries that have strong governments and rules and regulations, so Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, a few others, they have in the last 50 or so years really done a good job of rebuilding a lot of the fish stocks, the wild fish stocks that had been over harvested in the past. And the thing that's amazing about the ocean is if you give it a chance to breathe, it will recover. And so we have given these wild fish stocks a chance to breathe and they've come back. A lot of them, not everyone, but a lot of them. So wild fish like in the Northern hemisphere for the most part is actually doing pretty well. The small scale fisheries, all the hundreds and hundreds of species that are on coral reefs or in mangroves or other habitats, there's just a lot of pressure on those. For people who are just trying to feed their family and make a living and those are not doing as well. And there's a lot of challenge to figure out how to manage those better.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Welp, a UN headline from last week kind of says it all. Plenty of fish in the sea. Not anymore, say UN experts. It reads, but the headline is A bit of a crotch punch compared to the hope in the text, which does note that while over a third of fish stocks are being overexploited, 77% of fish consumed globally still come from sustainable sources, thanks to stronger yields, yields from well managed fisheries. And today, 87% of major tuna stocks are sustainably fished and 99% of the global market comes from those stocks. But it is regional and it's of course, financial. The Pacific coast, Australia and the Antarctic, those fish stocks are between 85 and 100% sustainable. Now the northwest African coast and the Mediterranean Sea fare far worse with only 35% sustainability. And there was this 2024 piece in the Melbourne Asia Review titled Indo Pacific Fish Stocks Face Multiple Challenges. And it reports that as of 2019, 66% of fishing stock in Southeast Asia was overfished. So that's not great. But with adherence to regulations and improved aquaculture efficiency, wild populations can rebound more. Jackie McCarthy, Jazzercise, Christina Cimella Mag Zeroni and Shayla Borger wanted to know, can you talk about certification organizations and labels, which are trusted and which are shady, and how do you trust the reporting? Is Monterey Bay Seafood Watch still kind of the gold standard?

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah, they do some great work and they put a lot of effort into trying to compile as much information and then turn it into a very simple red, yellow, green stoplight system. It's never perfect. So if you want something that you know 100% will be right, it's going to be very difficult to find that. But as a good starting point, something like the Monterey Seafood Watch card is a great place to start.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And we'll put a link to that on our website. And our website is linked in the show notes.

[Ben Halpern]

There are certification programs for wild fisheries as well as aquaculture. The problem with them is in order to get certified, it takes a lot of money to basically do all of the documentation to prove that you're sustainable. And so it's only the very largest operations that can afford to do that. And so they legitimately achieve those standards and so they are meaningful. They're not perfect either. Some of the standards, like these certification things, allow you to not meet one of them as long as you meet the others. And so you can't do it completely guilt free, but they're pretty good. But most of the aquaculture farms are too small to be able to pay for certification.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

So what do you do?

[Ben Halpern]

And so I like to think of these rules of thumb around, like seaweed and shellfish. You're good to go.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay.

[Ben Halpern]

You don't need to worry about it. And on the fin fish side of stuff, it gets a little more complicated. But I like to again, put it into perspective of, okay, if you're worried about the environmental impact of your food choices, if you are still eating beef and pork or lamb, you should not worry about any fish because all fish, all fish are better than those livestock animals for their environmental footprint.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

So this is where pescatarianism isn't complete bullshit.

[Ben Halpern]

Correct.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay. Because you know when someone's like, I'm not a vegetarian, I'm a pescatarian, or they say, I'm a vegetarian who eats fish, and you're like, I hate to break it to you, but fish are not plants. But pescatarianism does have its merits.

[Ben Halpern]

Absolutely. Okay, I am a pescatarian.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay, there you go. How long have you been a pescatarian?

[Ben Halpern]

I've been for seven or eight years. And I did it because of environmental reasons and I wasn't quite ready to give up fish. And then I'm like, what am I doing? Like, I don't even know if this is defensible from a scientific perspective. So I started reading through all the literature and I'm like, there's nothing out there. So I guess I gotta do this study myself. I spent five years with a whole team of people pulling together all the data on the environmental impact of every single food crops, livestock, aquaculture, wild caught fish to compare it all. And that's why I can now say definitively, because I did the science, that fish are better, way better than beef and pork and lamb and goat, stuff like that.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay, that's so helpful. What about Yasmin Alu and first time question asker Meg Chadsey wanted to know, in Meg's words, how does farm raised seafood stack up nutritionally against land based agriculture? And Yasmeen wanted to know, are farmed fish the same nutritional value as wild caught?

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah. So nutritionally, seafood is an amazing food, whether it's farmed or a wild caught, compared to a lot of other things, crops and livestock, because it has all these micronutrients and the omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids that are super important for us nutritionally. So when you're pregnant, they say, eat fish, right? Because it's good for you, it's good for brain development, it's good for all sorts of other things, physiological processes. So seafood is a really good food, full stop.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And if your ancestors could text you, they might tell you, hell yeah, brah. Because the anthropological consensus is that us humans, we like Being near the water and we like fishing stuff out of it to eat. And the 2013 paper titled Archaeological Shellfish Size and Later Human Evolution in Africa notes that shells have been traded for hundreds of thousands of years because we've been eating that stuff for hundreds of thousands of years. And the 2007 paper Early Human Use of Marine Resources and Pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene concludes that shellfish may have been crucial to the survival of these early humans as they expanded their home ranges to include coastlines. And given that about 77% of the population in Southeast Asia lives by the coast and and 40% of the U.S. population lives in coastal counties. So elite, including 1 in 35Americans living in my city of Los Angeles, not that much has changed.

[Ben Halpern]

So compared to land based stuff, they have good aspects to them as well. But you're good to go on seafood and it's really good nutritionally. So farmed versus wild caught. Part of it is, I would say it's an access thing. I actually it depends on how the farmed fish is farmed. But one of the things that's great about aquaculture is it just makes it so much more accessible.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

How so?

[Ben Halpern]

Because you can grow more of it. You can grow it in places that make it easier to find and buy. Like you don't need to be next to a fishing port in order to access it. I mean, I know you can ship fish all over the place, but it just helps get more fish into your diet. And so I would say I would worry less about farmed versus wild caught in terms of the nutritional value and say just eat more fish.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Is there an issue with the carbon footprint of shipping fish from Norway or Scotland?

[Ben Halpern]

So this is one of the things. It took me a long time to get comfortable with this fact, but it's true that the whole food miles thing, like the emissions to transport food is a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions that come from food production. Oh, right, that's true. It doesn't make sense. But on land, like tractors, when they're fuel, and the emissions to make the fertilizers, that's where most of the emissions are for crops and livestock. Well, livestock, they fart and poo and stuff. So that's where most of the emissions come from, livestock. So yes, they are certainly a part of it. But flying fish sounds crazy, but it's not actually the main concern from a climate perspective. Obviously if you can get a local fish, that's great, but if you can't get it and you can get an imported fish I would say that's good too, because it's great for you nutritionally.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

And if you need an episode all about eating kelp and seaweed and farming it and getting it tattooed on your body, look no further than last week's macrophycology episode with five. Count of five ocean algae experts. We love seaweed for so many reasons. And there's no mowing down of rainforests.

[Ben Halpern]

Correct. Which.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Cool.

[Ben Halpern]

Well, except.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Except.

[Ben Halpern]

Oh, dear. Like I told you earlier, a lot of fish feed now has soy in it. So this is one of the, like, weird things about all food systems. Now. We actually feed anchovies and sardines wild caught fish to chickens and pigs. So we are feeding the ocean to our livestock.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Oh, weird.

[Ben Halpern]

Okay, so if you have a concern about feeding fish to fish, you should also have a concern about feeding fish to livestock. We do it. It's weird. The connection between land and sea goes the other way too. So we feed land crops to aquaculture fish, soy, or even wheat and gluten. These proteins that come from crops can be substituted into these feeds. But that means there are cases, depending on where the soybeans are being sourced from, that you could potentially be contributing to deforestation through farmed seafood because of the feed components at a way, way, way smaller amount than, for example, the beef industry.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Yeah, the one to eight on the beef.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah. Well, and also grazing. The big reason a lot of the rainforest is being cut down is to make grazing lands for beef, which is very inefficient.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Yeah. You mentioned something about airplanes dropping trout from news. To me, I was like, oh, I thought when you go trout fishing in a lake, that's because the lake has trout in it, they're stocked, spitting those out from airplanes, which, number one, how are the fish surviving the impact? But also, is that aquaculture if they've been growing the trout or hatching the trout?

[Ben Halpern]

This is such a good question.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

It kills me. I'm so curious.

[Ben Halpern]

So, yeah, they do drop fish. They stock most of the lakes in the mountains. So what is farmed and what is wild is not a black and white thing. It's a gradient. Actually, something like half of all wild salmon stocks in Alaska start their life in a hatchery. And so is that farming? I think, yes. Right. The whole idea of farming is at some point in the life stage of an organism, you are managing it, you're cultivating it. So, yeah, I think those trout that are being dropped in the lakes are farmed, basically. The wild salmon, many of them effectively have had part of their life Stage farmed. There's another great example in Maine. You know, the Maine lobster. There are so many traps put on the bottom to try to catch those lobsters that are baited with sardines and anchovies and other things to try to get the lobsters in. They pull them up. There's a bunch that are too small, they let them go. They pull them up, a bunch that are too small, they let them go. Most of those are effectively being fed by the bait in these lobster traps until they get to be large enough to be harvested. So we're kind of farming those too, even though people think of that as a wild caught fishery. Right.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Another organism that has done perhaps more skydiving than you are beavers who were relocated via parachute into habitats in the US in decades past. And that was discussed in our recent castorology episode, All About Beavers. Also alongside, what do beaver glands taste like? We tell you. So, yeah, here Ben and I gossiped about airdropped beavers for a while as Gremmy tried to eat their cat food.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah, so we drop a lot of things from airplanes, including fish.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

What about salmon canyons? What's up with that?

[Ben Halpern]

Salmon canyons.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Cannons.

[Ben Halpern]

Oh, cannons. Oh, yes. They're amazing. I've got to see them. But a device called the salmon cannon. That's not a joke. Can now help get more fish over.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Water barriers while speeding up the process.

[Ben Halpern]

Of separating the wild from the hatched. It's basically how you move fish from one place to another. They do it for other fish, too. I've seen them for, like, moving from one holding tank to another. They'll put them through pipes or they'll shoot them through these, like cannons. It's. It's phenomenal.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Like mnemonic tubes like they would have at the banks in the 80s.

[Ben Halpern]

Yes.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Nuts. I meant pneumatic. Please don't scream at me into your windshield. Some people. Sheepurple Deborah Gray Mouse Paxton, Her Ladyship Jen Chuck Merriam, Dana Hart Han the Bee. And Amanda wanted to know, in sheepurples words, home aquaculture possible. Is this, like, if you're down with eating koi or, like, what can you do there? Sea monkeys, can you eat those? I don't know.

[Ben Halpern]

Sea monkeys are tiny. Nothing to eat there. But yeah, I mean, people definitely do. Backyard aquaculture, a lot of it is actually being encouraged in developing countries as a way for people to kind of grow their own seafood in a way that provides a really nutritious food. So, yeah, you can make a pond in your backyard and stock it with tilapia, it's going to be almost certainly a freshwater species. So tilapia, something like that or catfish, and they eat almost anything. So it's actually quite easy to grow those. Like you can stick chickens over them. And so there's ways to grow them that are quite easy and you don't need a lot of them to get more fish than you probably know what to do with. And so, yeah, that's like fish ponds like that for sure. Marine species, not so much. If you live near the coast and you are lucky enough to have coastal property, then yeah, you could stick some stakes out in the intertidal and catch seaweed or you can hang a few mussel or oyster lines out there and grow for sure you need to get permits for that because it's not your own property. So that gets into another level. But yeah, there's ways of growing backyard aquaculture for sure.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Some of you needed oyster questions answered. You are patrons. Erin Marks, Tom Boudre, Kelly Shaver, Brian G. Lamarena, Thorpasaurus Jess And Boston based Jacqueline Church, who asked oysters, champions of sustainable seafood, how are they farmed the ropes for oysters? Let's say do they glue little baby oysters or do oysters just find it and say love this rope?

[Ben Halpern]

No, no, they stick them on there.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

They do, yeah.

[Ben Halpern]

So they take the little sprat, the little babies and they like stick. I don't know if it's glue or something like that.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

They do use types of glue, but they can also give baby oyster larvae, old oyster shells to attach to since they're wired to want to hang out in parties. So the spatial, the little babies will attach to the outside bones of their.

[Ben Halpern]

Ancestors and then they'll have their own little threads that they will bind on there as they grow. So they have to get them going and then they can stick them out.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay. I was wondering, I'm like, is it. If you hang it, they will come. But a few people, first time question ask Chadsey and Jesse Thompson as well as Rachel and Kathleen Ragovich wanted to know workforce. Kathleen asked, how do you become and aquaculturist? And Jesse said, I heard kelp farming is going to be big. Yeah. Meg wants to know how are you getting into it?

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah, well, this is like I was saying earlier, one of the things that's so exciting about aquaculture is so much of it is actually small scale, like mom and pop type stuff. I mean, I don't think you're going to get into the mega salmon farms kind of thing unless you've got a lot of money, but actually a lot of the small scale aquaculture folks are doing oysters or mussels or kelp or seaweeds because it's quite easy to do them at small scales. And then if you get good at it, you can start to grow. So a lot of coastal states have basically workforce development programs around aquaculture where you can do internships. It's really big in Maine right now and some of the southeast. California doesn't have so much of it. But actually here in Santa Barbara, they're spinning up a whole blue economy training kind of program that will include aquaculture. So, like there's not a whole school for it, but there are programs scattered around the country and there's communities growing up around that that are supportive. It's a really exciting space. A lot of it is young people, which is great. A lot of fishermen are old. A lot of aquaculture farmers are young. Well, so, yeah, it's a good way to meet people too.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I mean, and it's the one job I feel like AI can't take over right now, which is good. Naomi Jane said, I read a lot of sci fi and seaweed tends to be the post meat dystopian Earth choice of nutrition. How likely is this and should we aim for it as a worst case scenario? Is it like, hey, we're trending that way.

[Ben Halpern]

It does not have everything you need. So no, you're going to need something. Yeah. Soylent Green, like in order to get the full complement of nutrients you need. Soylent Green is made out of people, but it is great. I mean, seaweed is fantastic. Again, if you care about the omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids that you eat fish for, they're hyper concentrated in seaweed because that's where it starts. Right. So you get a super boost of it from eating seaweeds. They just don't have a lot of the other proteins and some of the micronutrients that fish have. And so it'll never be the only thing we can eat, but it would be amazing if more people ate seaweed. It's super sustainable. It's healthy as a component. It's actually way healthier than like lettuce or a lot of our leafy greens. And so if you want to sprinkle it on a salad or something like that or any food, it's a great way to complement your diet with super nutritious food that's environmentally sustainable.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I take vitamins that have omega 3s, but they're vegan. And I was like, how do they do that?

[Ben Halpern]

There you go.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

It's algae. It's algae oil. And I was like, how'd they get these Omegas in here? There you go.

[Ben Halpern]

They start there.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Just a shout out to ritual. But from my guts to your world, let's ask the big question on the minds of patrons, Neal Greenstein, Meg Chadsey, the seaweed lady, and first time question asker Leo Chang. And Chris Lipford, who asked, to put it lightly, how fucked are we as a planet from climate change and can you save us? Climate change. Saving the planet because I met you as a fellow working in public outreach about climate, aquaculture, climate benefits.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah. So it is not a way to really mitigate climate change because it's just not sequestering enough carbon. But if you genuinely can commit to taking beef and pork out of your diet and replacing it with seafood, which is hard for a lot of people, but if you can do that, that is a huge contribution to reducing climate emissions. Livestock animals is just one of the major sources of climate emissions. So it's not going to directly fight climate change, but indirectly, if you as an individual make that choice, can help. And so it's great for that Climate change is affecting where you can grow things. So the way I actually think about it in my research is how do we develop strategies for placing aquaculture in the ocean to be resilient to climate change as it happens because different species are more or less adapted to warmer or colder water and you need to be planning for that.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Yeah, biggest soapbox you want to climb up on with one of those bullhorns, like, aquaculture. This is not your mom's aquaculture. This is not your grandfather's aquaculture.

[Ben Halpern]

That is my big soapbox is like, rethink aquaculture. Just pause and take some time to learn a little bit more about it. It's not what. Well, I don't know what you think it is, but it was not what I thought it was. And I feel like I've just transformed my whole approach to my diet, to my science, to my lifestyle based on learning more about what it is now compared to what it used to be. It's a completely different thing. It's not perfect. There are some bad actors out there, but in general it's a really great solution to our food, our nutrition and our planet.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Again, if you just can't go plant based or you're looking to transition to a more plant based eating style, I'm not the boss of your mouth. I'm just here to provide information. Has your doctor weighed in and been like, hey, since you cut out bof and pork, you're looking for your lipids. Looking pretty good.

[Ben Halpern]

Well, this is a testimony on the healthcare system. It's so hard for me to get my annual physical. This drives me crazy. But when I shifted to pescatarianism, like within a month, I lost five or seven pounds. Oh, yeah, so. So, yeah.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

I imagine public facing stuff is difficult to convince people that things are changing in this realm. What is the hardest part of studying aquaculture?

[Ben Halpern]

I think mostly it's just this pervasive sense, both in the public and in the scientific community that I work with, that it's not a good thing. It's changing for sure, but it's a slow change. And so, yeah, but I'm happy to stand on my soapbox with my bullhorn. That's my. Like the thing that I still kind of swim upstream against is God. Rim shot. See if I can come up with some other ones.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Whole can of worms.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah. It's a constant battle, but I'm gonna fight it. Favorite thing about what?

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Not this interview, but your favorite thing.

[Ben Halpern]

About Google is like sitting here with you. It's great.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

You're like when your dog comes up and. And interrupts and tries to scratch my antique leather chair. So it's pretty cool.

[Ben Halpern]

Favorite thing about?

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

About aquaculture.

[Ben Halpern]

Working in it. Favorite thing about aquaculture, I think, is the diversity of the whole practice. I mean, I think you see this in small scale agriculture, farming as well. There's just so many individual farms and crops that people are growing and ways they're doing it and individuals and people behind that. And it's the same with aquaculture. Like I said, there's hundreds if not thousands of species that are being grown and every farmer is doing something different. And just learning about all that and seeing it and thinking about the potential of it for changing the way we exist with our planet is exciting.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

This has been super eye opening. And maybe we'll get some oysters after this. One of my favorite foods some listeners know about this is canned oysters. Canned smoked oysters, which are. I have to eat them when Jarrett is out of town or not coming home for a while. And then I have to make sure to like rinse the sink out because he finds them vile. And this is a man who could subsist on like a hot dog casserole if he had to. But yeah, smoked oysters, they're okay.

[Ben Halpern]

Yeah, absolutely. Good for you. Good for the planet. Go for it.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

They're my favorite hobo food. They're so good. Thank you for doing this.

[Ben Halpern]

Oh thanks for coming up.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

You're the best. So ask aquatically minded people some foggy brained questions because you never know unless you question. And Bell Halford, thank you so much for being on Ologies and making us think more deeply about how we're fueling our cells. Dr. Helfern's lab is linked in the Show Notes as is the charity of the week. We have a ton of links and research on our show [e-mail] Ologies Aquacultureecology which is linked in the show notes too. We are at Ologies on Blue sky and Instagram and I'm Allie Ward with one L on both. We have shorter kid friendly and G rated episodes called and those are linked in the show notes or you can subscribe for free wherever you get Podcasts to Smallogies. Ologies Merch is available at ologiesmerch.com Erin Talbert admins our Ologies podcast Facebook group Avileen Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly R. Dwyer does the website. Noelle Dilworth is our scheduling producer and had to reschedule a donkey expert for me three times this week. Thank you for that. I love her. Susan Hale is our magnificent managing director and the big fish in our small pond are editors Jake Chaffee and Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. We are lucky to have all those folks. Nick Thorburn made the professional theme music and if you stick around until the end of the episode, I tell you a secret. I burden you with something about my life. One secret is that this episode has made me eat less meat and more veggies. So thank you Ben. Also, I'm on a road trip with your podmother. What do we say? Don't worry about it. And our daughter Gremlin. We're going from Portland back to LA and I was writing and researching this while in the car because we've been in the car for like 30 hours and I had some anti nausea pills. They're called Zofran, left over from a hysterectomy I had last year and if I if I could bear children I would name them all Zofran. It works so well. But also we are driving through the Redwood National Forest. Let me tell you the windiest roads on a cliff's edge for hours they're honestly with no cell signal the world's worst place to telecommute. And here we are. We're like maybe I could work while we Road trip. We picked quite a doozy, but here we are. We did it. It's 11pm on a Tuesday night. This episode is supposed to go up in an hour. Look at me. I'm still recording it. Also, about an hour ago, the news said that maybe the US Is about to go to war with Iran. So you know what, my friends, Y' all are my family. I'm having a mark. I'm finishing up while I'm having a margarita and I'm urging you. Text your crush. Who gives a fuck? Cut the bangs. Take the scenic route home. Wear those fancy shoes you don't want to scuff. Go swimming without a bikini wax. We're all going to die. We're all going to be so dead. Maybe soon, maybe later. And you might as well just enjoy the opportunity that you have at your literal feet. So be good to each other. Be good to the critters. Okay, bye. Bye. Pachydermatology, Homeology, Cryptozoology, Lithology, Nanotechnology, Meteorology, Cold Factology, Mathology, Serology, Selenology.

[Ben Halpern]

The world is your oyster and I your concierge.

[Tanks]

What's up, podcast listeners? It's Tanks, host of the It's Me Tanks podcast. Join me weekly on It's Me Tanks as I dive into topics like relationships, why it's okay to feel lonely, fighting, summer comparison, and pop culture's hottest takes. I don't shy away from getting candid about my personal experiences, and I want to share all the advice I have learned with you. I'm even joined by some of my friends like Claudia Ashre, Connor Wood, and Amanda Hirsch each Friday for our new Office Hours episodes. You can listen to It's Me Tanks every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss an episode.

[A.L.I.E. Ward]

Okay, one more secret for you. My garbage isn't stinky. If you're, like, impossible and why are you bragging? It's not me. It's because I have a mill food recycler. You can take your food scraps and your leftover food, your vegetable peelings, whatever. You walk over to the mill, you drop it in. It always reminds me of that scene at the end of Back to the Future where Doc is just putting stuff in the car. It's like that, but for food scraps. You put it in there while you sleep, it dehydrates and churns them up. You can fill it for weeks and it doesn't smell. And it also keeps leftovers out of my garbage so that my garbage doesn't smell or get juicy, which is what you don't want your garbage to be. So it transforms your scraps into these nutrient rich grounds. They look like coffee grounds. You can put them in the garden, you can put them in your compost mil can even get them to a farm for you. There's no mess, there's no stress. And it keeps food waste out of the landfills so it can't create a ton of methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas. So mill makes it easy to do something good. And you can get $75 [e-mail] ologies that's mill.com ologies.