This article was first published in the July 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
Aquaculture is fast becoming the main way that humans get their seafood fix. But fish aren't cattle; they don't turn passive when cooped up. So Trine Thorvaldsen is studying how to keep farmed fish from escaping. A health and safety expert, Thorvaldsen has been working for a Norwegian research institute, trying to figure out why her country loses around 200,000 captive salmon per year. (These escapees can wreak havoc on their wild brethren, polluting gene pools and spreading pathogens.) Her discovery: often it's not the fault of the fish-farming gear but the people using it. "There was one instance in which fish were being pumped from one cage to another, but the workers didn't realise there was no net to keep them," Thorvaldsen says; by the time anyone noticed the mistake, 13,000 salmon had swum away. A more common error is for service boats to tear nets with their cranes or propellers.
Thorvaldsen believes that one key to reducing the number of "fishbreaks" is for the aquaculture industry to make its tools more user-friendly -- she points out, for example, that crane operators need a better way to monitor how their joystick-controlled tools perform underwater. But Thorvaldsen also wants farm managers to ease up on workers. "We've had a lot of workers say, 'We are under a lot of pressure: we have to do things fast; we have to deliver the fish when the boat's there,'" Thorvaldsen says. Her changes might help fix all that -- which should satisfy everyone but the fish.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
