Vox’s Future Excellent takes pleasure in being one of many high locations in media for constant, rigorous, ethically clear-eyed protection of one of many greatest tales of our time — the mass manufacturing of billions of animals for meals on manufacturing facility farms.
However there’s arguably a good greater, much more uncared for story hidden inside that one. Though people increase and slaughter about 80 billion land animals yearly, we use much more — orders of magnitude extra — fish and different aquatic animals for meals, with most estimates someplace within the a whole bunch of billions and even trillions yearly. And the best way these animals make it to our plates is altering quickly: As of 2022, most of the fish that people eat aren’t caught wild from the ocean however raised on fish farms, that are so merciless they’ve been broadly dubbed by animal welfare advocates as “underwater manufacturing facility farms.”
However that is about extra than simply numbers. Contemplate that the best way we catch and farm fish has huge implications for the oceans that cowl the overwhelming majority of the Earth, and due to this fact for the way forward for life on Earth. And its affect will solely proceed to develop: Fish farming, also called aquaculture, stays the fastest-growing agricultural sector globally.
So, this yr, we determined to commit a mission to the mysterious, secretive, under-covered world of fish and the people who use them. We think about the evolving societal narratives that form which animals are seen as edible, worthwhile, or worthy of compassion — from humanity’s try to quickly cultivate salmon (an animal that, within the wild, migrates alongside epic journeys of a whole bunch of miles) and confine them to cramped farms, to the charming philosophical and moral foundations of the debate over whether or not fish really feel ache, to the case for taking shrimp severely as ethical topics (sure, actually).
Spanning textual content tales, podcasts, and video, Consuming the Ocean represents a few of our deepest protection of fish and fish farming but — and it’d simply problem you to rethink the whole lot you understand concerning the misunderstood aquatic creatures that populate most of our planet. Test again for extra tales within the coming months.
The tales on this sequence are supported by Animal Charity Evaluators, which acquired a grant from EarthShare. Vox Media had full discretion over the content material of this reporting.
—Marina Bolotnikova, deputy editor, Future Excellent
