EDOARDO GIACOVAZZO – This time the coronavirus has nothing to do with it, it is not the pandemic that has brought down the morale of our fish fauna, but more. In fact, the theme of this article is the intensive exploitation that our friends with gills undergo. Like all large-scale productions, animals do not have many living spaces to live, so they survive in unhealthy conditions. According to the FAO, around 90% of fish worldwide are overfished (33.1%) or fished at the limit of sustainability (59.9%). By 2030, the production of fish and seafood is expected to exceed 200 million tons.

What do antidepressants have to do with it then? Intensive non-eco-sustainable fish farming limits the survival of fish for various reasons: lack of oxygen, antibiotics, parasites, bacteria, overcrowding and lacerations. Under these dire circumstances, fish animals begin to eat less feed or even fast.

The use of antidepressants is introduced to improve the mood of poor aquatic animals, which after administration resume feeding. Feed or fish meal are another sore point to be treated: farmers are forced to use ready-made food in fish farming to reduce costs and optimize production. This topic will be dealt with in more detail in the next article given its great importance, in consideration of the emergency created by the continuous increase in the demand for fish in the world.

These environments in which fish or other fish species are forced to live are so unhealthy and over-exploited and we can compare them to those in which other animals live in cages (eg chickens); they get sick and parasites are transmitted to each other, as evidenced by several cases of epidemics. Given these observations, pandemics return more than ever in this story, becoming the protagonists of a world that must change course. The only way available is only eco-sustainability!