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Fish feed in aquaculture, understanding what goes into feeding farmed fish · How To Protect The Ocean

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  I've talked about aquaculture before on this podcast, but I've never really
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  talked about what farm fish actually eat.
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  It turns out that the fish feed is far more complicated than I ever imagined,
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  and in this episode, I'm joined by a friend of mine and marine biologist
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  Marine Cusa, who's uncovering the hidden ingredients inside fishmeal and fish oil.
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  Today we explore the complexities of how the food we give to farm fish
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  connects to wild fisheries, local communities in West Africa, and even
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  the health of Penguins in Antarctica.
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  We're gonna talk about all that on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find
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  out what's happening with the ocean, how you could speak up for the
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  ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
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  On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about something that I
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  don't normally talk about and that's aquaculture, but aquaculture where we're
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  talking about the food that we feed.
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  The fish that are being aquacultured.
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  So it's the food that is being given to eat by the fish
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  that we farm in aquaculture.
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  It's a subject matter that I don't get to talk about often because I don't know a
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  lot of people within this area, but Dr. Marine Cusa, who's a good friend of mine
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  and a marine biologist and a Pew Marine fellow is actually here to talk about that
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  because she heard the podcast, she's been listening to the podcast for a long time
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  last time we got together, she's like, Andrew, we've got to talk about this.
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  And that's what we're here to talk about.
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  And a lot of things is to bring up topics that you don't normally get to hear about.
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  And I think that's really important.
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  Speaking of which, as you know, I've been crowdfunding for a podcast on
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  seagrass, a little bit different from aquaculture, but on sea grass so that
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  we can talk about seagrass research,
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  conservation and restoration all in one podcast, and connect researchers together
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  who are doing research, and might be a little disconnected from each other just
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  because of geography and just because not everybody can talk to everybody.
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  We're trying to bring the community together.
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  We're trying to bring out just the topics that are very important to seagrass and
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  a podcast called The Seagrass Effect is gonna be started once this crowdfunding
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  campaign reaches its goal of 15,000 euro.
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  You can fund, help fund this podcast because the one thing that I believe is
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  that podcast is for the people and it's for you, the audience member who wants
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  to hear about seagrasses, who wants to hear about conservation and research
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  of topics that you never really hear happen in the ocean on a regular basis.
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  And that's what we're gonna be doing with sea grass.
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  So if you go to speak up for blue.com.
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  Slash seagrass, that's speak up for blue.com/seagrass and you can donate to
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  my project through the Balean platform.
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  It is hundred percent safe.
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  It is great.
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  It's a new organization that just launched and we launched our program and
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  I can't wait to get this podcast started.
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  And if you do end up donating, please reach out to me.
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  I'd love to hear from you.
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  And let me know why you donated and what you're looking forward to.
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  So thank you so much for that.
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  Let's get into our show, Dr. Marine Cusa is here.
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  We've talked about doing a podcast together.
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  We actually have done a podcast 'cause she's back.
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  We did a podcast on Seaspiracy, and talking about how bad that movie was
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  for understanding fisheries and the true things that are happening to fisheries
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  that are causing overfishing, that are causing fisheries, slaves, and so forth.
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  And, not thinking or listening to what was in that awful, awful movie,
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  but she's here today to talk about fish feed, fish meal, and fish oil.
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  Those are very different things, which she explains in this podcast, and it
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  really helps take away the complexities of what this actually is what this
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  feeding fish for aquaculture actually is.
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  And I know aquaculture is a controversial topic, but this is something that we
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  need to talk about because just like in wild fisheries, there's a lack of
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  transparency within the whole fish feed business and we need to find out what
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  actually make up this fish feed, this fish meal, this fish oil, and also
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  where they're coming from and how it's affecting the local communities of where
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  that fish population is being fished, how that's affecting the local communities.
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  And we're gonna find out all that on today's episode with Marine.
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  So here's the interview with Marine Cusa.
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  Enjoy and I'll talk to you after.
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  Thank you Marine for joining us on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  This was a lot of fun.
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  I really like when we can talk about a topic where somebody knows so much
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  about that topic as Marine does, and be able to just break it down for
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  me as well as for you and just to be like, Hey, this is what's happening.
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  It's a very interesting story where there's a lot of like dips and curves
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  of what's happening and how people are getting around and how people just
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  don't know what's in the fish feed that actually feed the aquaculture fish
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  that we eventually eat and how it's affecting local populations where they
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  get the fish that make up the fish feed.
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  That's right.
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  I will not say that again because I have no idea if I'd
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  be able to do that that quickly.
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  But that's what's really happening and I just love how there are people like
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  Marine who are following this, who are doing research on this, who are looking
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  at genetic testing just to find out what fish are in a lot of the fish feed.
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  And we're gonna find out the results because we're gonna be doing a series
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  of this and following Marine's research throughout her time doing it.
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  Being able to understand the industry of fish feed in the
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  present and in the future.
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  So this is gonna be really great to really unravel.
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  I'm looking forward to it.
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  Did I ever think I was gonna do an episode on this podcast when
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  I started this 10 years ago about fish meal or fish feed or fish oil?
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  absolutely not.
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  I did never thought of that.
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  But now it's interesting.
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  It's interesting because a storyteller as great as Marine is here to tell
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  this story, but she's also here to research it, do genetic testing and
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  find out the proportions as well as what type of fish are in this fish food.
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  So that's very, very exciting.
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  If you have any questions or comments on this, please let
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  me know in the comments below.
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  That's, if you're watching this on YouTube.
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  If you're listening to this through your audio podcast, all you have to
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  do is go to how to protect the Ocean
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  on Instagram that's at How to Protect the Ocean.
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  DM me or you can email me by going to Speak up for blue.com/contact.
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  Fill out the form and it goes right to my personal email.
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  I'll answer you as soon as I can.
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  I wanna thank Marine in for joining us and giving us all that information.
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  Thank you for joining us and listening and for supporting the podcast.
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  And don't forget if you go speak up for blue.com/you can support the launching of
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  a new podcast called The Seagrass Effect.
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  All things Seagrass.
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  Conservation research and restoration.
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  I can't wait to bring that to you.
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  Until next time, I wanna thank you for joining me on this episode of
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  the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True North Strong and Free.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.