Don: Catching trash fish to 'feed' fish farms not sustainable

A fisherman with a big haul of trash fish at the Sungai Udang jetty in Nibong Tebal ready for transport to fish farms for use as feed. (Right) Fishing boats in Sungai Udang like this use purse seine nets that surround entire schools of fish. — Photos by MUSTAFA AHMAD/The Star

LONG ago, the rich ate chicken and the not-so-rich ate fish, said marine biologist Prof Zulfigar Yasin.

“Today, the rich are eating fish and the poor can only afford chicken.

“Ask any housewife about the price of fish in the market now. Someday, seafood may be something for only the super rich,” he said.

The professor’s melancholic answer came after he was shown photographs of tonnes of trash fish in Kampung Sungai Udang Besar, a fishing village in south Seberang Prai, just 5km from the Perak-Penang border.

Tens of tonnes of trash fish are sold here daily as feed for about 200 open-sea fish farms anchored about 5km away.

You can see the farms on your left when you drive towards Penang island along the Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah Bridge.

A fishmonger holding up a giant grouper reared in one of the open sea fish farms 5km away from the jetty.

Trash fish (ikan baja in Malay) refers to by-catches of undersized or inedible fish of low market value and consumer preference. These fishes are incidentally caught by fishermen on their daily trips.

They used to be discarded because fishermen could not be bothered to burden their boats with unwanted fish on their return trips. But the trash fish price in Sungai Udang is now RM1 per kg.

“I must wake up at 5am every day to wait for trash fish. I try to buy two tonnes every day.

“If I am late and other fish farmers beat me to it, I will have to feed my fish with expensive pellet feed,” said an open sea fish farmer who wished to be known only as Teoh.

His farm produces about 200 tonnes of fish like snappers (jenahak and ikan merah) and pompano (bawal emas) each year.

He said pellet feed was about RM3,000 per tonne, so trash fish was a cheaper alternative.

At the floating fish farm, the trash fish will be ground up and fed to the fish stocks.

Fishmongers at the Sungai Udang fishing jetty scaling and cleaning farmed fish ordered by restaurants.

A close look at the baskets of trash fish waiting in the Sungai Udang jetty recently revealed that mixed with small, bony fish were fingerlings of commercially desirable fish such as threadfin (senangin), catfish (duri), croakers (gelama) and scads (selar and cencaru).

Prof Zulfigar said fishermen would catch tonnes of small fish while looking for big fish, whether with trawling nets or purse seines (wall of netting that surrounds schools of fish).

“There are regulations about the nets’ mesh sizes, but enforcement is difficult since there are so many fishermen going out daily,” he said.

He warned that catching trash fish to support aquaculture was not a sustainable practice.

“You cannot go on taking without paying. Trash fish is the food source of big fish and the demand from fish farms seriously disrupts the food chain in the sea.

“When the disruption hits a point of no return and the brood stock disappears, even trash fish will become a prized commodity,” he warned.

Prof Zulfigar, who is from Universiti Sains Malaysia, said there must be alternative feed sources to be developed locally and no-fishing seasons must be strictly enforced.

“But it will be easier said than done. Industrial scale alternative feed production is expensive and it will be hard to enforce fishing seasons. This problem is going to get worse.”

According to the 2013 World Wildlife Fund assessment report on Malaysian fisheries, trash fish landings on the west coast of the peninsula was almost 200,000 tonnes in 2009, 325% more than in 1970.

The proportion of trash fish in overall landings went up from 19% in 1970 to 26% in 2009.