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Wild Fish, Whales and Sea Turtles Could Pay the Price for Rushed Offshore Aquaculture
Final signature count: 103
103 signatures toward our 30,000 goal
Sponsor: Free The Ocean
NOAA is deciding right now where to put industrial fish farms in U.S. waters — and the science review can't come after the damage.
The federal government is moving forward with plans to designate new Aquaculture Opportunity Areas in U.S. federal waters — zones where industrial-scale fish farms could operate miles offshore. The goal is more domestic seafood, less pressure on wild stocks, greater food security. Those are real and worthy aims. But the environmental record of large-scale marine fish farming raises hard questions that demand independent answers before permits are issued.
What Goes Into the Water Doesn't Stay Put
Industrial net pens pack thousands of fish into a confined space. Waste, uneaten feed, antibiotics, and pesticides sink to the seafloor and spread into surrounding water. This nutrient loading depletes oxygen and degrades benthic habitat — the seafloor communities that anchor broader marine ecosystems.1 The same analysis raised concerns about antibiotic resistance spreading beyond the farms themselves into the wider marine environment.1
Escapes Happen — and They Have Consequences
Farmed fish breach net pens during storms, through equipment failures, and during routine handling. These animals are often selectively bred and genetically distinct from wild populations. When they escape and interbreed with native fish, they can weaken wild gene pools over generations and compete directly for food and habitat.
The promise that aquaculture relieves pressure on wild fisheries also breaks down under scrutiny. Many farmed carnivorous species — salmon, tuna, cod — are fed fish meal and fish oil made from wild-caught forage fish. Harvesting those small schooling fish at industrial scale removes a critical link from the food web that marine mammals, seabirds, and larger predators all depend on.2
Empty on a Map Doesn't Mean Empty
Offshore areas that appear open often overlay critical migration and feeding corridors for whales, sea turtles, and other protected species. Anchoring systems, mooring lines, and operational noise introduce hazards that maps don't capture. Net pens can also alter local current patterns, affecting water quality and sediment dynamics well beyond the farm's physical footprint.
Coastal fishing communities — families who have worked these waters for generations — face economic and cultural disruption when large-scale offshore operations compete for space and degrade the water quality their livelihoods depend on.
Get the Science Right Before the Damage Is Done
NOAA is deciding right now where these Aquaculture Opportunity Areas will go. That decision will shape the health of U.S. ocean ecosystems for decades. New areas must be sited only where rigorous, independent environmental analysis shows that industrial fish farming will not threaten wild fish populations, marine mammals, water quality, sensitive habitat, or the coastal communities tied to healthy oceans.
Sign the petition today and tell NOAA: independent environmental review must come before permits are granted — not after the damage is done.
