“Farming The Sea For Fish Food Possible”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29588, 10 August 1961, Page 19

“Farming The Sea For Fish Food Possible”

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, August 9. Man might one day farm fishing grounds to increase the supply of food for fish to live on, according to a world authority on sea life, Sir Alister Hardy, at present visiting Dunedin. “A Danish scientist has estimated that fish only get about 2 per cent, of the food available In the sea and other animals eat the rest. I think that’s a bit exaggerated, but one day, just as man rolls and harrows the land, he might use a stairfish eradicator on the sea bed," Sir Alister Hardy said. “But I’m looking several hundred years ahead. At the moment, man is still a hunter in the sea. I think it would be a pity to interfere with nature too much by destroying animals which compete with fish, but it may be necessary. “The sea is not a limitless food supply and many areas are overfished. In New Zealand, however, I’m sure there is tremendous scope for development.” Plankton Distribution Sir Alister Hardy’s chief interest and the one which

enabled his visit to New Zealand is plankton, the tiny sea creatures which form fish and whale food. His present researches, carried out as professor of the Zoology Department Museum of Oxford University, have developed a new machine for plotting the concentration and distribution of plankton in the sea. “We will produce charts like weather maps of areas with high and low production of plankton—vital information for fisheries. Plankton are the link between fisheries and the oceanographic data of currents, tides, water temperatures and salinity. We hope to be able to make forecasts like weather forecasts of fish concentrations,” Sir Alister Hardy said.