Yale Environment 360 presented recently an interesting article on current debates on wildlife farming. An enormous range of species are now being farmed -- 185 species in Vietnam alone. But there's increasing evidence that the most common justification for farming "wild" species -- to protect them from the effects of overharvesting for the bushmeat, medicinal, fur, skin, or exotic pet trade (among other uses) -- may not hold up under close examination. Among other concerns, farm-raised animals and fish can be more expensive than those caught in the wild, and so they don't displace the demand for them in the marketplace. Farmers also often still replenish their stocks with wild captures.
Reading this article, I was struck by how these issues resonate here in Canada: in debates about wild vs. farmed salmon, for example; and more recently, in debates about a proposal to create a huge enclosure for caribou in Alberta -- in effect, ranching caribou on a grand scale. (Itself a striking update on the nearly century-long history of attempts to herd reindeer in northern Canada.)
It's interesting how the farming of salmon and of caribou share at least two themes. One is the collision between farming and concerns about the wild "identity" of these species: for many people, it just doesn't feel "right" to raise these species in captivity. The second is the role of farming as a substitute for actions not otherwise considered politically or economically feasible, particularly preserving habitat for wild species. I suppose this is a tension inherent in the tendency to use a "solution" such as farming in order to avoid other, perhaps more difficult choices -- a tendency as persistent as any in environmental history.
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