SLA Biomedical & Life Sciences Division Blog

Southerners In The Stroke Belt Eat A Lot of Fried Fish And Have A Lot Of Strokes: Is It The Fish? The Frying Of It? Both? Neither? Or Actually Not a Bad Choice of A Meal Compared to Common Southern Alternatives?

 

Clinical researchers (AHRQ 1998, Borhani 1965, Clinical Advisor for Nurse Practitioners 2006 ) have long been calling much of the Southeastern United States, including  Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi,  (and more recently East Texas-----see Ramshaw 2011) as part of a stroke belt, and the medical literature has long used the term “the Stroke Belt Buckle” for both North & South Carolina and Georgia.  

But now, stories in the New York Times (Rabin 2009) and USA Today (Brophy Marcus 2010) , have heightened public awareness of that Stroke Belt & Belt Buckle, particularly with regard to the eating of fried fish (Bakalar 2011) as possibly a contributing dietary factor.

Are Stroke Belt Dwellers Not Getting Enough Fish-Provided Omega-3 Fatty Acids?

The key study (Nahab et al 2011) places no clear cut blame on any particular type of fish, but suggests that  of the 21,675 study participants,  only 5,022 ate the recommended two servings per week of fish high in omega-3 fatty acids, a nutraceutical associated with good cardiovascular health.

 

By this,  the authors imply that the majority of Southerners were  not eating  fish like mackerel, herring, salmon (coldwater ocean-going species for the most part, which were cited as examples of fish one should eat to obtain omega-3s). This is not surprising since none are particularly common to Southern cuisine, nor are they quite as available in supermarkets,  and in the case of salmon, not  as affordable relative to alternative fish.

Additionally one feature of those Southerners  with a higher rate of stroke was that many had two or more servings of other fried fish not so notably rich in omega-3s.  

Where  are Stroke Belt Dwelling Fried Fish Eaters Eating Their Fried Fish Meals?

To most people in the Stroke Belt ( I now count myself among their numbers)  it would seem  important for any study to be more definitive to distinguish between home-cooked and restaurant-cooked, in determining which fish are most likely to be involved in any study implicating fried fish, although it is not clear that the authors  did this with the survey instrument that they used. The reason that "where the fish is typically eaten",  is important is that both the type of fish and the type of frying vary, sometimes dramatically between home-cooked and restaurant-cooked, here in the South.

Are The Freshwater Fish Favored By Those In the Stroke Belt Somehow at Fault?

 Home-cooked fish in the South means predominantly freshwater fish. First and foremost, it’s farm-raised catfish, then farm-raised tilapia, followed by sport-fished, wild-caught  crappie or bass. Along the Gulf Coast, home-cooked saltwater fish like red snapper is also common.

 Restaurant-cooked fish in the South vary further by whether one is eating at a large, generally nationwide chain, or at a locally-owned or regionally-concentrated operation.

The overall fisheries marketing consideration  here in the South (and actually increasingly for the rest of the US),   is that there is a strong preference among restaurant-goers for fish whose flesh is white and whose taste, unlike the taste of herring, mackerel, and sometimes salmon, is mild.  

Fishy tastes and oily, dark flesh do not sell well in the South, and indeed, have been bred out of today’s farm-raised catfish, one of the reasons for its sustained popularity. Unfortunately, perhaps, oily, dark-fleshed fish are usually very rich in omega-3s.

But The Stroke Belt is Not the Only Place in the Country Where Fried Fish Relatively Lower In Omega-3s is Frequently Eaten

The local/regional fish found in the restaurants of the Stroke Belt  are today overwhelmingly farmed catfish and farmed tilapia.

Wild-caught cod,  haddock, and pollock,  are sometimes available but are expensive and far more characteristic of homes and restaurants New England, New York, & New Jersey, than the South. (I lived my first 56 years in New England, so I know whereof I speak).

However, today’s restaurant pollock and haddock, whether served at local, regional, or national restaurants---- outside of the local, coastal New England market------  is  much more likely to come from Alaskan waters than from New England, today).

Judging from their corporate websites,  it is sometimes possible to sort trying to sort out which “mild, white fish” is used for larger restaurant chains. Given that “mild white fish” can vary quite a bit in terms of their omega-3 levels, it  ought to make a difference if it is the omega-3s that matter the most.

Unfortunately for our purposes in tacking down which fish was in the “fish-wich,” so to speak, many national chains,  particularly outside the South,  use a number of differing fish interchangeably without necessarily cueing the consumer.

 None of the following is to be taken as indicative of a lack of concern on the part of the restaurant chain for the wholesomeness of whatever fish it is. There is no proof that any of the species discussed is unsafe to eat, just that some fish have more omega-3s than others.

Denny’s appears to use an assortment of fish including pollock and “pangasius” (generally these are farmed catfish-like fish imported from Vietnam or the People’s Republic of China, but are not to be confused with the arguably much  more closely monitored, more  quality-controlled US farm-raised catfish.) Denny's also sometimes uses haddock.

Long John Silvers uses a similar variety of white, mild fish, but also include hake ( a relative of the cod family), and tilapia.

Wendy’s uses primarily cod.

Ruby Tuesdays uses the usual assortment of white fish, but has premium seafood entries that include farmed salmon and farmed trout. Of those, only the salmon and the trout would have notably higher omega-3 levels.

Are All Types of Frying Equally Bad, Assuming That It’s the Frying That’s the Problem?

The study’s authors  suggest that frying seems to reduce or destroy natural omega-3 levels in the fish. But there  is no indication if by "frying"  the authors mean deep-fat frying, like French fries and donuts, or pan-frying as in pork chops or bacon.

As a practical matter in Southern kitchens, most home-cooked fish is likely  to be shallow-pan-fried, and most restaurant fish is likely to be battered and deep-fat fried, although grilled fish is coming on strong, particularly at eat-in restaurants in national chains.

Do the Cooking Fats & Oils Matter More than the Fish Within Which They Were Fried?

In any case, if the infusion of oil caused by deep fat frying  is the culprit, then this should be explicitly mentioned or separately analyzed.

It should be understood, however, that battered and deep-fried fish probably has a lot less penetration of the cooking oil into the fish than might be imagined, because the oil, if sufficiently hot when the battered fish is placed in it, quickly seals off  the fish.  

Nor do we know which homes or restaurants use butter, lard, partially hydrogenated semi-solid shortening oils (similar to Crisco) or polyunsaturated oils in liquid form.

This is likely to be a significant matter since, at various times, a number of these fats have been implicated as being unhealthy for the heart, while others (typically olive oil, sunflower oil, and safflower oil and certain other more exotic types, are regarded as downright heart-healthy).

Omega-3 Levels vs. Arachidonic Acid Levels In Fish

There is, an as yet, unresolved debate as to whether eating some fish with lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids but possibly higher levels of a somewhat similar fatty acid, called arachidonic acid (ARA) is as “heart healthy” as eating only high omega-3 fish.

Some farmed fish, particularly catfish and tilapia, have a higher ratio of ARA to omega-3s. Some authors (Weaver et al. 2008) suggest that ARA may promote inflammatory responses within the body, and that may have some implications for cardiovascular disease processes, although the experimental animals on which this position is based is the African green monkey (Parks et al 1990)  whose physiology provides a  good, but scarcely infallible road map to likely human consequences.   

But other authors (Clandinin et al 2005) point out that ARA is demonstrably crucial to the development of infants and is actually added to infant formula.

Tests of significantly larger amounts of ARA in the diet of healthy adults showed no adverse consequences (Brenna & Diau 2007, Nelson et al 1997).

ARA seems to promote healthy immune responses (Kelley et al 1997)  and cell and tissue repair (Bonnans & Levy 2007).

In a study of Japanese fishermen, who not only ate fish, but were  given additional ARA  (Kusumoto et al 2007) there was some adverse blood and platelet chemistry, but this was a rather extreme situation.

 By extreme we mean that one would have to eat about five times as much US farm-raised tilapia, or eight times as much US farm-raised catfish, to get even close to the levels of ARA in the Japanese study (Nettleton 2008).

But this debate may be best resolved by a compromise suggested by Chilton (2008) one of the authors of the “fear of ARA ratios in some fish paper,” in answering a critique of that study. Perhaps, Chilton notes, there are simply certain people with chronic inflammatory diseases that might be specially advised to avoid certain fish, (or for purposes of our discussion, certain fish fried in some particular way), while the vast majority of people may eat fried fish gladly, particularly in preference to “bacon, hamburgers, or doughnuts.”

If Farmed Freshwater Fish Are the Problem, Can the Fish Be Farmed In A Different Way?

The answer is yes, if the fish  is actually the problem, which is by no means clear. Including certain dried algae (Menghe et al 2009) in catfish feed would improve their lipid profiles beneficially, but whether or not this is commercially feasible in an industry that already has problems with its feed costs (Stankus 2010) or if the supply of the dried algae is sufficient has not yet been determined.

What Factors, Other Than Fried Fish,  Might Be Involved in Making the Stroke Belt the Stroke Belt?

The answer is: There are so many posible confounding factors, in the study and in the Stroke Belt, that it would be hard to know when to stop counting.

Lower levels of education and income are also associated with the South and with strokes.

High blood pressure is associated with strokes and higher blood pressure is more common in the South.

Consumption of high saturated fats (particularly lard, pork, ham, bacon, etc.) is common in the South.

As is a high rate of diabetes, obesity, cigarette smoking, and salt consumption

Geography itself in some way, seems to play a persistent role in the incidence of stroke. People who are born in the South but live as adults in other parts of the country seem to have a persistently higher rate of stroke anyway (El-Saed & Kuller 2007, Glymour, Avendaño & Berkman 2007 ) and adults who were born and raised elsewhere who move to the South (much like myself) also have a raised probability of having a stroke (Glymour, Kosheleva & Boden-Albala 2009).

But we should not be too quick to blame somehow being in the Southern United States for causing strokes.

The US Stroke Belt is scarcely the only one in the world: Andalusia in Spain (Castilla Guerra, Del Fern & Marín-Martín 2010) has one of its own, and there is no evidence whatsoever that fried fish, farmed, freshwater, omega-3 poor or arachidonic acid high, has anything to do with it, even as many of the other factors discussed in the latter portion of this blog seem to come together, much as they do in the American South.  

Tony Stankus FSLA, [email protected] Life Sciences Librarian, Science Coordinator & Professor

University of Arkansas Libraries MULN 233 E

365 North McIlroy Avenue

Fayetteville AR 72701-4002

Voice: 479-409-0021

Fax: 479-575-4592

 

AHRQ. 1998. Southeast stroke belt has two to three times the rate of elevated blood pressure of other U.S. regions. 1998. AHRQ Research Activities (213) (02): 11-2.

Allen, Norrina B., Theodore R. Holford, Michael B. Bracken, Larry B. Goldstein, George Howard, Yun Wang, and Judith H. Lichtman. 2010. Trends in one-year recurrent ischemic stroke among the elderly in the USA: 1994-2002. Cerebrovascular Diseases 30 (5) (10): 525-32.

Bakalar, Nicholas. 2011. Diet: Fried fish is seen as a 'stroke belt' culprit. New York Times (01/04): 6.

Bonnans, C. & B.D. Levy. 2007. Lipid mediators as agonists for the resolution of acute lung inflammation and injury. American Journal of Respiration: Cellular & Molecular Biology 36: 201-205.

Brenna, J.T., & G.-Y. Diau. 2007. The influence of docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid on central nervous system polyunsaturated fatty acid composition. Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes & Essential Fatty Acids 77: 247-250.

Brenner, D. A., R. M. Zweifler, C. R. Gomez, B. M. Kissela, D. Levine, G. Howard, B. Coull, and V. J. Howard. 2010. Awareness, treatment, and control of vascular risk factors among stroke survivors. Journal of Stroke & Cerebrovascular Diseases 19 (4) (2010): 311-20.

Brophy Marchus, Mary. 2010 (December 23, 2010). Strokes deaths higher where there’s fried fish aplenty. USA Today,  Section: Life. p.4d.

Castilla Guerra, Luis, Carmen del Fern, and Jorge Marín-Martín. 2010. Factors explaining excess stroke prevalence: The Spanish stroke belt. Stroke; a Journal of Cerebral Circulation 41 (2) (02): e114.

Chilton, F.H. 2008. Authors response. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 108: 1831-1832.

Clandinin, M.T., J.E. Van Aerde, K.L. Merkel, et al. 2005. Growth and development of preterm infants fed infant formulas  containing docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid. Journal of Pediatrics 146: 461-468.

Cleary, J. D., M. Pearson, J. Oliver, and S. W. Chapman. 2008. Association between histoplasma exposure and stroke. Journal of Stroke & Cerebrovascular Diseases 17 (5) (2008): 312-9.

Clinical Advisor for Nurse Practitioners. United States still plagued with a "stroke belt". 2006. Clinical Advisor for Nurse Practitioners 9 (4) (04): 11.

 

Cushman, M., R. A. Cantrell, L. A. McClure, G. Howard, R. J. Prineas, C. S. Moy, E. M. Temple, and V. J. Howard. 2008. Estimated 10-year stroke risk by region and race in the United States: Geographic and racial differences in stroke risk. Annals of Neurology 64 (5) (11): 507-13.

Edelson, Ed. 2009. Birth in South raises stroke risk for life. Health Day Consumer News Service (12/01).

El-Saed, A., and L. H. Kuller. 2007. Is the stroke belt worn from childhood?: Current knowledge and future directions. Stroke; a Journal of Cerebral Circulation 38 (9) (09): 2415-21.

Glymour, M. M., A. Kosheleva, and B. Boden-Albala. 2009. Birth and adult residence in the stroke belt independently predict stroke mortality. Neurology 73 (22) (2009): 1858-65.

Goldstein, L. B., L. A. Hey, and R. Laney. 1998. North Carolina stroke prevention and treatment facilities survey: RtPA therapy for acute stroke. Stroke; a Journal of Cerebral Circulation 29 (5) (05): 1171-8.

Howard, Virginia J., Robert F. Woolson, Brent M. Egan, Joyce S. Nicholas, Robert J. Adams, George Howard, and Daniel T. Lackland. 2010. Prevalence of hypertension by duration and age at exposure to the stroke belt. Journal of the American Society of Hypertension: JASH 4 (1) (2010): 32-41.

Kelley, D.S., P.C. Taylor, G.J. Nelson et al. 1997. Effects of dietary arachidonic acid on human response. Lipids 32: 449-456.

Knox, M. L., and J. Nussbaum. 1998. South Carolina: In the middle of the stroke belt. South Carolina Nurse 5 (1) (1998): 16-8.

Kusumoto, A., Y. Ishikura, H. Kawashima et al. 2008. Effects of arachidonic-enriched triacylglycerols supplementation on serum fatty acids and platelet aggregation in healthy male subjects with a fish diet. British Journal of Nutrition 98: 626-635.

Liao, Y., K. J. Greenlund, J. B. Croft, N. L. Keenan, and W. H. Giles. 2009. Factors explaining excess stroke prevalence in the US stroke belt. Stroke; a Journal of Cerebral Circulation 40end_of_the_skype_highlighting (10) (10): 3336-41.

Maestre-Moreno, Jos. 2010. [Mortality in the Spanish 'stroke belt': Some key points in andalusia]. Revista De Neurologia 51 (6) (09/16): 383.

Manning, B. B., H. Li Menghe, E. H. Robinson, and B. C. Peterson. 2006. Enrichment of channel catfish (ictalurus punctatus) fillets with conjugated linoleic acid and omega-3 fatty acids by dietary manipulation. Aquaculture 261 (1) (01/01): 337-42.

Mary, Brophy Marcus. Date. Stroke deaths higher where there's fried fish aplenty. USA Today. 

Menghe, H. Li, E. H. Robinson, C. S. Tucker, B. B. Manning, and L. Khoo. 2009. Effects of dried algae schizochytrium sp., a rich source of docosahexaenoic acid, on growth, fatty acid composition, and sensory quality of channel catfish ictalurus punctatus. Aquaculture 292 (3-) (01/01): 232-6.

Meschia, J. F., P. Merrill, E. Z. Soliman, V. J. Howard, K. M. Barrett, N. A. Zakai, D. Kleindorfer, M. Safford, and G. Howard. 2010. Racial disparities in awareness and treatment of atrial fibrillation: The Reasons for geographic and racial differences in stroke (REGARDS) study. Stroke; a Journal of Cerebral Circulation 41end_of_the_skype_highlighting (4) (04): 581-7.

Nahab, F., A. Le, S. Judd, M. R. Frankel, J. Ard, P. K. Newby, and V. J. Howard. 2011. Racial and geographic differences in fish consumption: The REGARDS study. Neurology 76 (2) (01/11): 154-8.

Nelson, G.J., P.C. Schmidt, G. Bartolini et al. 1997. The effect of dietary arachidonic acid on platelet function, platelet fatty acid compositin, and blood coagulation in humans. Lipids 32: 421-425.

Nettleton, J.A. 2008. Concerning PUFA in fish. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 108: 1830-1832.

Nettleton, J. A., W. H. Allen J., L. V. Klatt, W. M. N. Ratnayake, and R. G. Ackman. 1990. Nutrients and chemical residues in one- to two-pound Mississippi farm-raised channel catfish (ictalurus punctatus). Journal of Food Science 55 (4) (01/01): 954-8.

Ozogul, Y., F. Ozogul, and S. Alagoz. 2007. Fatty acid profiles and fat contents of commercially important seawater and freshwater fish species of Turkey: A comparative study. Food Chemistry 103 (1) (01/01): 217-23.

Parks, J.S., J. Sawyer-Kaduck, B.C. Bullock & L.L. Rudel. 1990. Effect of dietary fish oil on coronary artery and aortic atherosclerosis in African green monkeys. Arteriorsclerosis 10: 1102-1112.

Pullicino, P. M., V. G. Wadley, L. A. McClure, M. M. Safford, R. M. Lazar, M. Klapholz, A. Ahmed, V. J. Howard, and G. Howard. 2008. Factors contributing to global cognitive impairment in heart failure: Results from a population-based cohort. Journal of Cardiac Failure 14 (4) (05): 290-5.

Rabin, Roni Caryn. 2009. Risks: Leaving stroke zone but not the dangers. New York Times (12/08): 6.

Ranshaw, Emily. 2011. Life Expectancy; East Texans' bad health and bad habits promote a 'stroke belt'. New York Times (01/14): 21A.

Ross, Joseph S., Ethan A. Halm, and Dawn M. Bravata. 2009. Use of stroke secondary prevention services: Are there disparities in care? Stroke; a Journal of Cerebral Circulation 40 (5) (05): 1811-9.

Sallar, Anthony M., P. B. Williams, Ademola M. Omishakin, and Debra Patton Lloyd. 2010. Stroke prevention: Awareness of risk factors for stroke among African-American residents in the Mississippi Delta Region. Journal of the National Medical Association 102 (2) (02): 84-94.

Sergeev, A. V. 2010. Stroke mortality outside the stroke belt: Analysis of racial and rural-urban disparities. Vol. 20.

Stankus, Tony. 2010. U.S. farm-raised catfish. Journal of Agricultural & Food Information 11 (3): 176-184.

Story, L., S. Mayfield-Johnson, L. H. Downey, C. Anderson-Lewis, R. Young, and P. Day. 2010. Getting on target with community health advisors (GOTCHA): An innovative stroke prevention project. Nursing Inquiry 17 (4) (12): 373-84.

Tanenbaum, B. G., and S. M. Edenfield. 2006. Stroke risk assessment in a south-eastern university dental hygiene facility. Journal of Dental Hygiene 80 (1): 32-.

Ulbrich, Suzanne. 2009. OMH hires nurse for stroke education, outreach. Daily News, The (Jacksonville, NC).

Voeks, J. H., L. A. McClure, R. C. Go, R. J. Prineas, M. Cushman, B. M. Kissela, and J. M. Roseman. 2008. Regional differences in diabetes as a possible contributor to the geographic disparity in stroke mortality: The Reasons for geographic and racial differences in stroke study. Stroke; a Journal of Cerebral Circulation 39end_of_the_skype_highlighting (6) (06): 1675-80.

Weaver, K. L., P. Ivester, J. A. Chilton, M. D. Wilson, P. Pandey, and F. H. Chilton. 2008. The content of favorable and unfavorable polyunsaturated fatty acids found in commonly eaten fish. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 108 (7) (01/01): 1178-85.

 

Genetically Modified "GM" Salmon Raised In Self-Contained Systems: Much More Likely To Be Part of a Solution and Not a Problem

A New York Times article (Pollack 2010) appeared on Tuesday, September 21, 2010,   and discussed whether or not specially genetically engineered farmed salmon might be approved for sale in the US. There were representatives of the aquaculture industry and of the firm pushing the idea, AquaBounty  Technologies, speaking in support before an FDA panel, and a number of special environmentalist or consumer’s groups going on record as against the idea in general, or some particular aspect that they felt was underexplored or held potential danger. 

The critics brought up a number of issues that  were treated as being so important of themselves, that the approval process should be delayed or cancelled altogether. But such a single-issue-based disapproval  sometimes overlooked other factors and realities of  salmon ecology,  economics,  and even human medicine, when a more holistic and  interdisciplinary view of the risks and benefits of this AquAdvanatge™  salmon and its method of being aquacultured might be more revealing.

What’s the big deal with salmon?

Salmon now leads in US sales of all fresh, refrigerator case finfish in supermarkets and is the third most consumed seafood product just behind frozen shrimp and canned tuna (National Fisheries Institute 2009). It’s considered to be particularly good for you. It is nationally promoted, responsibly endorsed,  and widely perceived as having health benefits, especially its polyunsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acid content (Harel et al 2001, Horrocks & Yeo 1999) that outweigh  its risks from mercury for most categories of consumers (Foran et al 2005, Smith & Guentzel 2010). Demand is expected to grow in the restaurant and institutional food service trade not the least because salmon is one of the most popular types of sushi and sashimi  among both high school (FoodServiceDirector 2010) and college age  consumers (Boss 2009).

Why do they farm salmon anyway? Can’t we just catch more wild salmon in the ocean?

Atlantic salmon are still caught in the wild, but their reproductive carrying capacity has long ago been reached, and Atlantic salmon fisheries have basically harvested (and often polluted) themselves out of business in many locales, including most of New England, formerly a rich salmon fishing area. Indeed most wild Atlantic salmon served in the US has been imported from Canada, the UK, or Scandinavian countries, but even so, catches have been declining: In 1996 we imported 566 tons of wild caught salmon, but by 2008 that amount was down to 58 tons.

It should be noted that while the Alaskan wild salmon fishery ----involving a number of different salmon species but not the Atlantic salmon----remains reasonably healthy, the other West coast native salmon fisheries running from Northern California through to British Columbia, have been in severe decline owing to overfishing and environmental calamities, and thus will not provide a ready, sustainable alternative in the future (US Fish & Wildlife Service 2010). The only realistic  alternative source for a growing demand for salmon is to use aquacultured salmon.

Can’t we just stock the rivers with more salmon from salmon hatcheries, and let them grow up in the wild in the ocean and have them return to the rivers where we stocked them, just like wild salmon do?

This is being done in Alaska and Northern Europe with some success (and in the Great Lakes although the population cannot reproduce there)  but there are still problems: The stocked fish generally behave like escaped farmed fish and sometimes out-compete the wild fish, and it is not always clear that wild and stocked fish interbreed  successfully, even though they are of the same species. This means that it is sometimes possible to end up, not with an overall increase in the total number of available salmon, but rather the displacement of one type of salmon by another without any net gain in salmon supply.  (Crozier 1993, Erkinaro et al 2010, Skaala,  Glover &  V. Wennevik  2006, Soto, Jara & Moreno 2006,  Uusitalo, Kuikka & Romakkaniemi 2005).

 

 Why do they want to genetically engineer a naturally perfectly good fish in the first place?

The principal reason is that these fish, when farmed, grow to harvest size in about half the time as non-genetically-engineered farm-raised salmon, and that this quick turnaround time means that they can be economically grown in closed aquatic systems, meaning not in pens in the open ocean or nearby brackish waters, but rather in clean artificial ponds  much like modern American catfish farming, ponds or tanks which do not connect to rivers or the ocean. As seen in the catfish farming industry (Stankus 2010), many more variables regarding fish wholesomeness and taste,  water quality, the presence of parasites and diseases, the management of waste products, are much more controllable, although realistically never perfectly controllable, in such closed systems. Salmon farming in a closed system represents a serious incremental improvement in the food safety, economics and as we will see shortly, in the environmental impact of salmon aquaculture.  Genetically modified salmon raised in closed systems will go a long way to exploding the simplistic folkloric natural foods ideology  that Norwegian fisheries researcher  Oivind Bergh (2007) calls the dual myth: That wild fish are always healthier (and therefore always better for you) and that farmed fish are always unhealthy (and therefore always worse for you).  

How do these genetically modified salmon grow so fast?

Basically, two genes have been inserted into their genomes. One gene simply enables internal growth hormone production year round despite the cold (salmon ordinarily stop making growth hormone in cold weather and therefore stop growing during winter months). The second gene basically enables the first gene to activate and do its work.

Most importantly, no hormones that are not native to fish are introduced to this  fish, nor are they fed hormones in their rations. There is no reasonable scientific basis for suggesting that these fish are somehow hormonally disruptive of humans or other animals that might eat them, or even that the enhanced growth hormone production, is damaging to the fish themselves, the arguments used against hormones given to livestock and dairy cows through feed or direct injection.

Why can’t we just wait for the traditional growing out period of non-genetically engineered salmon farmed in bays and estuaries?

There are at least three reasons that make quicker growing farmed salmon, grown in closed systems, a better idea than farmed non-genetically modified  salmon raised in sea pens.

The first is ironically ecological or environmental: Salmon farmed in the traditional manner in pens in bays and estuaries tend to become infested with sea lice, which, while not known to be harmful to humans, stunt the growth and well-being of the salmon being farmed. Unfortunately, once the sea lice find themselves a fertile home base, such as the trapped farmed salmon, they spread, not only to nearby wild salmon, but to other fish species as well, sometimes decimating their number(Costello 2009, Frazer 2009).

The second is also ecological and environmental: The sea floor beneath and areas surrounding sea pens are typically fouled with fecal products, uneaten food, and trace chemicals used to keep the cages from becoming coated with barnacles,  weeds, and the like. Perversely, the increased organic matter in the waters near the cages actually decreases the oxygen levels in the water as well as  the number of toxic compounds in the immediate area by binding with agents that would otherwise remain in solution and generally in a diluted state (Musclow 2005, Mayor et al 2010). See the following for more details.

The third reason is also environmental but includes some clinical implications as well: Quicker growing fish raised in closed aquatic systems with closely monitored water quality show demonstrably lower rates of bioaccumulation of environmental toxins including heavy metals, runoff fertilizer compounds, and especially trace pharmaceuticals like antibiotics used to suppress assorted bacterial and fungal infections in salmon penned up in bays and estuaries (Burridge 2010, Cabello 2006, Fortt, Cabello & Buschman  2007). These materials are not only generally bad for the sea life around them, but, should they accumulate within human consumers, poisonous and potential enablers of diminished antibiotic effectiveness, as they encourage the proliferation of drug resistant bacteria in the environment (Herwig, Gray & Weston 1997).  

What will happen to wild salmon if these genetically engineered fish somehow escape their closed systems and mate with natural salmon populations?

First, at least as currently planned in terms of their major sites of production, the salmon will be raised in places where even the nearest sea and river waterways are seriously unfavorable to them, so it is likely that they would die out because they were in such unsupportable circumstances.

Second, all of these fish are females,  and by design, about  five out of every six are demonstrably sterile. Such a sex ratio and high rate of infertility does not bode well for them to be able to establish a viable invasive population which can compete with local, native fish. (Which generally do not include members of the salmonid family with which they could conceivably try to mate.)

What about possible allergic reactions?

It is unfortunately true that there are a great many people allergic, and sometimes severely so, to proteins in seafood, including proteins in Atlantic salmon (Pitsios et al 2010). However, there is as yet no evidence that the two genes that have been inserted into these AquaAdvantage Atlantic salmon will cause the production of any proteins that are not already likely to be in any other type of Atlantic salmon. A safe and sensible recommendation  would be for people who are known to be allergic to Atlantic salmon not to eat any Atlantic salmon, AquAdvantage type or not, and for the rest of us to eat available Atlantic salmon including AquAdvantage salmon when we want to, because we like it and it is a generally healthy food.

Shouldn’t there be warning labels on such salmon?

Given that there are no known differences in the food safety or nutritional value of these salmon, there is no scientific justification for putting any kind of warning label on them. It might be fair to consumers who, for whatever reason, prefer wild-caught salmon or farmed salmon, to have the salmon labeled simply as wild-caught or farm raised salmon, and mention the country of origin.  This is pretty much the standard procedure in most supermarkets anyway, and as noted below, seems to have little effect on sales. People buy what looks good to them at the lowest price they can get.

Are there any foreseeable disadvantages to genetically modified salmon of this type raised by this method?

Overexpectation, too much “hype” in terms of  certain ecological and economic impacts  is about the only forseeable problem.

At least three pre-existing dilemmas will likely persist despite the adoption of this genetically modified salmon and its method of being raised, but these dilemmas  would also continue without them.

1. Detrimental impact on the global population of small fish and supply of fish byproducts. While all the science thus far suggests that with proper care, these fish can be raised safely within closed systems with virtually no risk to the local fish population by direct invasion of their waterways  and competition for food within them, problems remain with the need of all carnivorous fish (and this includes salmon, farmed or wild) for smaller forage fish, usually caught in the wild to be turned into fish meal for the pellets fed to the salmon, and this can cause population declines in fish that would feed other fish in the wild or feed humans (think anchovies and sardines, for example) directly (Aubin et al 2009, Ayer et al 2009, Mullon et al 2009, Pelletier et al 2009).

 

2. This new type of salmon and way of producing it will not likely produce a great many more jobs in the poorer countries that host these or any other modern aquaculture operations. Unemployment in the poorer countries where this type of aquacultured salmon (and any other type of aquacultured salmon) will not dramatically decrease, because operations such as these are  much efficient in their  use of manpower, particularly when compared to  the still large numbers of increasingly impoverished local traditional fisherfolk attempting to land ever diminishing catches.  This is not to say that the fewer workers in modern farmed fishing would not, in the long run, be better off, particularly if there was a requirement that these international aquaculture companies hire and train displaced local fisherfolk, instead of bringing in alien crews for permanent operations  (Adeel & Safriel 2008, Grigorakis et al 2010 ).

 

3. This new type of salmon and way of producing it will not likely increase the availability of low-cost, high-quality protein in the poorer countries that host these and any other modern aquaculture operations. Barring “set-aside-some for domestic use”  legislation in the countries in which these operations are set up, the local population will  probably not have greatly increased access to cheap salmon for their own consumption. The overwhelming share of farmed (and wild caught) salmon is sold on the international market as a cash crop to wealthy, highly developed countries like the US, and their consumers tend to buy the lowest priced salmon of comparable quality and freshness, regardless of which country was the source (Wozniak 2010).

 

Tony Stankus FSLA [email protected] Life Sciences Librarian, Science Coordinator & Professor

University of Arkansas Libraries MULN 233 E

365 North McIlroy Avenue

Fayetteville AR 72701-4002

Fax: 479-575-4592

Voice: 479-409-0021

Adeel, Zafar, and Uriel Safriel. 2008. Achieving sustainability by introducing alternative livelihoods. Sustainability Science 3 (1) (APR): 125-33.

Adhikari, S., L. Ghosh, S. P. Rai, and S. Ayyappan. 2009. Metal concentrations in water, sediment, and fish from sewage-fed aquaculture ponds of Kolkata, India. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 159 (1-4) (DEC): 217-30.

Alderman, D. J. 2002. Trends in therapy and prophylaxis 1991-2001. Bulletin of the European Association of Fish Pathologists 22 (2): 117-25.

Aubin, J., E. Papatryphon, H. M. G. van der Werf, and S. Chatzifotis. 2009. Assessment of the environmental impact of carnivorous finfish production systems using life cycle assessment. Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (3): 354-61.

Ayer, Nathan, Raymond P. Cote, Peter H. Tyedmers, and J. H. Martin Willison. 2009. Sustainability of seafood production and consumption: An introduction to the special issue. Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (3): 321-4.

Bergh, Oivind. 2007. The dual myths of the healthy wild fish and the unhealthy farmed fish. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 75 (2): 159-164.

Bernhisel-Broadbent, J, D Strause, and H A Sampson. 1992. Fish hypersensitivity. II: Clinical relevance of altered fish allergenicity caused by various preparation methods. The Journal Of Allergy And Clinical Immunology 90 ( 4 Pt 1): 622-629.

Boss, Donna L. 2009. College dining services tap into international street cuisines. Nation's Restaurant News 43 (27): 22.

Burridge, Les, Judith S. Weis, Felipe Cabello, Jaime Pizarro, and Katherine Bostick. 2010. Chemical use in salmon aquaculture: A review of current practices and possible environmental effects. Aquaculture 306 (1-4) (AUG 15): 7-23.

Cabello, F. C. 2006. Heavy use of prophylactic antibiotics in aquaculture: A growing problem for human and animal health and for the environment. Environmental Microbiology 8 (7) (JUL): 1137-44.

———. 2004. Antibiotics and aquaculture in Chile: Implications for human and animal health. Revista Medica De Chile 132 (8) (AUG): 1001-6.

Capone, D. G., D. P. Weston, V. Miller, and C. Shoemaker. 1996. Antibacterial residues in marine sediments and invertebrates following chemotherapy in aquaculture. Aquaculture 145 (1-4) (OCT 15): 55-75.

Cole, David W., Richard Cole, Steven J. Gaydos, Jon Gray, Greg Hyland, Mark L. Jacques, Nicole Powell-Dunford, Charu Sawhney, and William W. Au. 2009. Aquaculture: Environmental, toxicological, and health issues. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health 212 (4) (JUL): 369-77.

Costello, Mark J. 2009. How sea lice from salmon farms may cause wild salmonid declines in Europe and North America and be a threat to fishes elsewhere. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 276 (1672) (OCT 7): 3385-94.

Cottee, Stephanie Yue, and Paul Petersan. 2009. Animal welfare and organic aquaculture in open systems. Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics 22 (5) (OCT): 437-61.

Crozier, WW. 1993. Evidence of genetic interaction between escaped farmed salmon and wild Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) in a Northern Irish river. Aquaculture 113, (1-2): 19-29.

Erkinaro, J., E. Niemelae, J-P Vaehae, CR Primmer, S. Broers, and E. Hassinen. 2010. Distribution and biological characteristics of escaped farmed salmon in a major subarctic wild salmon river: Implications for monitoring. Canadian Journal Of Fisheries And Aquatic Sciences/Journal Canadien Des Sciences Halieutiques Et Aquatiques 67, (1): 130-142.

FoodService Director. 2010. School District Dishes Up Sushi. FoodService Director  23(5): 8.

Foran, Jeffery A, David H Good, David O Carpenter, M Coreen Hamilton, Barbara A Knuth, and Steven J Schwager. 2005. Quantitative analysis of the benefits and risks of consuming farmed and wild salmon. The Journal Of Nutrition 135 (11): 2639-2643.

Fortt, Antonia, Felipe Cabello, and Alejandro Buschmann. 2007. Residues of tetracycline and quinolones in wild fish living around a salmon aquaculture center in Chile. Revista Chilena De Infectologia 24 (1) (FEB): 14-8.

Frazer, L. Neil. 2009. Sea-cage aquaculture, sea lice, and declines of wild fish. Conservation Biology 23 (3) (JUN): 599-607.

Grigorakis, Kriton. 2010. Ethical issues in aquaculture production. Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics 23 (4) (AUG): 345-70.

Harel, Z, S Riggs, R Vaz, L White, and G Menzies. 2001. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in adolescents: knowledge and consumption." The Journal Of Adolescent Health 28 (1): 10-15.

Hargrave, Barry T., Lisa I. Doucette, Kats Haya, Faron S. Friars, and Stephen M. Armstrong. 2008. A micro-dilution method for detecting oxytetracycline-resistant bacteria in marine sediments from salmon and mussel aquaculture sites and an urbanized harbour in Atlantic Canada. Marine Pollution Bulletin 56 (8) (AUG): 1439-45.

Herwig, R. P., J. P. Gray, and D. P. Weston. 1997. Antibacterial resistant bacteria in surficial sediments near salmon net-cage farms in Puget Sound, Washington. Aquaculture 149 (3-4) (MAR 31): 263-83.

Horrocks, L A, and Y K Yeo. 1999. Health benefits of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Pharmacological Research 40, (3): 211-225.

Lu, X. W., Z. Dang, and C. Yang. 2009. Preliminary investigation of chloramphenicol in fish, water and sediment from freshwater aquaculture pond. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 6 (4) (FAL): 597-604.

Mayor, Daniel J., Alain F. Zuur, Martin Solan, Graeme I. Paton, and Ken Killham. 2010. Factors affecting benthic impacts at Scottish fish farms. Environmental Science & Technology 44 (6) (MAR 15): 2079-84.

Meinertz, J. R., G. R. Stehly, and W. H. Gingerich. 1998. Liquid chromatographic determination of oxytetracycline in edible fish fillets from six species of fish. Journal of AOAC International 81 (4) (JUL-AUG): 702-8.

Mullon, C., J-F Mittaine, O. Thebaud, G. Peron, G. Merino, and M. Barange. 2009. Modeling the global fishmeal and fish oil markets. Natural Resource Modeling 22 (4) (NOV): 564-609.

Munoz, Ivan, Maria J. Martinez Bueno, Ana Agueera, and Amadeo R. Fernandez-Alba. 2010. Environmental and human health risk assessment of organic micro-pollutants occurring in a Spanish marine fish farm. Environmental Pollution 158 (5) (MAY): 1809-16.

Musclow, Sandy Lee. 2005. Impact Of Salmon Aquaculture On Sediment Chemistry And Mercury Loading. Master’s thesis. Montreal: McGill University.

National Fisheries Institute (2009). “Top 10 Consumed Seafoods,” http://www.aboutseafood.com/about/about-seafood/Top-10-Consumed-Seafoods

Naylor, Raymond L., Rebecca J. Goldburg, Harold Mooney, Malcolm Beveridge, Jason Clay, Carl Folke, Nils Kautsky, Jane Lubchenco, Jurgenne Primavera & Meryl Williams. 1998. Nature's subsidies to shrimp and salmon farming. Science 282 (5390): 883-887.

Ortega, C., O. Gimeno, V. Blanc, P. Cortes, S. Ania, and M. Llagostera. 2006. Antibiotic susceptibility of strains of Aeromonas salmonicida isolated from Spanish salmonids. Revue De Medecine Veterinaire 157 (8-9) (AUG): 410-4.

Pelletier, Nathan, Peter Tyedmers, Ulf Sonesson, Astrid Scholz, Friederike Ziegler, Anna Flysjo, Sarah Kruse, Beatriz Cancino, and Howard Silverman. 2009. Not all salmon are created equal: Life cycle assessment (LCA) of global salmon farming systems. Environmental Science & Technology 43 (23) (DEC 1): 8730-6.

Pitsios, Constantinos, Anastasia Dimitriou, Efthalia C Stefanaki, and Kalliopi Kontou-Fili. 2010. Anaphylaxis during skin testing with food allergens in children. European Journal Of Pediatrics 169 (5): 613-615.

Pollack, Andrew. 2010. Panel leans in favor of engineered salmon. The New York Times CLX (55170): B3.

Rivera-Ferre, Marta G. 2009. Can export-oriented aquaculture in developing countries be sustainable and promote sustainable development? The shrimp case. Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics 22 (4) (AUG): 301-21.

Ruiz-Zarzuela, I., N. Halaihel, J. L. Balcazar, C. Ortega, D. Vendrell, T. Perez, J. L. Alonso, and I. de Blas. 2009. Effect of fish farming on the water quality of rivers in northeast Spain. Water Science and Technology 60 (3): 663-71.

Sapkota, Amir, Amy R. Sapkota, Margaret Kucharski, Janelle Burke, Shawn McKenzie, Polly Walker, and Robert Lawrence. 2008. Aquaculture practices and potential human health risks: Current knowledge and future priorities. Environment International 34 (8) (NOV): 1215-26.

Skaala, Oe, K. Glover, and V. Wennevik. 2006. Gene flow from escapes reduce survival in wild salmon populations. Fisken og Havet, Saernummer(2): 60-62.

Solensky, Roland. 2003. Resolution of fish allergy: A case report. Annals Of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology 91 (4): 411-412.

Soto, D., F. Jara, and C. Moreno. 2001. Escaped salmon in the inner seas, Southern Chile: Facing ecological and social conflicts. Ecological Applications 11, (6): 1750-1762

Thorstad, E.B., I.A. Fleming, P. McGinnity,  D. Soto, V. Wennevik & F. Whoriskey2008. Incidence and Impacts of Escaped Farmed Atlantic Salmon Salmo Salar In Nature. NINA Special Report 36. 110 pp.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. 2010. Wildlife Species Information. Endangered Species:  Pacific Salmon, Oncorhynchus spp. http://www.fws.gov/species/species_accounts/bio_salm.html

Uusitalo, L., S. Kuikka, and A. Romakkaniemi. 2005. Estimation of Atlantic salmon smolt carrying capacity of rivers using expert knowledge. ICES Journal of Marine Science 62, (4) (Jun): 708-722

Vega, Mario H., Elizabeth T. Jara, and Mario B. Aranda. 2006. Monitoring the dose of florfenicol in medicated salmon feed by planar chromatography (HPTLC). JPC -Journal of Planar Chromatography-Modern TLC 19 (109) (MAY-JUN): 204-7.

Vizzini, Salvatrice, Cecilia Tramati, and Antonio Mazzola. 2010. Comparison of stable isotope composition and inorganic and organic contaminant levels in wild and farmed bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, in the Mediterranean sea. Chemosphere 78 (10) (MAR): 1236-43.

Wolff, M. 2004. Use and misuse of antibiotics. time to evaluate it beyond humans. Revista Medica De Chile 132 (8) (AUG): 909-11.

Wozniak, Shawn. 2020. Has country of origin labeling influenced salmon consumption? Selected Paper prepared for presentation at the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL, February 6-9, 2010. http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/56460/2/2010%20SAEA%20Wozniak.pdf

Wu, R. S. S. 1995. The environmental impact of marine fish culture: Towards a sustainable future. Marine Pollution Bulletin 31 (4-12) (APR-DEC): 159-66.

Octopus Behavior, Intelligence, Learning, Personality, Problem Solving & Consciousness

In a German aquarium this summer, Paul the Octopus, successfully picked the winner of 2010 FIFA World Cup soccer matches being held in South Africa  eight times in a row, including correctly noting an upset win by Serbia over Germany, but then subsequently predicting Germany’s rebound to winning ways until eventually Germany lost to Spain, the ultimate world cup winner, an outcome Paul had also predicted. Click on the following for a picture of Paul and a story entitled “Germany's 'Octopus oracle' keeps perfect record,”  on the official FIFA website.

www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/newsid=1270308/index.html

Paul’s method of prediction was to select a clam from  one of two underwater boxes in one of two adjacent tanks. Each tank was labeled with the national flag of one or the other of opposing soccer teams.  Confounding logic, many German fans felt that the pregame choice by the octopus somehow subsequently caused Germany’s defeat, and monitors of German Internet usage showed heightened activity related to  researching octopus recipes. The Prime Minister of Spain, in response, promised to send his nation’s equivalent of the US Secret Service to guard Paul and keep him from becoming someone’s dinner. The Russians, out of contention for the World Cup early on, demonstrated greater common sense. The state-supported gaming industry offered 100,000 euros for Paul’s services so as to enable them more scientifically to set odds in international sporting contests. The aquarium,  in reaction to all this, announced that Paul would now be going into retirement from sports prognostications, and perhaps would begin a career as a teacher of other young octopuses. This would seem ludicrous, excepting that there have been some papers, in journals as prestigious as Nature,  that indicated that octopuses can learn from one another, just by watching the trial and error procedures of one of their kind (Fiorito & Scotto 1992) .  Could a weekly column in Sports Illustrated or pr pre-game appearances on ESPN be in the works?  Or perhaps has Paul the Octopus all his hands full already.

How Smart Are Octopuses?

There is a general consensus that octopuses are the smartest of invertebrates, and indeed, they may be smarter than many vertebrates. They can negotiate mazes, and retain a memory of successful vs. blocked pathways (Hvorecny et al 2007). The can learn the location of a suitable hideaway in an experimental tank, be  transferred from the tank to another for a week, and then instantly find the hideaway in the original tank when they are returned to it.  Should this hideaway be closed to them, the octopuses  can then be taught a new hideaway’s location, and retain a subsequent memory of it (Boal et al. 2000).

Octopuses have definite favorites in the types of clams or mussels they eat, but it is conditional, with the principal determinant being the degree of difficulty in getting the shell opened or otherwise penetrated (Anderson & Mather 2007).  In a three way choice, the easiest to open bivalves were consistently the most eaten, the next easiest to open were second, and the most difficult to open were last. However, food preferences for these same octopuses flipped when all three bivalves were presented in equal numbers in an already-opened state. One of the more difficult-to-open species became the new favorite. However, when ordinarily easy-to-open clams or mussels are glued and wired shut experimentally, octopuses once again shift their preferences in order to minimize effort. What’s important is that they appear to generalize from initial trials in each round of changed circumstances. When they encounter types that they find that are hard to open in a particular round, they avoid them subsequently during that round, saving their energy by redirecting their foraging to easier types.

To bolster the argument for octopuses making conscious adjustments and generalizing knowledge from specific examples, it was found that octopuses switched strategies for getting at the actual meat in a clam or mussel: sometimes pulling the shell apart, sometimes smashing the shell, sometimes drilling through the shell and at other times chipping away at the shell’s rim. All of these represented shifts in tactics to difficulties encountered.  When one method did not work for a particular species of clam  or mussel, another method might be tried, and once one method proved to be the right tactic for a particular species, that  method of penetration became associated with that species. Indeed, in a final grace note to the argument, octopuses apparently learned to target where to drill their holes so as to get to the most vital internal organs of the clam or mussel most directly, so that their  subsequent injection of poison would cause the shellfish to open up most quickly.

Can Octopuses Use Tools?

One popular video currently making the rounds  on YouTube, entitled “Coconut-Carrying Octopus” www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DoWdHOtlrk and backed by a scientific article in Current Biology  (Finn, Tregenza & Norman 2009) shows that octopuses “claim” coconut shells that have been split apart as part of copra processing and been cast into the sea. They have developed a way of stilt walking across the ocean floor with the shell hanging beneath them, so as to transport the half-shells rather long distances to a preferred site, and then fashioned them into rather safe shelters. 

Some critics have argued that the use of “found objects” like these shells is not the same as fashioning them into tools, but they have yet to explain away the peculiar habit of octopuses for quite literally playing with Lego toys in aquaria (Kuba et al. 2006) . These toys are in no way food-like objects, nor do they represent  prey or serve as practice dummies for hunting. In fact, they resemble nothing in their natural environment, and yet, they become objects of continuing interest in both adult and juvenile octopuses. Octopuses have even  learned on their own, how to unscrew jars and bottles.

“Hand-Eye”  Coordination & Specialization within the Octopus Brain

One of the relatively recent findings in studies of octopus capabilities is the fact that although they do not have specialized tentacles like squid for trapping prey, they do develop special abilities within their otherwise anatomically identical legs or arms, and that this seems to be done in conjunction with having a favored eye they use for specific tasks. In a series of papers (Byrne, Kuba & Meisel 2004, Byrne et al 2006a, 2006b) it was clearly shown that octopuses have a preferred eye that they use more often than its opposite counterpart, and this seems to correlate with tasks routinely assigned to a given arm or set of arms. Anterior arms were used to probe and reach out for novel objects. Octopuses also seemed to favor a particular arm when trying to negotiate a maze. Moreover some octopuses used different legs or arms for sidewise motion, versus back and forwards, despite the fact that it would take little energy to rotate their bodies and choose a different sequence. This all points to an eye-to-brain-to-arm (or leg) circuitry that indicates that the octopus is capable of designating particular parts of their very large brains to serve differentially, specific functions, much as mammals do.

Do Octopuses Have Distinct Personalities Or Temperaments?

There have been many proponents of the theory that individual octopuses do, in fact, have different personalities. The most vocal in support of this notion are the many aquarium personnel who have observed that some octopuses of the same species are aggressive and easy to anger, while others are shy and gentle. Some are quick learners  who love to play while others are  seemingly annoyed by changes in routine and defensive about new objects in their watery domains. Some come out from hiding in their aquarium tanks to look right back at the people who are looking at them. Some get along with other octopuses in large tanks while others view  others of their kind as intruders that have to be put in their place.  Most remarkable are octopuses who habitually break out of their own tanks, traverse the floor to another tank they have been eyeing, enter that tank, and consume all the crabs or clams to be had there, before moving on to another tank or returning to their assigned one.

By far, the most heavily published of experts in areas of octopus intelligence, behavior and temperament is the Canadian researcher Jennifer Mather of the University of Lethbridge, in Alberta,  ironically  a  province that does not even have access to an ocean (She has repeatedly acknowledged the generous access she has been granted over the years to the Seattle Aquarium). This landlocked academic appointment has not stopped her from making the case rather convincingly that individual octopuses develop their personalities or temperaments over time, that genetically related octopuses tend to have similar behavioral traits, and that  at least some  invertebrates, particularly the category of cephalopods (octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) which have very large brains, use them to explore their environments in a conscious manner,   solving  problems, and building  a memory bank of experiences on which they will depend to improve their lives…….and yes, to have a little fun, now and again.

Tony Stankus, FSLA, [email protected] Life Sciences Librarian, Science Coordinator & Professor

University of Arkansas Libraries MULN 223 E

365 North McIlroy Avenue

Fayetteville, AR 72701-4002 USA

Voice: 479-409-0021

Fax: 479-575-4592

 Anderson, Roland C., and Jennifer A. Mather. 2007. The packaging problem: Bivalve prey selection and prey entry techniques of the Octopus enteroctopus dofleini. Journal of Comparative Psychology 121 (3) (08): 300-5.

Boal, Jean Geary, Andrew W. Dunham, Kevin T. Williams, and Roger T. Hanlon. 2000. Experimental evidence for spatial learning in octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides). Journal of Comparative Psychology 114 (3) (09): 246-52.

Byrne, Ruth A., Michael J. Kuba, and Daniela V. Meisel. 2004. Lateralized eye use in Octopus vulgaris shows antisymmetrical distribution. Animal Behaviour 68 (5) (11): 1107-14.

Byrne, Ruth A., Michael J. Kuba, Daniela V. Meisel, Ulrike Griebel, and Jennifer A. Mather. 2006. Does Octopus vulgaris have preferred arms? Journal of Comparative Psychology 120 (3) (08): 198-204.

Byrne, Ruth A., Michael J. Kuba, Daniela V. Meisel, Ulrike Griebel, and Jennifer A. Mather. 2006. Octopus arm choice is strongly influenced by eye use. Behavioural Brain Research 172 (2) (07): 195-201.

Byrne, Ruth A., Michael Kuba, and Ulrike Griebel. 2002. Lateral asymmetry of eye use in Octopus vulgaris. Animal Behaviour 64 (3) (09): 461-8.

Cheng, Mary W., and Roy L. Caldwell. 2000. Sex identification and mating in the blue-ringed octopus, Hapalochlaena lunulata. Animal Behaviour 60 (1) (07): 27-33.

Edelman, David B., Bernard J. Baars, and Anil K. Seth. 2005. Identifying hallmarks of consciousness in non-mammalian species. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal 14 (1) (03): 169-87.

Finn, J.K., T.Tregenza & Mark D. Norman. 2009. Defensive tool-use in a coconut-carrying octopus. Current Biology 19 (23): R1069-R1070.

Fiorito, Graziano; and Pietro Scotto. 1992. Observational learning in Octopus vulgaris. Science. Vol. 256(5056), 545-547.

Glanzman, D.L. Octopus conditioning: A multi-armed approach to the LTP- learning question. Current Biology 18 (2): R527-R530.

Gosling, Samuel D., and Oliver P. John. 1999. Personality dimensions in nonhuman animals: A cross-species review. Current Directions in Psychological Science 8 (3) (06): 69-75.

Hochner, Binyamin, Euan R. Brown, Marina Langella, Tal Shomrat, and Graziano Fiorito. 2003. A learning and memory area in the octopus brain manifests a vertebrate- like long-term potentiation. Journal of Neurophysiology 90 (5) (11): 3547-54.

Huffard, Christine L., Roy L. Caldwell, and Farnis Boneka. 2010. Male-male and male-female aggression may influence mating associations in wild octopuses (Abdopus aculeatus). Journal of Comparative Psychology 124 (1) (02): 38-46.

Hvorecny, Lauren M., Jessica L. Grudowski, Carrie J. Blakeslee, Tiffany L. Simmons, Paula R. Roy, Jennifer A. Brooks, Rachel M. Hanner, et al. 2007. Octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides) and cuttlefishes (Sepia pharaonis, S. officinalis) can conditionally discriminate. Animal Cognition 10 (4) (10): 449-59.

Ikeda, Yuzuru. 2009. A perspective on the study of cognition and sociality of cephalopod mollusks, a group of intelligent marine invertebrates. Japanese Psychological Research 51 (3) (09): 146-53.

Kuba, Michael J., Ruth A. Byrne, Daniela V. Meisel, and Jennifer A. Mather. 2006. When do octopuses play? Effects of repeated testing, object type, age, and food deprivation on object play in Octopus vulgaris. Journal of Comparative Psychology 120 (3) (08): 184-90.

Mather, Jennifer A. 2008. Cephalopod consciousness: Behavioural evidence. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal 17 (1) (03): 37-48.

Mather, Jennifer . 2006. Behaviour development: A cephalopod perspective. International Journal of Comparative Psychology 19 (1): 98-115.

Mather, Jennifer A., and Roland C. Anderson. 1999. Exploration, play, and habituation in octopuses (Octopus dofleini). Journal of Comparative Psychology 113 (3) (9): 333-8.

Mather, Jennifer A., and Roland C. Anderson. 1993. Personalities of octopuses (Octopus rubescens). Journal of Comparative Psychology 107 (3) (09): 336-40.

Mather, Jennifer A. 2008. To boldly go where no mollusk has gone before: Personality, play, thinking, and consciousness in cephalopods. American Malacological Bulletin 24 (1/2): 51-58.

Meisel, Daniela V., Ruth A. Byrne, Michael Kuba, Jennifer Mather, Werner Ploberger, and Erhard Reschenhofer. 2006. Contrasting activity patterns of two related octopus species, Octopus macropus and Octopus vulgaris. Journal of Comparative Psychology 120 (3) (08): 191-7.

Minakata, H., S. Shigeno, N. Kano, S. Haraguchi, T. Osugi, and K. Tsutsui. 2009. Octopus gonadotrophin-releasing hormone: A multifunctional peptide in the endocrine and nervous systems of the cephalopod. Journal of Neuroendocrinology 21 (4) (04): 322-6.

Shomrat, T. I. Zarrella, G. Fiorito, & B. Hochner. 2008. The octopus vertical lobe modulates short-term learning rate and uses LTP to acquire long-term memory. Current Biology 18 (5): 337-342.

Sinn, David L., Nancy A. Perrin, Jennifer A. Mather, and Roland C. Anderson. 2001. Early temperamental traits in an octopus (Octopus bimaculoides). Journal of Comparative Psychology 115 (4) (12): 351-64.

Wood, James B., and Roland C. Anderson. 2004. Interspecific evaluation of octopus escape behavior. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 7 (2): 95-106.

US Farm-Raised Catfish: An Environmentally Sustainable, Aquacultured, Affordable, Safe, & Tasty High Quality Protein Dinner that Supports the Economies of the States Most Adversely Affected by the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf Coast

In recent days there has been a great deal of speculation as to whether or not the seafood fisheries of the Gulf Coast will have been so damaged by the British Petroleum oil split  as to limit,  or entirely cutoff the supply of fish from this area,  for the American dinner table.

On Monday, the New York Times (Robertson 2010) reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were restricting fishing in waters from the mouth of the Mississippi River in New Orleans to Pensacola Bay in Florida and taking samples of seafood to ensure food safety.

While there is some very recent analysis that suggests that the situation is being exaggerated (Broder & Zeller 2010), there have certainly been many cases in the past when seafood of various types has been quarantined or subjected to special testing following contamination with petroleum from off-shore platforms, oil tankers, or even simply  residue discharges  from inefficient diesel engines that drove naval  or merchant marine traffic (Chesler, Gump, Hert, May & Wise 1987, Moon, Kim, Choi & Choi 2010,  Isigigur, Hera & Ackman 1996, Kannpan, Jasmine, Jeyachandran & Tamilselvi 1996, Khan Al-Ghais & Al-Marri 1995,  and many other listed below), including some from previous Gulf oil spills (Krahn, Ylitalo,  Buzitis et al, 1993).

In addition to the health concerns of consumers, there is understandable empathy for the people in the Southern US who will be losing much of their income at a time when there is a generalized recession. Particularly likely to be disrupted are the economies of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, those states  closest to the spill.

But, there may be a biology-based answer that helps the situation of both those concerned for safe seafood and for the economies of the affected states of the South: US farm-raised channel catfish.

US farm-raised channel catfish is overwhelmingly aquacultured in four states: Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

This industry provides the consumer with rather reasonably priced finfish that is grown with extraordinary attention to producing  “unfishy”, “non-muddy” tasting, exceptionally  high-quality-protein-containing, virtually zero contaminant, food for the table,  all the while supporting a domestic industry that has been hammered by the dumping of typically underpriced,  often uninspected, misleadingly labeled as “Cajun, ” and not in a few cases seriously contaminated,  imported aquacultured fish on the US market (Greenberg 2008).

Part of the excellent record of US farm-raised channel catfish for food safety and fresh taste doubtless has to do with the fact that it is about the freshest seafood one can have. It is only about 30 minutes between when the catfish is shipped live in an aerated tanker truck to when it is a fillet resting on ice or individually flash frozen in a processing plant operating under USDA Food Safety and Inspection Services Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) guidelines (Hargeaves & Tucker 2004), something the aquaculture of very few other countries is likely to be able to match at this time.

Unlike what is often the case with foreign raised catfish relatives like “tra” from Vietnam, or  genuine channel catfish from the Peoples Republic of China, US farm-raised channel catfish are generally raised in specially constructed artificial pods, typically filled with clean well water that largely stays that way owing to the extremely low amounts of nitrate, phosphates, and ammonia emanating from the catfish. Environmental dumping of strongly odorous and polluting water, or the growing of the fish in murky or polluted water in the first place,  is simply not the standard procedure for  US farm-raised channel catfish farming today, the way it is many other countries and with other varieties of fish.

Likewise captive breeding and growing out within the confines of  these man-made ponds eliminates the problems of spreading infestations of parasites, like sea lice,  to bystander populations of other wild fish, caused by the heavy concentrations of captive fish being raised in underwater cages or pens in open waters (Peeler & Murray 2004).

Furthermore,  in US farm-raised channel catfish operations there is no large-sale savaging of the world-wide population of smaller wild caught fish which are caught to be ground up into meal for farm-raised salmon or shrimp (Naylor, Goldburg, Primavera et al 2001). US farm-raised catfish feed is 98% plant product based.  US farmed-raised  channel catfish are incredibly efficient at turning this largely corn and soy ration into protein: With three times the efficiency of chickens and five times that of beef cattle (Ambardekar & Reigh 2007).

It is rare when an American agribusiness sector receives kudos for its environmentally friendly  and humane animal handling from both academia and non-governmental advocacy agencies, but such is the case for this industry when compared to its foreign competitors (Claiborne 2010) . The Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund, and Food & Water Watch have joined together with the leading trade association for US farm-raised channel catfish, the Catfish institute, www.uscatfish.com , in pointing out aquaculture abuses and calling for action.

For more detail, consult the upcoming issue of the Journal of Food & Agricultural Information where I will be profiling this commodity.

Tony Stankus, FSLA [email protected] Professor, Life Sciences Librarian & Science Coordinator

University of Arkansas Libraries MULN 223 E

365 North McIlroy Avenue

Fayetteville AR 72701-4002

Voice: 479-409-0021

Fax: 479-575-4592

 

Ambardekar, A.A. & R.C. Reigh. (2007). Sources and utilization of amino acids in channel catfish diets: A review. North American Journal of Aquaculture 69 (2): 174-179.

Broder, J.M. & T. Zeller, Jr. (2010). Bad, but how bad? New York Times CLIX (55030): A1, A17.

Chesler, S. N., B. H. Gump, H. S. Hertz, W. E. May, and S. A. Wise. (1978). Determination of trace level hydrocarbons in marine biota. Analytical Chemistry 50, (6) (01/01): 805-10.

Claiborne, R.C. (2010). Farming fish. New York Times CLIX (55009): p.2

Greenberg, P. A catfish by any other name. . New York Times Magazine (October 12, 2008) Section MM, p. 72 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12catfish-t.html

Hargreaves, J.A. & C.S. Tucker. (2004). Biology and culture of channel catfish. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Hyo-Bang Moon, Hye-Seon Kim, Minkyu Choi, and Hee-Gu Choi. 2010. Intake and potential health risk of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons associated with seafood consumption in Korea from 2005 to 2007. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 58, (1) (01/01): 214-21.

Isigigur, A., H. Heras, and R. G. Ackman. 1996. An improved method for the recovery of petroleum hydrocarbons from fish muscle tissue. Food Chemistry 57, (3) (01/01): 457-62.

Kannappan, S., G. I. Jasmine, P. Jeyachandran, and A. Tamilselvi. 1999. Polyaromatic hydrocarbons in fresh marine fin and shell fishes. Journal of Food Science and Technology, India 36, (5) (01/01): 472-4.

Khan, M. A. Q., S. Al-Ghais, and S. Al-Marri. 1995. Petroleum hydrocarbons in fish from the Arabian Gulf. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 29, (4) (01/01): 517-22.

Krahn, M. M., G. M. Ylitalo, J. Buzitis, J. L. Bolton, C. A. Wigren, Sin-Lam Chan, and U. Varanasi. 1993. Analyses for petroleum-related contaminants in marine fish and sediments following the Gulf oil spill. Marine Pollution Bulletin 27, (01/01): 285-92.

Naylor, R.L., R.J. Goldburg, J.Primavera, N. Kautsky, M.C.. Beveridge et al. (2001). Effects of aquaculture on world fish supplies. Issues in Ecology , no. 8.

Nemoto, S., S. Takatsuki, R. Matsuda, K. Sasaki, and M. Toyoda. 1998. Analyses for petroleum-related contaminants in seafoods by GC/MS (SIM). Journal of the Food Hygienic Society of Japan 39, (1) (01/01): 31-8.

Norena-Barroso, E., G. Gold-Bouchot, O. Zapata-Perez, and J. L. Sericano. 1999. Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in American oysters Crassostrea virginica from the Terminos Lagoon, Campeche, Mexico. Marine Pollution Bulletin 38, (8) (01/01): 637-45.

Peeler, E.J. & A.G. Murray. (2004). Disease interactions between farmed and wild fish populations. Journal of Fish Biology 65 (supplement 1): 321-322.

Perugini, M., P. Visciano, M. Manera, G. Turno, A. Lucisano, and M. Amorena. 2007. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in marine organisms from the Gulf of Naples, Tyrrhenian Sea. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 55, (5) (01/01): 2049-54.

Robertson, C. (2010). Safety fears halt fishing in Gulf areas affected by spill. New York Times CLIX (55029):  A15.

Sammut, M., and G. Nickless. 1978. Petroleum hydrocarbons in marine sediments and animals from the island of Malta. Environmental Pollution 16, (1) (01/01): 17-30.

Sobrado, C., M. C. Quintela, J. C. Gonzalez, and J. M. Vieites. 2004. Determination of heavy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in fishery products. Journal of Aquatic Food Product Technology 13, (3) (01/01): 93-102.