Comment by setgree
5 hours ago
> Something that surprised us early on: only a tiny fraction of farmed fish species have been through genetic improvement programs. Chickens grow 4x faster than they did in 1950 because of decades of selective breeding.
I agree that there is an opportunity here for getting more calories per fish (and especially per input of feed, which is really what decades of chicken optimization are about). But the consequences of these changes for chicken welfare have been disastrous [0] and we're seeing a concerted effort to move to higher-welfare breeds (though still more efficient than ancestral breeds). Likewise, intensive salmon farming has led to widespread '“environmental dewilding,” or the process of modifying natural water bodies with artificial infrastructure — in this case, fish farm pens and cages — and polluting them' [1]. It sounds like there are lots of ways in which using more robots can make monitoring less-invasive, and therefore less stressful for fish. I certainly hope to see those attributes, rather than the potentially disastrous ones, emphasized as you move forward.
[0] https://www.ciwf.org/programmes/better-chicken/
[1] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/468348/atlantic-salmon-fa...
This is a really important point and something we think about a lot. You are absolutely right that chicken optimization has come with serious welfare tradeoffs. Breeding purely for growth rate without considering the animal's ability to actually live comfortably is how you end up with birds that cannot walk properly. We do not want to enable that trajectory for fish.
The good news is that the data we are collecting can be used to select for more than just growth. Body shape, fin integrity, spinal curvature, and other morphological traits are all signals of fish health and welfare. Farms that care about sustainability can use this data to breed fish that are robust and healthy, not just fast growing. The tool is neutral but the selection criteria are up to the breeder.
On the environmental side, our focus right now is on land based hatcheries and recirculating aquaculture systems rather than open net pens in the ocean. These closed systems avoid a lot of the dewilding and pollution concerns you mentioned. They are more expensive to operate but they keep farmed fish separate from wild populations and give you much more control over waste and water quality. And yes, reducing handling stress is a big part of what we are building. The manual process today involves netting, anesthesia, and physical manipulation. Our system can measure fish without any of that. Less stress on the animal and better data for the farmer.