Why Fish Farms?

Much of the meat we eat comes from animals such as pigs, cows and chickens, which are grown on a farm.

Until a few years ago, all the fish, which people used to eat, was caught by fishermen.

So much fish has to been caught that the amount of fish available in the sea has decreased.

However, through the hard work of scientists and other people, fish can now be grown in special farms known as fish farms.

Nowadays, the fish that we eat comes either directly from the sea or from these fish farms.

The fish farming industry is becoming more and more important as time goes by.

The Fish Farming Story

The first step in fish farming is to produce the baby fish better known as fry.

The parent fish, which are kept in large tanks, may lay millions of eggs which are collected and placed in a hatchery.
When these eggs hatch, the fry are fed with tiny plants and animals that live in the sea.

Later on, the fry are places in tanks in a nursery where they are given special crumbled dry food.

When they grow to be a few centimetres long they are called fingerlings.

These fingerlings are usually placed in cages in the sea, where fish farmers will continue to feed them with pelleted food until they are large enough to be harvested.

Turtles are sometimes caught accidentally by fishermen. These are brought to the Malta Centre for Fisheries Sciences, through the Environment Protection Department, where they are treated and then released back into the sea.

Blue fin tuna is one of the most important fish species caught in Malta. The method of production of blue fin tuna eggs is not yet known. As the population of wild tuna in the sea is decreasing, it is important to start producing tuna fingerlings so the wild tuna population may be maintained. In the year 2000, for the first time in Malta, the fattening of blue fin tuna in cages started. This is known as Tuna Panning.