Salmon Farmers Are Scanning Fish Faces To Fight Killer Lice (bloomberg.com) 106
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Millions of Atlantic salmon could have their faces stored in digital databases to track their health and single out those posing threats to their marine surroundings. And before you ask if fish have faces, they do: A company in Norway has developed a 3D scanner that can tell salmon apart based on the distinct pattern of spots around their eyes, mouth and gills. Fish-farming giant Cermaq Group AS wants to roll out the technology at salmon pens along Norway's fjord-etched coastline, betting it can prevent the spread of epidemics like sea lice that infect hundreds of millions of farmed fish and cost the global industry upwards of $1 billion each year.
Cargill wants to apply facial recognition to aqua farms, and Cermaq, operator of over 200 salmon and trout farms in Norway, Canada and Chile, is already doing tests on the iFarm design with its Norwegian technology partner BioSort AS. It'll look a lot like existing fish farms, with networks of 160-meter (525-foot) circular nets that are typically 35 meters deep and home to up to 200,000 salmon. The difference is that iFarms would be equipped with camera scanners at the water surface. On any given day, about 40,000 salmon in each pen will rise to above water for a gulp of air, something their bladders need to regulate buoyancy. Each time a salmon does this, typically every four days, it would go through a funnel fitted with sensors that would screen its face and body so records can be kept on each fish. If the machines pick up on abnormalities like lice or skin ulcers, the infected fish can be quarantined for medical treatment.
Cargill wants to apply facial recognition to aqua farms, and Cermaq, operator of over 200 salmon and trout farms in Norway, Canada and Chile, is already doing tests on the iFarm design with its Norwegian technology partner BioSort AS. It'll look a lot like existing fish farms, with networks of 160-meter (525-foot) circular nets that are typically 35 meters deep and home to up to 200,000 salmon. The difference is that iFarms would be equipped with camera scanners at the water surface. On any given day, about 40,000 salmon in each pen will rise to above water for a gulp of air, something their bladders need to regulate buoyancy. Each time a salmon does this, typically every four days, it would go through a funnel fitted with sensors that would screen its face and body so records can be kept on each fish. If the machines pick up on abnormalities like lice or skin ulcers, the infected fish can be quarantined for medical treatment.
item to add (Score:2)
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We have them around here. Really they are just jellyfish larvae.
Re:item to add (Score:4, Informative)
The salmon louse [wikipedia.org] is a crustacean, a member of the phylum Arthropoda. Jellyfish are members of the phylum Cnidaria.
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You took him to school. No, that's a terrible pun, I cod do better. Gimme a minute to mullet over.
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So, I supposes you probably don't want to know about Tidal Ticks, Blue Water Bed Bugs, or Saltwater Roaches?
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I don't know if they're contagious. I guess they are, to an extent.
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Yeah right (Score:2, Troll)
Millions of Atlantic salmon could have their faces stored in digital databases to track their health and single out those posing threats to their marine surroundings.
That's what they say but this is obviously an anti-muslim fish ban. Or even worse some kind of fish-racism to keep the fish-line "pure". Where have I heard that before... snort.
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Be careful or the fish-supremacists will be out in force spamming the comments here.
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Get your jellied kidney and pork bellies out of my fish farm, you're worse than sea lice!
here fishy fishy fishy (Score:2)
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It would seem to be true with all those salmon in the way, but if you don't catch anything, aren't you still fishing?
A win for sustainability (Score:3)
Fish farming is not only more sustainable than hunting at sea, but in the long run tech like this makes farmed fish safer fish.
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When these 'farms' accidentally release stock into the surrounding waters, it's a catastrophe for the native ecosystem
We'll see. This very thing happened recently in the Puget Sound.
Some claim that the non-native Atlantic salmon will just die off, as they have no home spawning ground to return to. On the other hand, they might just return to any old convenient river to spawn, competing with the native species and also laying waste to environmentalists claims that all salmon habitat is precious and must be protected. The experiment is underway and time will tell.
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The farmed Atlantic salmon are selectively bred to grow fast. They do this by focusing on eating, and ignoring predators, which are absent in their pens.
There have been many accidental releases of farmed Atlantic salmon in the Pacific Ocean, and there is no evidence that any of them survived for long.
Atlantic and Pacific salmon do not interbreed. They are more distantly related than their phenotype suggests. They don't even have the same number of chromosomes.
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Happened many times by now. No worries, they'll die out.
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When these 'farms' accidentally release stock into the surrounding waters, it's a catastrophe for the native ecosystem. We should only allow fish farming inland in manmade water bodies.
So says the alarmism lobby, in their standard response to any sort of engineering solution to an environmental problem. We're getting tired of this crap, and it's time to just ignore them so we can go on with life.
Sainted ultra-green countries like Norway and New Zealand are now in fish farming in a major way. They don't appear to share your panic.
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There are basically 3 wild atlantic salmon left.
It's not that bad, but it's pretty much gone.
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Shhh, don't tell Scotland.
Here is a page with a map of current distribution of wild Atlantic Salmon.
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov... [noaa.gov]
In the US they've been reduced to eight rivers in Maine, but the situation is different in many places.
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How much does wild atlantic salmon cost? They're effectively gone.
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You still seem to think that food comes from the store.
You also seem to think that fish exist only to feed you.
Don't stop eating earthworms, or they'll all "effectively" be gone.
What would happen if people stopped eating "short pig?" Would the species be "effectively gone?"
Your understanding of zoology seems to be limited to, "I can haz cheeseburger?"
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I mean "long pig," but I guess it still works with what I wrote.
Have you been watching the price of salmon? (Score:3)
The difference is a catfish or trout farm is entirely landlocked. They dig a bunch of trenches on land, fill them with water, and raise the fis
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Wild-caught trout in cold mountain rivers often have pink flesh though. It seems to be the natural color of the meat when the fish get a high quality varied diet, and the grey color is only from commercially farmed fish. "For whatever reason."
I don't see it (Score:2)
Face recognition?
They check for lice and if yes, they retrieve the fish.
But knowing it was Fishy McFishface27623 who had lice isn't useful as far as I can see from the article.
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"Quarantined for medical treatement" (Score:3)
Sounds so nice and friendly and helpful! What utter liar wrote this? Of course, a salmon will just be killed if sick and disposed off.
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The problem is that the tanks are open to seawater. They kind-of have to be - to make use of the oxygenation and waste consumption services of large areas of ocean surface and seabed without paying for those services. That's the entire economic basis of fish farming, after all. So, if they treat the fish in the main tank (see footnote), then inevitably some of the treating chemical wi
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hah, modded troll when serious scientists believe it. truth hurts
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looks like you don't understand the minimum level of prions required for infection
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and quoting "indian experts", you're really funny. the land of the diploma mill produces white paper spewing ignoramuses
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Sigh, Americans.... (Score:2)
And before you ask if fish have faces, they do:
If you've ever been to an authentic Chinese restaurant you'd already know this. Of course, most Americans think fish are only fillets or breaded sticks.
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Global warming is just a red herring ...
I see what you did there.
Just make fewer babies.
Meh. I'd rather eat tofu.
hmmm, is ths fish face healthy or not? (Score:1)
Lice laser death ray. (Score:2)
Never mind scanning the fishes' faces, just burn the parasites off with a laser, as shown below.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/optoelectronics/licehunting-underwater-drone-protects-salmon-with-lasers
Density (Score:2)
No privacy for the fishes too! (Score:2)
Poor fishes. :(