https://reasonstobecheerful.world/mussel-farming-ecosystem-revival-uk/
"The water beneath our boat is teeming with life. It is a fine Sunday morning
on Loch Slapin on the Isle of Skye, and Dr. Judith Brown and Andrew Airnes are
pointing below the surface to where they are hoping to grow more than 100
metric tons of high-quality animal protein suspended from four ropes.
“You probably wouldn’t be able to grow one sheep on that land-wise,” says
Airnes. Due in part to its tremendous efficiency, mussel farming is seen by a
new generation of food producers as having exciting potential for feeding a
growing population while restoring native biodiversity, which has been damaged
or destroyed by pollution and harmful fishing practices.
“Mussel farming with suspended ropes creates a marine habitat, an ecosystem
which is permanent. All you do is rotate the ropes so there is always the
habitat there. It ups biomass by 3.6 times and biodiversity by 1.6 times,” says
Airnes.
Mussels attach to whatever substances they can find in the water, in this case
four 220 meter-long doubleheader ropes, explains Brown. “When they are very
small, they release spat [juvenile mussels] that stick to things hanging in the
water. Effectively, mussel farming is providing the substrate that they would
naturally stick to.”
Aside from maintaining the ropes and redistributing the mussels to spread them
out when they are young, there are no further inputs — unlike almost all other
methods of farming. The mussels simply grow at their natural density without
the need for additional food, water or treatments."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
