Carp in Neolithic China, Roman fishponds, trout and salmon farms, tilapia, and Florida's own aquaculture.
Bones from the Neolithic village of Jiahu in China show people raising common carp in managed ponds and flooded fields about 8,000 years ago, the earliest known fish farming. Later Chinese manuals described raising several kinds of carp together, each feeding at a different depth.
Why does a pond full of different fish waste less food?
Wealthy Romans built piscinae, seaside fishponds cut into rock with channels for tides, to keep mullet, eels and sea bream. Columella described how to build and stock them, and fish farming became a mark of luxury.
Was a Roman fishpond a farm or a status symbol?
Trout hatcheries spread in the 1800s to restock rivers. In the 1970s Norway began raising Atlantic salmon in sea pens, and farmed salmon became a global commodity. Escapes, sea lice and feed made from wild fish keep it controversial.
Does a fish farm take pressure off the sea, or add to it?
Tilapia appear in ancient Egyptian tomb art and were raised in ponds. Tough, fast-growing and able to eat plants, they are now farmed in more than a hundred countries and are one of the world's most traded farmed fish.
Why would a plant-eating fish be easier to farm than a salmon?
Florida farms tropical aquarium fish, hard clams, oysters, shrimp and sturgeon; the Tampa Bay area is the heart of the nation's ornamental fish industry, and Cedar Key on the Gulf is known for farmed clams. The state's Division of Aquaculture certifies farms and leases submerged land.
What would a Bradenton student see on a visit to a Florida fish farm?
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