Fishpens and how much I hate them

There has been a new development in the Mediterranean in the last decade and a half: people are plopping down ugly fishpens in every gorgeous bay. Let me count the ways in which this is a bad idea.

First, fish from fishpens tastes like mushy paper. It's well-known that most people (and all Americans, without exception) do not have any idea what good fish tastes like (by the way, there is no exception for "oh, I'm an American, but I was born in <insert country with a fishing culture>." By the time someone acquires the citizenship, they've lost the taste. In fact, the citizenship test might as well omit the question about the cause of the Civil War and replace it with "can you name more than three warm fish dishes?" and whoever can gets sent back to their home country for being insufficiently American). So you can feed your regular Joe Schmoe white crap doused in oil and they'll think it's ok. But really, it's not ok. Do a taste test with farmed salmon (whose meat is actually pure white and has to have artificial coloring added to make it look like real salmon) and wild-caught to see the difference. 

Second, the pens cause enormous pollution. I won't belabor the point, but the guys who operate these things love to, or have to, overfeed the fish, and the excess fish food goes through the pen and decomposes on the seafloor along with the fish-poop that their fish constantly produce. It's like these guys find the nicest spots, and put poop in it.

Third, and the reason why I'm writing this: the pens are never lit or marked. These things are barely above sea level, difficult to see when it's dark and wavy, and generally in the way. In the pic below, you can't really see Port de Rosas but it's on the upper right behind the hill, and the fishpen is the messy sprawling structure on the upper right, on the direct approach to the only port. That's like hanging your laundry to dry directly downwind from the runway, at 1000' feet. Every landing plane will have to dodge your dirty underwear on its approach. A light with a battery and cheap solar charger costs $100 bucks. People buy them for their lawns, and they do not intend to make a living off of their lawns. Place a damed light on one corner. Or maybe go wild and get four for four corners. It'll protect your fishpen, too.

Finally, not unrelated to the third point above, the pens occasionally get damaged. Maybe in a storm, but just as likely, when someone plows into them because they're not lit. That releases thousands of foreign fish into the ecosystem. So far, this has been benign -- the releases I've heard about have been of salmon. The poor salmon must be very confused, as their bioclock would compel them to search for the bucket in which they were artificially born and raised, and not finding it anywhere, to ultimately die in vain. But the moment someone starts raising bonitos or bluefish, an accidental release will wreak havoc on an ecosystem.

Anyhow, the EU has regulations for everything. They even tried to dictate to Turkey just what the ingredients of yoghurt ought to be. This is so absurd I don't know where to begin, except to say that the word yoghurt is not German, English, French, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Norwegian or whatever it is they speak in Luxembourg, nor was yoghurt invented by a committee at The Hague. I don't tell anyone how to wear their lederhosen, so I expect the dude with the lederhosen to keep his respectful distance from me on all issues related to yoghurt. Anyhow, someone needs to come up with some regulations for fishpens pronto.

Fishpens on the upper right, on approach to Port de Rosas