Fish Farming Of The Future

Atlantic salmon is threaten in the wild. Photo by: imgur.com

Fish is one of the important protein sources but badly affected by many issues from pollution, over-fishing, unsafe even for farmed fish and caused threats to environment. While stopping fish farming will never stop the other threats for the wild fish and we still need fish as part of our foods. Luckily some of us never stop to find better ways to raise farm fish with better condition.

Farming fish is not an easy job especially salmon that requires both between salt water and fresh water. This fish is bigger in size with carnivorous appetite. Farming salmon in the net-pens over the rivers and lakes been practiced for so long and proven caused many problems for the fish itself and for the environment. Using other fishes as their food also another reason salmon farming will not solve the over-fishing problem.

Atlantic salmon swimming in the wild. Photo by: imgur.com

Cleaner water and easier to control (land farming). Photo by: seacoreseafood.com

With more people come forward and pressure from the consumers, fish farmers find another solution – to raise salmon in land away from natural water supply. With enclosed environment all factors are control properly from the quality of water, oxygen content in the water, salinity to food supplies. These lead to easier manage conditions; even though the cost of building the facilities far higher than traditional net-pens farming.

One of the pioneering company in this technology is KUTERRA that raising Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) on their farm at Northern Vancouver Island, Canada.

The land farming allows farmers to control many other threats to their fish such as predators, pollution from the water, diseases and water from the farm also never goes into the river/sea. With high circulation of water, low fish feed, controlled temperature and oxygen, the growth of fish are much faster with no diseases. In case of diseases they can change all the water and sanitized all the facilities again.

Damage net in net-pens farming: Photo by: KUOWPHOTO/MEGAN FARMER

More and more land farm will be build. Photo by: undercurrentnews.com

Even though the cost to build land farm are far higher, but it can produce higher yield with good quality of fish. Not to mention they never caused any harm to nature (other than the land they need to use to build the farm). This technology is still in its early stage and there are more improvement in the process and management that will bring better result.

In fact salmon farming is not the only technology that got a facelift in recent years. All other fishes with high demands and threaten in the wild such as tuna, grouper, cobia, puffer fish, and few other shellfish/crustaceans also had been upgraded. This upgrade not only to produce more production but also to make sure that the produce will be safe for human consumption with less impact to the environment.

Salmon produced by KUTERRA. Photo by: kuterra.com

Deep sea farming also will be part of future fish farming. Photo by: innovasea.com 

With more people work together to improve the quality of fish farming industries, it will benefits both the consumers and the farmers. While at the same time we hope that will allow the restoring amount of the fish in the wild from over fishing – but still threatens by pollutions of many kinds.

New Fabric From Orange Fibre

Producing orange fibre to safe cost of disposal orange's waste. photo by: orangefiber.it

Most of modern fabrics are produce by synthetic materials and rarely new materials came from organic materials (as we already stick with few of the traditional materials as we known such as cotton, silk, linen, wool, jute, pineapple leaves, lotus silk and etc.). It shows that many other organic materials consist potential fibre to be use in producing fabric – perhaps need to go through different process.

At least that’s what student Adriana Santanocito and her friend Enrica Arena tried to do and successfully produced what they called Orange Fibre. Adriana was studying textiles at Politecnico of Milan, when she first thought about to produce the fabric from orange fibre. This idea came when she thought about how scientist can produced fabric out of milk and rice. Then she also thought about the problem of the citrus waste back at her home Sicily.

Orange waste. photo by: orangefiber.it 

The sample of Orange Fabric. photo by: orangefiber.it

We can produce fabric with cellulose produced by plants that generally known as rayon. The fabric that made of bamboo is actually rayon. Still there’s nothing bad about it. In fact rayon can be produced at cheaper price, safe lots of energy and farmland to grow fibre plants such as cotton, flax, hemp, jute, nettles, yucca and many others.

By producing orange fabric, Adriana helps to make sure the orange waste used for something more useful rather than to left it rotten and safe the huge amount of money with the disposal cost. Instead of using new trees to produce pulp, why not using the cellulose from other waste product such as in this case – she did a very good job.

Bamboo fibre, another example of fibre produce by plant. photo by: materia

Rayon allows fabrics price become cheaper as the plants fibre produced by few types of plants are harder to produce. It also allow wider range usage of fabrics for applications from tea bags, to fabrics for high quality dress. The only things that we concern about rayon production is the usage of harmful chemicals and their effects to the workers and environmental effects (when the waste management not been carried properly).

Orange fabric is another example of creative idea on how we can safe resources that before treat as waste. As we know that in ancient times, clothes are afforded only by the riches and they are very hard to produce. With new materials engineering will allow us to explore more possibilities to get better materials that are not just cheaper but also good for the nature.

The Wonderful of Birds Migration

Canadian geese on its flight to migrate to safer breeding places - photo: M. Horath

Some birds flying thousands of miles a year migrating between two places across the continent to find suitable places to breed, feed and rising their chicks. Migration happens in so many ways from short distance, medium distance, long distance or some of the birds will stay at the same place throughout the year.

Studies of birds’ migration had been improved with the advancement of technologies available today. Even though today the studies can be conducted properly with satellites tracking devices, the birds’ populations are getting decreases as their natural stopover areas had been used for development by human. Other threats also caused by plastics pollution that killed many birds and also their main sources of foods.

With the proper studies, action can be taken in order to identify the important areas for migratory birds can be protected in order to help them to complete their journey. Most of these areas are wetlands and coastal areas that become their main feeding grounds during their journey across the globe.

Migrating waders in Roebuck Bay, Western Australia - photo: Mdk572

Birds migrate in order to make sure the availability of the food resources. While during the mating seasons they also need to make sure that the areas they select is safe to raise their young. Many migratory birds migrate in large groups, while the short range migratory birds might migrate in smaller numbers. Since these patterns of migration had been going on for long period of times, the ecosystem in both migratory areas are suitable to support their needs.

Among the long-distance migration, Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) known to be the longest migrator by flying from Arctic breeding grounds and the Antarctic each year. Other long-distance migrators include short-tailed shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris), ruff (Philomachus puganx), northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe), Amur falcon (Falco amurensis) and many other birds that migrates in order to find better places with plenty of foods.

Migration pattern few species of birds - by: L.Shyamal

Arctic tern migrate the longest distance - photo: Toivo Toivanen & Tiina Toppila

Some birds might migrating in smaller distance - photo: Ken Thomas

Even though harnessing plenty of food resources in the areas where they stays, migratory birds also will enrich it with their faeces to increase the blooming of algae and fertilized the areas to make it suitable for other life to grows by the time they return the following year. This is why the migrating process keep on continuing for long period of times – until we change the environment.

The same thing with medium-distance and short-distance migrators. They also balancing the amount of their food resources. Spreading the seeds, improve the soils, increase the drainage (when they scratching the ground to find food), controlling pest and many other things that birds do.

Mass flocking of bird will enrich the areas - photo: Times of India

Equipped with wings, birds are the animals that can travels further in order to shapes the world compared with fish that can only travel to areas covered with water (and either they are salt-water fish or fresh-water fish). For millions of years birds the only travellers that can go from end to end of the world in order to balance their ecosystem.

Birds’ migrations are one of the best things to observe in nature. From there, there are many things interconnected together with other lives wherever they stop. As the time goes by, everything will keep on flourishing until they come again the following year.

Birds With Beautiful Crown

Cockatoo has beautiful crest/crown on top of its head. 

Birds have many beautiful features and some of them also have elaborate crown or crest while other have less or none at all. These crown not only to give those birds beautiful features to attract mates but also to show the bird’s emotions. So their crown is very important for communication.

They are few types of crowns for birds. Most of the bird's crown are formed by different colours and shapes of feathers. It can be small or sometimes very different from their head’s feathers such as for crowned crane or cockatoo. There are many other birds have the same type of crown and they use it for different purposes.

Crown craned crest made up of totally different feathers.

Malachite Kingfisher has more prominent crest of feathers.

While some other birds crown are formed by fleshy upright structure known as comb. Their comb can be vary in size, colour and shape that located at the top of the bird’s head. The easiest example for birds that have this type of comb are jungle fowl, and domestic roosters.

They are various types of chicken combs.

Casque is little bit different as it is built from keratin (more like cow’s horn). There are also different types of shapes, colours and sizes of casque in birds that showing signs of wear over time. Few example of birds with casque are cassowary and hornbill.

Casque on cassowary's can be part of their weapon too.

Rhinoceros hornbill is another type of bird with casque on its head. 

Little bit different than comb, wattles is formed by fleshy growths on a bird’s head, face and neck. So this structure not only formed on the head that make it different than comb. The easiest example for this type of crown are Muscovy ducks and wild turkeys.

Wattle on these wild turkeys will expand and turn redder when they get excited.

It is wonderful to see the different types of these crowns on birds as it also the easiest way to identify the bird species in the field. While for the birds itself, it shows how unique they are from any other species of animals (mammals) that mostly use their horns for protection or fighting.

No matter what are the reasons birds have such elaborate crown on their head, all we need to do is to properly observe this feature on birds. Hopefully this is another interesting thing for us to learn more about birds in order to protect them for the future.

How to Start Bird Watching?

Bird-watching can be relaxing activity.

Bird-watching also known as birding can be wonderful activity individually, in group or as a family activity. Bird-watching usually just for recreational purposes, however birdwatchers can provide their findings to help serious organizations with valuable data before serious findings can be conducted. Nowadays more birdwatchers contribute to these purposes with the advancement of gadgets and internet technologies.

Here we want to talk about the basic tools for birdwatcher. With these basic tools we can start this new wonderful hobby to identify birds that available in our areas or maybe nearby. Even though in order to observe the birds you just can do it without any tools, but we need to learn how to collect data so the activity will be more organized.

Notebook for bird-watcher - photo from wildbirdonthefly.

Notebook - notebook is very important for this activity. Yes, you need to keep some details about your observation. Date, weather, location, bird types and location can give more information about the bird behaviour. Well, some birds are migratory and you will never see it in the same location every day. While their behaviour will help you to identify them more accurately (check the video below).

Always make sure you have some guides.

Local field guide - as a beginner always bring together some references to make sure the identification process will be much easier. So make sure you have the right reference for local areas because the birds are different according to geographical of the areas.

Digital resources make it simpler.

Digital resources - your digital equipment can be so helpful for bird-watching activities. They not only provide references, but you also can tag the location, upload the information or ask for help from other birders or get professional help for identification. You also can join larger birder groups locally or internationally.

There will be extra benefits when you do it in group.

Local group - get involve with other groups locally so you can join with their activities. Such kind of activities will make sure you gain more experiences while contribute something more valuable to the community.

Binoculars make sure you enjoy the activity without disturbing the birds.

Binoculars - always make sure you have one when doing your observation so you can enjoy more of bird-watching activity. Start with something simple (but good quality) until you find out what suitable for you bird-watching activities. Binoculars allow you to make the observation without disturbing the birds and make them fly away.

Always learn more from the experts as bird-watching can be interesting when you gain more knowledge about it. Some bird-watchers also combine their hobby with photography that will create more public awareness and add another source of income too (if you sell it). They are many possibilities when you truly enjoy what you do.