Marine Fish Feeding
By Dan Roberts, Research Scientist
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Published in Florida Fishing Weekly, Nov. 26, 2006
In 2001, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) unanimously voted
to prohibit divers from feeding marine life in Florida. You might be wondering why the FWC
believes these “interactive marine experiences” are harmful. After all, the fish get an easy
meal, and divers get entertained, so what’s the problem?
Overall, feeding marine fish is a bad idea for everyone, including divers, fish and the
ecosystem. Contrary to popular belief, fish have memories and can learn. Through
behavioral conditioning, fed animals learn to associate people with a meal. When this
happens, fish anticipate the hand-feeding experience and depend on handouts from divers.
Hand-feeding marine fish results in a variety of negative impacts. Most marine fish have
around 10 essential amino acids required for growth and health maintenance. Fish cannot
make these acids on their own, and they receive these building blocks from food. Fish
generally consume a wide variety of prey in order to meet dietary requirements. To obtain
the necessary nutrients, fish have complex feeding cycles. Seasonal, daily and other
temporal feeding strategies make up a fish’s foraging behavior. Fish conditioned to take an
easy meal from divers begin anticipating meals, which interrupts natural feeding cycles. A
fish conditioned to feed on diver deliveries may actually stop normal foraging patterns and
become malnourished, stressed and can even die.
In addition to nutritional consequences, hand-fed fish are especially vulnerable to
predators. In carnivorous fish, sensations associated with feeding can override other
associations, including predator avoidance and protection. Competition for the handout
interferes with natural instincts and behaviors, which are essential for survival and
cohabitation with other species.
Hand-feeding creates other ecological disturbances. These disturbances change
community structure. Introducing a ration of food to a fish, even a ration of semi-natural
food, is significant. By affecting the natural feeding behaviors, fish feeding can destabilize a
number of ecological relationships including species abundance. The effects are unique to
each marine community, but there is a measurable impact with recurring and prolonged
Marine life maintains balanced ecological relationships by competing for habitat and food.
In many cases, different species share space and alternate the use of that space by
feeding at different times of day. Some species do not interact at all. This intricate balance
of behavior can be interrupted by the introduction of a free meal from a diver. Unnatural
feeding overrides normal competitive relationships among species. It fosters combative
behavior among species that, under usual circumstances, may never come in contact with
each other. Combative behavior can seriously injure animals. For example, pelicans and
harbor seals rarely come in contact with each other in a typical habitat. When people feed
pelicans, harbor seals may actually bite the birds as they compete for food.
Hand-feeding-induced attacks on humans do occur. Feeding wildlife can place people in
harm’s way. In a letter to Governor Bush, a diver described a bad experience as a result of
“On a dive vacation to Florida in 1999, I was attacked and bitten by a large green moray eel
while on an interactive feeding dive...My attack was completely unprovoked, coming from
Moray eels, sharks, barracuda, groupers and a host of other species are can pose an
increased danger to divers as a result of hand-feeding.
In addition to behavior changes in wild fish, fish in captivity also exhibit altered feeding
behavior. Species such as red drum and snook, maintained by the FWC’s Fish and Wildlife
Research Institute, become almost tame and partially domesticated to the point where they
learn feeding routines, including locations of feed, times of feeding and possibly even the
person feeding them. Research has demonstrated this in shallow tanks with clear water,
as well as in 1-acre ponds with cloudy water. In other studies, researchers have described
groupers’ readiness to approach humans when in captivity. Gag, a common grouper in the
Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic Ocean, would hold their heads out of the water to take
food from humans, accepting direct hand-feeding in air much as you would feed a snack to
a dog. This behavior demonstrates a feeding response overriding predator avoidance. Fish
in nature learn the ways of the wild, while fish in captivity do not. Wild fish moved to captivity
forget the ways of the wild and readily adapt to confinement and its routines. Scientists
have repeatedly observed this in science-based programs. Fish reared in captivity for stock
enhancement sometimes undergo a process called habitation prior to release into the
wild. This process conditions the fish to a more natural feeding behavior so they have a
better chance of surviving in the wild.
Next time you’re enjoying Florida’s marine environment, don’t be tempted to feed fish. FWC
researchers are certain that feeding wild marine fish and invertebrates is bad for everyone.
Source - Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
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