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North Shore Fish Farms is an aquaculture facility that runs and operates out of Kingsville, Ontario, minutes away from the Detroit border. Fish farming involves raising fish commercially in tanks or enclosures, usually for food or mariculture. The Causarano family has been in the commercial fishing industry for over 35 years and have integrated into the evolving market and aquaculture.

North Shore focuses on producing a sustainable and eco-friendly fresh water product meeting the health conscious consumer demand; their main product of interest being yellow perch.

Aquaculture
From the biological viewpoint, aquaculture can be regarded as man’s attempt, through inputs of labour and energy, to improve the yield of useful aquatic organisms by deliberate manipulation of their rates of growth, mortality and reproduction. To the economist, it is the production of aquatic organisms from a basis of stock ownership, using biological manipulations to benefit the economist and the open market.

Indoor recirculation system
Causarano fishery harvests the eggs or hatchlings in the spring time and begins fed training them on a man-made formulated pellet high in protein and fat to promote growth. The fish begin their life cycle outdoors until an appropriate size were they are brought indoor to an ideal environment promoting growth and suitable year-round conditions that warrants production and fresh sales fifty-two weeks a year. As of 2010, North Shore Fish Farms has on sight, 3 single outdoor ponds designed for spawning, hatching and harvesting. Each pond is equipped with an aerator which not only oxygenates the water but also strips the water of any carbon dioxide gasses. The indoor recirculation system allows the production of fish throughout the winter months, when the ponds and lakes are frozen over and the availability of fresh fish is non-existent. During the winter months and throughout the year, North Shore will harvest on a weekly basis and physically hand select fish that are ready for the market; which provides a tremendous service for the customer base. Consumers have been limited to a frozen product over the winter months but now are presented with opportunities where a fresh, superior product, is truly available throughout the year.

Feeding
Protein is the most significant component of feeding because of its high cost and effects it has on constraint of growth. The protein levels in the fish food must reach the requirements of sixty percent protein. Aeration of water, sufficient oxygen, right temperature, along with a high protein diet creates the perfect fish for the consumer market.

North Shore does not burn or use any fossil fuels from beginning to end; the product is as ecologically friendly as possible, emitting very little waste. North Shore Fish Farm is able to minimize waste due to the fact that it is broken down into biological compounds that are than spread over the local fields and foliage which are able to take advantage of the nutrient rich waste products.

Mortality
Fish, especially at fish farms, are kept in constrictions never seen in the wild. Fish being concentrated this tightly can cause a number of problems, such as, damaging their fins, but the deadliest being stress. Stress has been equated with unhappiness, but it is also referred to as the sum of “all physiological responds by which an animal endeavours to re-establish homeostasis in the face of disrupting physical or chemical forces”. The responds are energy-consumptive and a stressed animal is unlikely to grow. Further, its probability of death from any other mortality factor is increased

Temperature is perhaps the most important water quality characteristic because of its direct effect on activity and the metabolic processes. It also has indirect effects through dissolved oxygen level, and the high cost of water temperature manipulation. Some other reasons for mortality are: nutrition and predation.