Preserving our environment
A thriving, balanced, regenerative ocean ecosystem is key to the quality of fish we produce and the longevity of our business.
Read More
Waste
Lost as waste during processing
Fillets
Sold as high quality meat
Frames & Tails
Processed into fish meal for pet food
Gut content
Composted to make organic fertiliser
Heads & Fins
Sold for human consumption (soups) or processed into fish meal
A circular economy
At Petuna, every section of our fish is used, significantly reducing our carbon footprint. Our high quality, organic by-products are diverted away from landfill and converted into usable proteins, such as fish meal and oil, mixed with green waste to form compost and used as a protein and flavour concentrate for premium pet food.
Marine water quality
Petuna’s very future depends on best practice sustainable aquaculture, which demands we maintain the integrity of the natural environments in which we operate. Our fish also need a healthy environment to thrive, so we constantly monitor and report water quality data from each of our marine farm sites, including water temperatures and dissolved oxygen levels.
Wildlife interactions
Like all farmers, on land or at sea, we interact with wildlife in our working environments on a regular basis. Petuna prioritises the safety of our staff and welfare of our fish as well as the welfare of marine mammals and birds.
A Wildlife Interaction Plan has been developed as part of our commitment to minimising our wildlife interactions and our marine farm employees are professionally trained to care for wildlife in the event of an interaction on our sites.
Reducing interaction with wildlife, in particular seals and birds, is a continued priority for Petuna, with substantial ongoing investment in wildlife exclusion infrastructure and management systems. These include seal fences to restrict seals from access to our walkways and stronger netting to reduce seal interactions with our fish.
Birds sometimes use fish pens as a place to perch and can also be attracted by fish feed. Petuna’s above-water bird nets are kept taut and are inspected daily to ensure birds do not become entangled.
Seal
Mortalities
(last quarter)
Bird
Releases
(last quarter)
Bird
Mortalities
(last quarter)
Petuna Aquaculture Deterrent Usage
Petuna only uses acoustic device deterrents to ensure the safety of our staff and our fish. Deterrents are only ever used as a last resort.
Marine debris
Petuna has a strong focus on marine debris in-line with Tasmania’s zero tolerance approach.
In the past 12 months, our industry’s ‘Towards Zero’ program has included the following:
- development of a code of practice
- increased shoreline clean ups with industry and local communities
- environmental and social enterprise groups
- evolving technology for the public to report and record any marine debris, through the creation of a Hotline and mobile app.
Our industry has set some hard targets to reduce debris in the next three years, working collaboratively with government, community, and waste management groups.
Under the Marine Farming Development Plan management controls, and our lease and licence conditions, we are required to report any loss of equipment and make all reasonable efforts to recover marine farming debris as soon as possible. We also notify Marine & Safety Tasmania (MAST) immediately of any potential hazards to navigation.
All our floating marine farming equipment is identifiable or uniquely marked as Petuna property, and we provide a register of all our equipment to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania.
Petuna participates in regular shoreline clean ups, with 7.7% of debris collected coming from domestic sources or other fishing waste, which is then responsibly disposed of through the industry’s waste management systems.
Our marine lease footprint
Comparative size of Petuna’s marine lease footprint with agriculture and plantation forestry areas in Tasmania
Reducing our carbon footprint
Since 2019, our owner company Sealord, has measured its carbon footprint to better understand its effect on the environment. Petuna’s emissions were added to Sealord’s emissions in 2022.
Both companies are dedicated to reducing Sealord’s total carbon footprint and Petuna has a key role to play in this through feed innovation and efficiency. As we grow more fish, we must understand and measure the amount of CO2 emissions per kilogram of fish we harvest and continue reducing this over time.
We know that feed contributes up to 80% of most environmental footprints in aquaculture production, so we are working with our feed suppliers on innovation centred around lowering carbon emissions, using more circular and restorative raw materials, and minimising ingredients derived from wild fish stocks.
More information on our feed suppliers can be found on their websites.
