Seafood and Marine Conservation
New Zealand is home to the world’s rarest dolphin, Cephalorhynchus hectori. There are two subspecies: the northern Maui’s dolphin, and the southern Hector’s dolphin. Maui’s dolphin is critically endangered, with recent population estimates at 110 individuals. Hector’s dolphins, by comparison, are doing much better with about 7,000 individuals. Still, twenty-five years ago there were over 28,000 Hector’s dolphins. Why the decline? Fishing, pollution, and harassment by boats and people.
From our land-based perspective the ocean seems vast and inexhaustible. It seems to be a bottomless pot of seafood. Yet we have learned many, many times that our choices in life are linked to the prosperity or decline of other species. Marine life is not immune from our actions.
I was inspired to write this blog post by an article I read called Marine Conservation on Paper by Giovanni Bearzi. The author expressed frustration that many of the lessons learned from exhausting conservation research never get off paper. Recommendations aren’t implemented for a variety of reasons, and in spite of all the talk, things don’t change and continue to decline. Bearzi wrote:
“What the marine environment needs is a mass of people who value and care about it. This means people who not only express feelings of admiration and awe for whales and dolphins, but who also recognize the complexities involved in achieving meaningful protection and are ready to become engaged.”
We have been fortunate in New Zealand and have seen sperm whales, bottlenose dolphins, dusky dolphins, and Hector’s dolphins as well as fur seals, sea lions, and countless sea birds. I, for one, would like future generations to enjoy the same experiences.
The more I learn about marine issues the more convinced I am of my choice to not eat seafood. Vegetarianism aside, I don’t eat seafood for these reasons:
1. In most cases, we simply don’t know what is a sustainable level of fishing or harvesting. How many orange roughies can you harvest each year without them declining in size or number? We need to know much more about the reproductive biology of commercially fished species, as well as others that are unintentionally caught.
2. In cases where we do know how much is too much, economic and political pressures prevent the passing of legislation to protect marine resources by limiting catches.
3. If the laws are passed, they are hard to enforce. For example, illegal fishing often happens around the Galapagos Islands, but the Ecuadorian government does not have enough resources to adequately patrol for illegal (usually Japanese) fishing boats.
4. Bycatch. Indiscriminate trawling, dredging, gill netting, and seining catches anything in its path. The unwanted organisms are thrown back into the ocean, usually dead. At least if you eat a chicken you don’t have to kill a horse, a flock of pigeons, a bunch of piglets, some ducklings, and a turtle to catch the damn chicken.
The least that my seafood-consuming blog readers can do is make sure that the fish you do eat isn’t from a teetering population or destructive fishing practices.
For several years the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California has put out a red, yellow, and green list of seafood products to eat in the U.S. Here’s a link to the national guide. Take a minute to find your region.
New Zealand has it’s own Best Fish Guide by the Forest and Bird Society.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program has loads of information about different types of fish and fishing practices if you’re interested in learning more.
Happy eating!
Carrie
5 comments:
Awesome Carrie! Well written and to the point.
One thing I'd like to add to your list of reasons to not eat seafood: marine animals spend their entire lives surrounded by their watery environment, and they absorb everything that is in it - whether directly from the water or through the food chain. While there are a few polutants in the water that we know about (Mercury, for one) there are countless others that are unstudied or not understood. Many of them could have extremely detrimental effects on animals (including you and me) with long term exposure. Also keep in mind that any woman will pass on a huge percentage of her toxin load to her children through the placenta and breast milk. So, for the sake of your kids, be conscious of what you eat: choose organics and free/range from land, and avoid seafood (whether it's from the middle of the pacific or New York Harbor seems to make little difference).
-Karli
The main problem, it seems to me, is that the value of biodiversity is super-hard to measure, while the costs of biodiversity-enhancing practices are often very explicit.
My current research is focusing on optimal invasive species management strategies. If you come up with a way to measure the actual value of biodiversity, that would help a lot.
anyway, What about if you're a dude? There aren't many other cheap low-fat protein sources besides tuna, it seems.
Good question Adam. According to Seafood Watch, there are environmentally-friendly tuna options. There are several different kinds of tuna. In general it looks like the best choice is albacore tuna from British Columbia or the U.S. caught by trolling or with hook and line. Read more here and click on the links for the other kinds of tuna as well.
Carrie, How do you feel about farm raised fish? I know a lot of environmental groups don't like the practice (for some reasons I agree with and some I don't), but I am wondering what you, and Karli too, think.
Honestly Coco I don't know that much about farmed fish. From what I've read it sounds like it can be done well but it can also be the equivalent of cutting down rainforest to raise corn-fed beef (a HIGHLY inefficient and polluting process). Tilapia farming, for example, seems to really run the gamut from great to awful. I think the best thing to do is to make choices based on the information available from organizations like Seafood Watch. Sorry I can't be more useful!
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