Rethinking the harvest of the oceans
In less time than it takes to eat an order of fish and chips, this 10-minute video from Greenpeace in Europe assesses the seafood industry from trawl net to store shelf. It doesn’t demand that anyone give up fish. Instead it compares sustainable and unsustainable fishing practices and tries to arm shoppers to favor the former over the latter.
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[...] This Bastille no longer exists as such–the Stockyards have been turned into a light industrial park–but slaughter still happens, closer to the pasture, further from those who eat. And it happens at sea. A new Greenpeace video offers a similar perspective on the harvest of the oceans. [...]
God I hate watching these things…I love to eat fish, my great uncle was a local fisherman in New Jersey, from his boat to the local markets everyday for fifty years.
There seemed to be such great hope for farming fish…or managing fish hatcheries…here in Oregon the salmon runs worked great for decades…before Dick “Head” Cheney and that cowboy interfered, no that’s harsh, it was declining before, but it collapsed recently. Perhaps farming is not always the best answer but surely we could manage things better.
For one, stop destroying natural habitat by strip mining techniques used by the Japanese and Russian fishing factories. Maybe getting tuna and salmon by line not drift nets.
How in the world can we be screwing up our oceans? A single fish can lay thousands of eggs. Imagine what an impact a chicken that could lay a thousand eggs would have on world hunger!
I am certainly no expert in this field but there must be a way to do this. My great uncle used to catch cod off the coast of New York, now they have to go to the friggin grand banks to find the suckers. I mean we are not doing this right.
Thanks for the heartfelt, well-informed comment, libtree. The Greenpeace video suggests some ways to do it: line fishing instead of nets, for example. And there does seem to be a movement toward sustainable fisheries instead of the traditional plunder of the sea’s bounty. But it may not be happening fast enough.
In response to another comment. See in context »I love this topic. This is such an interesting area of conservation, and has such possibility for consumer activism. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a program that is similar to what this group is doing. They look at nearly every mainstream fishery, and then make recommendations based on those findings. There are catagories for choices with large, harmful impacts, medium impacts, and small impacts. The variety of choices, and number of variables makes this a really fun topic to explore. Thanks for the story Jeff.
Libtree, I appreciate your honesty. No one likes to be told they are harming the oceans. You bring an important historical angle to this issue. There are lots of examples of once rich fisheries being devastated. The sardine fisheries of Monterey Bay are a perfect example. The fishing increased to fill the demand of WWII, but what no one realized is that the population was already on its way down, due to a natural cycle based on water temperature. There is hope for various kinds of positive change, either moving away from bottom trawling, or finding a new way to catch pelagics like tuna, and advances in farming are also giving a glimmer of hope. There is another article on T/S, by Hive Mind, about tuna farming.
If anyone is concerned about this, there are a few rules that can be very helpful. 1. Eat close to the sun. The higher up the food chain, the worse for the ocean, and ecosystem in general. 2. Eat local. If you are eating fish that was caught by a man and his son, that morning, you can be more connected with your food, and make sure you aren’t causing harm. 3. Eat aware. Ask about your seafood, and make choices that have less environmental harm. If you want more information, you can visit http://www.seafoodwatch.org.
Thanks!
Thanks for that, Skid. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago also has a downloadable, printable wallet-sized card that rates seafood:
http://www.sheddaquarium.org/using_the_wallet_card.html
That would be the same card Jeff, different name, different organization, but same concept, same arrangement. There are a variety of different zoos, aquariums, and museums that distribute Seafood Watch cards.