For Seafood Lovers with a Conscience, Our Best and Worst Picks

Posted: 03-Nov-2003; Updated: 11-Nov-2003

Not so long ago the world's oceans teemed with huge predatory fish like the giant marlin immortalized in Ernest Hemingway's 1952 book, The Old Man and the Sea. The tale recounts an old Cuban fishermen's days-long struggle to catch the incredible 18-foot-long fish in deep shark-infested waters. But as extraordinary as that marlin was in its time, today the chances that an angler will find one anywhere near those legendary proportions are next to nil. Over the last fifty years, some 90% of swordfish, marlin and sharks have been fished out by large-scale commercial fishing, according to a recent analysis published in the journal Nature. And catches of other popular seafood such as tuna, cod, halibut, skate and flounder are now much smaller than those of decades ago.
 
Does this grim news mean that seafood lovers with a conscience should stop eating fish altogether? No. Consumers still have a tasty menu of options from well-managed fisheries and environmentally responsible aquaculture operations (for example, fish caught in a way that minimizes harm to marine habitat and maintains fish populations). Our newly updated Best and Worst Choices list and Pocket Seafood Selector, a handy guide for choosing fish when shopping or dining out, reflects our Oceans staff's latest research. In some cases, changes in fisheries or management practices are for the better, as in the case of sablefish (see below).

To Buy Farmed or Wild? That is the Question

Choosing eco-friendly seafood can be daunting. Take the case of salmon. Most salmon sold in fish markets and grocery stores in the United States is farmed Atlantic salmon. Grown in densely packed netpens, this farm-raised fish is associated with several environmental problems.

"For one thing, farmed salmon are fed meal and oils from wild-caught fish," says our expert Dr. Rebecca Goldburg. "Each pound of salmon produced through aquaculture requires two to three pounds of wild-caught fish, so in this case farming is not reducing commercial fishing pressure and in fact means a net loss of protein in the marine ecosystem as a whole." These operations also release large amounts of fish waste and excess feed into coastal waters, and the crowded conditions make the fish prone to disease -- requiring antibiotics to be administered. "Such antibiotic use raises concerns about the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that may threaten human health," adds Goldburg. (For more information, see Farming Dilemma.)

But conscientious consumers need not despair. Five species of wild salmon from Alaska (chinook, chum, coho, pink and sockeye) are abundant and well managed, and gourmet chefs prize wild salmon not only as an eco-friendly choice but also for their exquisite taste and texture. In contrast to farmed salmon, which are fed a synthetic carotenoid pigment that results in their orange color, wild salmon's pink to orange hues come naturally from their diet of krill and other similarly colored crustaceans. 

Yet wild is not always the best choice for a particular species, and may in fact be one of the worst.  Consider wild sturgeon and paddlefish, whose populations are significantly depleted and rate a Worst Pick (along with their caviar). But these same species are farmed in an environmentally responsible way, and thus merit a Best Choice (ditto for their eggs). So too, the Best Pick Arctic char, with a similar flavor and texture to salmon, is farmed in an environmentally friendly manner.

New and Improved

One new addition to our seafood Best Picks list is sablefish from Alaska. This well-managed fishery, which operates under an Individual Fishery Quota (IFQ), a management tool that Environmental Defense has promoted for years, accounts for some 70% of all the sablefish caught in the United States. The predominant type of fishing gear used in this fishery, bottom longlines (short lines of hooks that are attached to a longer main line at regular intervals), does less damage to marine habitat and nontargeted species than many other types of fishing gear.  Trawlers, for example, drag huge nets along the sea floor and scoop up and kill large numbers of like turtles, seabirds or fish in their path, whether or not the fish are targeted for capture (called bycatch). Trawlers are often used off the U.S. West Coast, affecting the severely depleted rockfish.

According to Oceans Program scientist Dr. Rod Fujita, "in the Alaska sablefish fishery, IFQs have ended the race for fish that plagues so many other fisheries. IFQs in Alaska and in dozens of other fisheries around the world have fostered far better conservation performance and greater economic returns - a real win-win solution."

Know Your Source!

Since in many instances the same type of seafood may be caught or farmed differently in different parts of the world, it is helpful to know where the fish was produced. A case in point is shrimp. Most shrimp sold in the United States is either farm-raised in southeast Asia or Ecuador (where vital wetlands such as mangrove forests are sometimes destroyed to build shrimp ponds), or are wild species caught in trawls off the coasts of Central and South America (where bycatch can be as high as ten pounds for every pound of shrimp).

On the other hand, two coldwater species of shrimp -- Northern shrimp from Newfoundland and spot prawns from the northern Pacific -- are caught in nets that minimize bycatch or in low-impact traps.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that many fishmongers and stores do not clearly or accurately label fish. Imported farmed shrimp may just be labeled "tiger shrimp" or even "gulf shrimp."

The best course of action you can take as a conscientious consumer is to become familiar with the issues involved in choosing eco-friendly seafood and to pressure your retailer to clearly and accurately label seafood. This in turn will force retailers to be better informed themselves and to make more sustainable fish purchases.

FIND OUT MORE

• Visit Seafood Selector, and download and print out our Pocket Seafood Selector.
• Find out more about Sustainable Fishing
• For more on ocean decline, commercial fishing methods and fish farming, see 
  Troubled Waters.