Hope for Gulf reef fish

After the BP oil disaster struck the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, consumer confidence in Gulf seafood plummeted. Fishermen and coastal communities wondered if the area would ever recover.

Responding to the crisis, EDF and the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, a group of conservation-minded fishermen, launched Gulf Wild seafood last year. The program is designed to ensure that fish are responsibly caught and tested for oil-based contaminants.

Tracking fish to the boat and captain

Each Gulf Wild fish is tagged with a unique number. Consumers can enter it at MyGulfWild.com to learn about the captain who caught their fish and the 10-square-mile capture location. More than 150,000 Gulf Wild red snapper and grouper have been sold in fish markets and restaurants around the country, assuring seafood lovers that their Gulf reef fish is sustainably caught in U.S. waters.

“I hope this will become a prototype for managing fisheries in the future,” says chef Rick Moonen, who serves Gulf Wild red snapper in his Las Vegas restaurant RM Seafood.

So far, Gulf Wild fishermen have tested hundreds of grouper and red snapper. To date, no detectable levels of oil contaminants or dispersants have been found. And Gulf Wild fishermen—numbering 100 and growing—pledge to follow strict conservation practices.

An end to mislabeled fish

The Gulf Wild label is also a guarantee of authenticity in the fight against fish fraud. Recent investigations, including one from Consumer Reports, indicate that as much as a third of seafood sold in the United States may be mislabeled.

“I don’t want people selling farmed tilapia in place of my grouper,” says Jason DeLaCruz, a fisherman out of Seminole, FL.

Populations rebound

All Gulf Wild fishermen are also part of the Gulf’s innovative catch share management program, which EDF helped design. The program works to conserve 19 species of reef fish. The catch share for Gulf red snapper has been in place since 2007 with good results. Red snapper populations have rebounded significantly since then.

“When I started out commercial fishing five years ago, we did not have red snapper in this area,” says DeLaCruz, who initially opposed catch shares. “Now a fisherman can catch 500 pounds of red snapper a day without any trouble. Those numbers are unprecedented since I’ve been fishing.”

Early results for the grouper catch share, in effect since 2010, are promising. “Catch shares helped save the fishery from an economic disaster,” says Glen Brooks, a grouper fisherman on the board of the Alliance.

EDF’s Seafood Selector once listed red and black grouper as overfished, but thanks in part to the catch share program and Gulf Wild, we’ve upgraded them to fish that can be eaten in moderation.