For cod's sake stick to salmon, scampi and sprats

[Mr T.]

For cod's sake stick to salmon, scampi and sprats
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
(Filed: 04/08/2004)


Cod, plaice and skate should be off the menu until depleted stocks recover, according to a guide published today.

But Dover sole, North Sea herring, coley, red mullet, Cornish mackerel and farmed scallops can still be eaten with a clear conscience, says the guide, which can be found at http://www.fishonline.org

The website has been developed from the Marine Conservation Society's acclaimed Good Fish Guide, written by Bernadette Clarke, as a result of an increasing number of requests from consumers, restaurants and retailers.

Ensuring that fish comes from healthy stocks was identified as the primary environmental concern in a recent survey of 500 customers carried out by Marks & Spencer, which has supported the development of the website.

About 77 per cent said that overfishing was their primary environmental concern, beating all other issues including pesticide residues in food.

The website, which covers 120 fish species compared with 56 in the original guide, provides a simple, continually-updated way of checking whether a favourite fish dish should be on the menu.

The inclusion of Icelandic, Faroese and Norwegian Arctic cod in the "fish to avoid" list is likely to surprise many. Until recently they were all included in the Good Fish Guide as well-managed stocks.

But the latest scientific advice from the Copenhagen-based International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), which studies stocks in the North East Atlantic, says they should be avoided.

According to the advice, published in June, North-east Arctic, Icelandic and Faroese cod are all overfished and risk falling below a healthy stock size if fishing continues at the present rate.

Cod in the North Sea, Irish Sea and Baltic is already below the ICES minimum recommended stock size. The council recommends that fishing for them should be banned.

Dawn Bache, the Marine Conservation Society's fisheries officer, said: "By avoiding buying cod from overfished stocks the demand for these fish, and thus the pressure on vulnerable stocks, will be reduced.

"However, MCS recognises that cod is a popular fish for consumers and restaurateurs and it is unlikely that demand will stop, even in the light of ICES advice. Therefore if customers still wish to buy cod, choosing line-caught cod from Iceland, Faroes and the North East Arctic is the better choice to make."

A rating of 5 is given to fish that the Society recommends should be avoided because they are overfished, vulnerable to exploitation (species with slow growth rates such as skates and rays), poorly managed, and when the method of catching them causes a by-catch of dolphins, sharks, seabirds or other fish.

This last is why North Sea haddock, stocks of which are now healthier than at any time for 30 years, ends up in the "fish to avoid" category, because haddock is caught with North Sea cod, currently at worryingly low levels.

The website's advice on tuna is tricky for those used to eating tinned tuna in their lunchtime sandwich. The advice is to avoid all but pole and line caught yellowfin and skipjack - which means no tinned tuna as this is caught with purse seine nets.

Also likely to be controversial is the advice that farmed salmon is sustainable if organic or Freedom Food certified.

The Telegraph has revealed that the amounts of blue whiting - a deep sea fish - being taken for fishmeal are grossly in excess of the limits recommended by ICES. The MCS says organic fish farms specify that a higher proportion of fishmeal comes from offal - waste from other fish - and not from wild caught fish.

Deep sea fish - alfonsinos, rat or rabbit fish, greater forkbeard, tusk and orange roughy - figure heavily in the "fish to avoid" list because ICES has said the pressure on these stocks is far too great.

The "best choice" category is, for the moment, extremely small, the result of a crisis in most of the world's fisheries brought about by an arms-race of fishing technology and the difficulty of persuading fishermen to catch less.

The list of what to eat includes farmed scallops and mussels and three stocks of fish certified as sustainably caught by the Marine Stewardship Council.

The Marine Conservation Society hopes that by increasing market demand for fish caught in a selective and ecologically sensitive manner it will persuade other fisheries to apply for certification.

Miss Bache said: "Fishonline will inform customers about the fish they buy and how their choices can help contribute to a sustainable future for our fishing industry."


Fish to Avoid:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/grap...nfish04big.gif


Marine Action - The Good Fish Guide:

http://www.mcsuk.org/action/gfg.htm


International Council for the Exploration of the Sea:

http://www.ices.dk/

[beanie]

scampi or smoked salmon everytime for me

[bottle_monkey]

Even better don't eat fish at all. I will be sticking to my lovely steak

[Fathoms Down]

I was under the impression that scampi was also off the menu as its monkfish which is a slow breeding species. Anyone know if this is the case?

[Diving Daisy]

Monkfish
Lophius americanus
(A.K.A. - Goosefish, Anglerfish)



Life History

Monkfish are marine bottom-dwelling fishes belonging to the family, Lophiidae. These fishes have very broad, depressed heads (head is as wide as the fish is long) and enormous mouths. They have long, sharp teeth and a modified spine called an "esca", that is quite mobile and can be angled forward so it can dangle in front of the fish's mouth and be wiggled like bait to lure its prey. Monkfish range from the Grand Banks and northern Gulf of St. Lawrence south to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. They are occasional visitors to the lower Chesapeake Bay from late fall to early spring. They inhabit sand, mud, and broken shell bottoms from inshore areas to depths greater than 800 m (2,300 ft).

Monkfish reach maturity between ages 3 and 4, and spawning can take place from spring through early fall depending on latitude. Females lay a non-adhesive, buoyant gelatinous egg mass that floats as a broad raft on the water's surface. Larvae and juveniles are pelagic and remain in this stage for several months before they settle to the bottom at a size of about 3 inches. Monkfish grow rapidly with females reaching approximately 39 inches and living to 12 years of age. Males have not been found older than age 9, and their total lengths reach approximately 35 inches. Monkfish are voracious predators and feed on benthic fishes and other prey almost as big as themselves.

Chesapeake Bay Management

The Monkfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP) took effect on November 8, 1999, with annual updates now into 2003. The plan was prepared by the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils, in coordination with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Initially overfished, this FMP set optimum yield and catch targets along the Atlantic Coast that would allow the resource to recover according to a 10-year rebuilding plan. Based on fall, 2002, survey indices, the stocks, under current definitions, are no longer being overfished and the northern stock is now only 10% below being fully rebuilt with southern stocks lagging behind. However, according to Framework Adjustment 2 of the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan, “This will not materially affect the fishery, however, since both stocks are already in the midst of a 10-year rebuilding program.” To maintain these stocks at sustainable levels, annually adjusted harvest targets will be used to maintain the population.

Traditionally, monkfish landings had been a bycatch from the Northwest Atlantic groundfish and scallop fisheries. However, directed trawl and gillnet fishing for this species grew rapidly during the mid-1980’s. By the early 1990’s, the fishing industry expressed concerns about the dramatically increased fishing mortality rates, gear conflicts, a growing directed trawl fishery and a decline in the size of monkfish being landed. These concerns led to the development of a management plan for monkfish. This plan includes four management goals that address overfishing and the intensified effort for small monkfish by limiting fishing mortality (F) and improving size selectivity wherever possible. These goals are:

1. to end and prevent overfishing; rebuilding and maintaining a healthy spawning stock,
   
2. to optimize yield and maximize economic benefits to the various fishing sectors,
   
3. to prevent increased fishing on immature fish ,
   
4. to allow the traditional incidental catch of monkfish to occur.
   

In the Atlantic Ocean off Maryland, monkfish are found in waters from 3 to 200 miles offshore, thus making them outside the jurisdictional limits of the state. However, to meet the need of conservation, a regulation was enacted stating:

“An individual may not catch or land monkfish (Lophius americanus) for commercial purposes when the Regional Administrator for National Marine Fisheries Service determines that the quota has been attained and closes the fishery as permitted in accordance with 50 CFR 648.”

Commercial and Recreational Fisheries

Around the turn of the century, commercial fishermen had little use for monkfish. Records of monkfish catches were not kept until the 1960s when reported landings (live weight) averaged less than a million pounds and a few hundred dollars a year. Traditionally, monkfish have been taken as incidental catch in the groundfish and sea scallop fisheries, but had little or no commercial value. Total Atlantic coast commercial landings (live weight) remained at low levels until the mid-1970s, increasing from about 167,000 pounds in 1970 to 7 million pounds in 1978. Landings stayed below 20 million pounds until the late 1980s. By 1989, the two European and Mediterranean species of monkfish had been overfished, so with stricter regulations in place, there was a greater demand for tails from the United States. At the same time, import markets for livers and whole monkfish in Asia also increased the demand for U.S. landings. Monkfish landings peaked in 1997 at approximately 62 million pounds and dockside revenues topped at $35 million.

Monkfish have traditionally been landed with their heads removed and only their tails taken to market. However, the market for tails and other body parts has been growing rapidly over the past decade. Total landings have increased in response to developing foreign markets for tails, livers, and whole fish (cleaned, but the liver not removed). Currently, trends in total landings are driven primarily by the market for monkfish tails. Landings of monkfish tails are converted from landed weight of tails to live weight of monkfish because most landings have occurred as tails only (or other parts). Landings are usually divided into two regions. The "Northern" region includes the Gulf of Maine and northern Georges Bank and the "Southern" region includes southern Georges Bank and the Middle Atlantic. On a regional basis, most tails were landed from the northern region in the 1960s (75-90%) through to the late 1970s (74% in 1978). From 1979 to 1989, landings of tails were about equal for both regions. In the 1990s, landings from the southern region began to predominate and now provide over 60% of the tails. Landings of livers rose steadily from 22,000 pounds in 1982 to 1.3 million pounds in 1996. During that time, prices for livers increased notably from an average of $0.97/lb. to over $5.00/lb. with seasonal variations as high as $19.00/lb.

The fisheries that target monkfish have also changed markedly. Prior to 1975, most of all the landings of monkfish were caught by otter trawls. However, in recent years, directed effort by fishermen using trawls, scallop dredges, and gill nets has dramatically increased in response to the increasing demand, the decreasing groundfish abundance, and stricter regulations for multispecies and summer flounder.

Prior to the 1970’s, commercial monkfish fisheries and landings were not well documented but by the mid-1970’s, landings were being recorded. Current NMFS data show that Maryland landings (live weight) were very low through the 1980’s and 1990’s but then dramatically increased to over 700,000 pounds by 1997. But by 2001, market competition, coastwide application of the monkfish management plan and relocation of some fishery operations, has caused landings to decline to less than 30,000 pounds. Commercial monkfish landings in Virginia also rose steadily over the years, from a low of 68,000 pounds in 1977 to 3.0 million pounds in 1998. With the monkfish management plan in effect, landings dropped 35% in 2000 and another 6% in 2001, to 887,000 pounds, their lowest monkfish landings in 14 years.

Although the recreational fishery for monkfish is insignificant and not well documented for Atlantic coast states, both New York and Massachusetts have size limits on recreational catches of monkfish.

Monkfish Fun Facts:

• Monkfish have been reported to eat prey nearly one-half their size, as well as capture waterbirds at the surface.
• Monkfish are sometimes known as "allmouth" since the fish is mostly head and the head is mostly mouth

[alunharford]

Originally Posted by Nick Bown

I was under the impression that scampi was also off the menu as its monkfish which is a slow breeding species. Anyone know if this is the case?

Scampi is not made from monkfish (or at least it certainly shouldn't be, although I'm sure you can buy crap in the supermarket that has everything thrown in, probably MRMed from fish bones)

[daveyclayton]

...and farmed salmon is fed on processed, wild-caught fish.

So pay more for line caught salmon, and eat less. Better yet eat farmed meat and poultry.

[John Gulliver]

Scampi is made from the tails of Dublin Bay prawns, aka langustinas, aka scampi , aka Nephrops norwegicus, unless I'm very much mistaken.

[John N]

I had N Atlantic sardines yesteday - how do they do? Fairly well I would have thought. We have loads of decent fish including sardines, mackerel and other oily fish to go at. Most fishmongers/supermarkets dont' have a little sign on the fish saying 'line caught', 'dolphin friendly' or whatever.
Farmed fish and shellfish have their own problems.
Be informed and eat responsibly.

[wreckweasel]

Well, I went to the MCS site, I clicked the link to see what was good to eat....

"If you like to eat seafood, but are concerned about the impact this may have on stocks, marine wildlife and habitats then the Marine Conservation Society's Good Fish Guide (2nd Edition) will help you choose the most eco-friendly fish.
The full colour Guide contains 196 pages of information on the impacts of fishing on stocks, non-target species and artisanal fisheries, with details including photos, for over 60 types of fish commonly sold in UK fishmongers, supermarkets, pubs and restaurants.

The 2nd edition of the MCS Good Fish Guide retails for £10 (inc p&p). Please send your payment for £10 per Guide (cheques payable to 'Marine Conservation Society'), with the name and address for delivery, to MCS, Unit 3, Wolf Business Park, Alton Road, Ross-on-Wye, HR9 5NB. For credit card payments call 01989 566017."

What a stunning idea chaps, lets put a barrier to consumers on the information which would help us to protect the stocks. What cretin came up with that idea.