Increasingly meaningless
Two days ago, the gavel came down in an adjudication decision which may, more than any other recent hammer-strike, determine the future of fishing: The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) officially bestowed its blue-and-white fish-check label to a massive factory operator that targets Antarctic krill.
This is not a good thing.
Antarctic krill are tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that cluster in vast multitudes (known as “blooms”) in the waters of the Southern Ocean. They form a critical building block in the oceanic food web: small fish consume the krill before being eaten themselves by seals, penguins, toothfish, and other animals. Krill are also a primary source of nourishment for migratory whales — in fact, the majority of the world’s baleen whales journey to the southern ocean to feed on krill and replenish their energy supplies after depleting their reserves during their mating and calving seasons.
While krill in their vast numbers do seem on the surface to be an “inexhaustible resource,” one would hope that, by this time, we have learned that this mindless assumption will never be accurate in regard to any of the inhabitants of our finite planet. There is no such thing as an inexhaustible resource. Ask any great auk or passenger pigeon, they’ll tell you.
Oh, wait — you can’t ask them.
Because there aren’t any left.
Because there’s no such thing as an inexhaustible resource.
Trouble bath
There are a few things that we are certain of about krill. The first is that the tiny animal, like many other sea creatures — especially crustaceans — is vulnerable to climate change, especially through the ocean acidification trends resulting from the rising levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Nowhere in the Marine Stewardship Council certification system are the potential effects of climate change even discussed, let alone taken into account by the methodology. Strike one.
Next, we know that Antarctic krill exist in the Southern Ocean – an area adjacent to a land mass that is uninhabited by humans. The simple fact that we are sending fishing vessels into this area bespeaks an unsustainable paradigm, known as finite expansion. There is a certain amount of ocean on this planet. That we continue to fish farther, deeper, and longer simply underscores the fact that we are not approaching the management of our oceanic resources from a sensible and comprehensive standpoint that would account for the idea that one day – one day quite soon, actually – these fishing boats are going to bump up against the ice shelf. No more expansion. What then? The Marine Stewardship Council methodology again fails to even consider these perspectives, concentrating instead on discrete management techniques that do not consider the idea that sustainability is more than a fishery-by-fishery label – it is a way of looking at the world. Strike two.
Little critter, big mystery
Finally, we know that we have only a very rudimentary understanding these tiny animals. Krill have been studied only cursorily and we have almost no knowledge of their life history and behavior. It is irresponsible in the extreme to proceed with the certification of a fishery that is so cloaked in mystery – we have no idea what kind of damage we could be doing. Strike three.
And yet in the face of all these worries, the rubber stamp comes down and the MSC pronounces the krill fishery to be sustainable. Let’s not forget that vehement objections to this certification have already been lodged by the Pew Environment Group and the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. These objections were overruled — but let us not forget that the three strikes listed above were not taken into account in the decision, as they are simply not part of the MSC methodology… and if something isn’t part of the system, it apparently doesn’t have any relevance on reality. Or so the adjudication decision would lead one to believe.
In search of pink gold
There is a conceptual concern here too. The certification of this fishery gives an unofficial nod to the basic idea that vacuuming up the tiny life forms forming the foundations of the oceanic ecosystem is an acceptable practice. In reality, it’s not. Even the United States fishery management authorities banned fishing for krill in US waters, specifically to allow it to remain in the ocean as a food source for other organisms. Legitimizing and expanding Antarctic krill fishing is simply transferring our unceasing resource demand to a hitherto unrecognized protein source. This is not the way to move forward – in fact, pulling too hard on this loose yarn just might unravel the whole tapestry.
The certification of krill makes no sense. It’s a minuscule building-block animal on the other side of the world that simply doesn’t belong to us. We can’t even eat it – the krill will just be used to make oil, fish food, and other rendered products. And for this, we may end up short-changing whales, toothfish, seals, and other animals – all because the powers that be refuse to look at the entire issue from a larger perspective. Fishing for krill will not feed the world — but it just might end up starving it.
Tags: antarctica, asoc, bloom, certification, certified, council, greenpeace, krill, marine, msc, ocean acidification, PEW, seal, stewardship, toothfish, whale
Posted by Casson on Jul 30, 2009 in
Fishing and Farming 
Hey! What did I do??
I am no fan of farmed salmon. This is no secret. Having grown up in a community that prides itself on its legacy of healthy wild salmon runs, I am particularly sensitive to the creeping demise of these marvelous fish.
The connections between salmon farming and the collapse of wild salmon in areas like British Columbia and Norway are now beyond debate. I cannot count the number of panels I’ve been on and presentations I’ve given where I do my utmost to strip the veils from this industry and expose it for what it is. The vast majority of the farmed salmon consumed by the United States has been produced in a greed-driven, environmentally negligent manner that has polluted our oceans, endangered our native salmon, and hoodwinked the consumer public into thinking that they’re actually eating a healthy product.
Sea of green
I protest the British Columbia farmed salmon industry because of its politics, its parasite and waste problems, and for its heartbreaking effects native salmon runs. I avoid the Scottish and Irish industries because of their greenwashed, boutique-farm marketing schemes, their misleading regulations (organic salmon? From a net pen?), and their farmers’ thuggish habit of blowing seals’ brains out when they come anywhere near the salmon pens. I object to the Norwegian industry for the staggering volume of farmed salmon that they pump onto the world market, and for the unbearable pressure these farms place on wild Norwegian salmon runs.
But what makes me physically ill is the farmed salmon industry in Chile.
Farmed salmon can be a potential hazard to human health. This post concerns an extremely alarming bit of news about the Chilean salmon farming industry. Until very recently, Chile provided the lion’s share of all farmed salmon imported by the United States.
Fish pharm
A recent report by the Chilean Ministry of the Economy (and thrust into the limelight by Oceana, a science-based conservation group) has disclosed that the Chilean salmon farming industry used 325.6 metric tons of antibiotics in the year 2008. Compare that to Norway’s salmon farms. The Norwegian industry used 649 kilograms of antibiotics while producing more farmed salmon overall than Chile. That means that Chile used over 350 times more antibiotics per kilogram of salmon produced than Norway.
If this weren’t horrifying enough, hey, it gets worse!
Throughout 2008, the two most popular antimicrobials used used by Chilean salmon farmers were florfenicol (used in 56.7 per cent of the total, or 184 tonnes) and flumequine (in 9.9 per cent, or 32.2 tonnes). This latter chemical belongs to the quinolone family of synthetic antibiotics. Not only is flumequine absent from the US Food and Drug Administration’s list of approved chemicals for use in fish farming, but the FDA has banned the use of most quinolones for their negative effects on human health when used excessively.
Chilean roulette
What do you think? Do usage levels hundreds of times higher than Norwegian competitors qualify as “excessive”?
And finally, just to add insult to grave potential injury, you’re not going to be able to tell which Chilean salmon were produced the most egregious offenders. The report does not offer guidance as to the amount of antibiotics used by any particular farm, claiming a lack of information. So it’s anyone’s guess as to whether or not the salmon at your local grocery store has been stuff to the gills with toxins by overzealous salmon farmers.
Fabulous!
Don't you trust me?
Luckily, Hugo Lavados, the Chilean Minister of the Environment, soothed all of our fears when he announced that “companies do not medicate fish in the period before commercialising their products.”
Um… wait a minute. I don’t understand — you raise a fish. You give it large amounts potentially harmful antibiotic that is prohibited under US law. Sometime later, you sell it to me. I eat it. How is that not “the period before commercialising the product?”
Personally, I don’t care how much time passes between this chemical barrage and my dinner — it’s not going to be long enough. Moreover, it’s not just about the antibiotics reaching the end consumer. Where else do they go? Do the salmon farmers filter these chemicals (and all the fish detritus containing them) out of the water column that flows uninterruptedly through these open-net fish pens? Somehow, I doubt it. So how many organisms end up consuming or absorbing insane amounts of these chemicals merely because they inhabit nearby real estate?
This industry has always been a monster, but this statistic is simply shocking. If you care about the welfare of our planet, don’t buy any open-net farmed salmon. Don’t buy Chilean farmed salmon regardless of whether you care or not.
Tags: antibiotics, antimicrobial, Atlantic salmon, BC, British Columbia, carcinogen, chemical, Chile, farmed salmon, FDA, florfenicol, flumequine, Hugo Lavados, Loch Duart, Ministry, Norway, Norwegian, Oceana, open net, parasite, quinolone, salmon, salmon farm, Scottish, sea lice, seal
Feeding the world
When Sustainable Sushi was being developed, the Alaska pollock fishery — the 2nd largest fishery in terms of total biomass in the entire world — seemed relatively healthy and stable. At the very least, it provided a traceable and ostensibly well-managed seafood source that was superior to the random mash of imported whitefish that provides the ersatz fish protein underpinning our fish stick and surimi industries. In fact, the Alaska pollock fishery has been considered a “Best Choice” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program for years, and is an MSC-certified fishery.
Things seem to be taking a turn for the worse, however. Recent developments in the fishery seem to suggest that all may not be well in pollock country.
Bottoming out
For five years running, the stock has seen lower levels of recruitment (new fish in younger age classes) than historical trends would lead researchers to expect. Overall stock levels have severely declined as well, taking the overall populations to levels only previously reached in the late 1970s — a time when the fishery was open to international fleets and was being heavily over-exploited.
Bycatch levels are also higher than one would like. An increase in overall CPUE (Catch Per Unit of Effort — a measurement of the amount of resources and manpower needed to produce a given amount of fish) has led to increased mortality among co-habiting salmon. Local sea birds and marine mammals are also being affected; strong links are being drawn between the pollock fishery and a downturn in northern fur seals and the endangered Stellar’s sea lion.
Trawl victims
Pollock trawls are impacting sensitive seabed habitats as well — new explorations in the Bering Sea have revealed rich areas of endemic corals. Unfortunately, these areas are not yet protected from fishing, and the pollock fleet is freely operating in coral beds which should ideally be listed as no-take zones.
Most troubling, however, is the reaction on the part of the Northern Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), a federal body that is responsible for setting the yearly pollock quota. Rather than use the aforementioned concerns as justification to pare down the fishery and reign in some of its more worrisome aspects, the NPFMC instead did the exact opposite and increased the allowed amount of king salmon bycatch to 60,000 fish.
This is poor management from an environmental standpoint. The pollock fishery’s regulations are such that when the bycatch cap for salmon is reached, the fishery is immediately shut down for the year. This increase in tolerable bycatch numbers reflects the rising CPUE within today’s pollock fishery, but rather than move to rebuild the fishery, it simply allows for greater and more damaging exploitation.
Can you spot the pollock?
The pollock fishery is no longer what it once was. It is clear that federal management cannot be depended upon to make wise and environmentally sound decisions in the face of the economic and industrial short-term interests that dominate the pollock industry. Given the current situation, I have no choice but to urge readers to refrain from purchasing products that contain Alaska pollock. In the sushi industry, this means the California roll and other items that include kanikama (imitation crab).
This is by no means an irreversible situation. The Alaska pollock is an incredibly resilient and fecund fish that has the capability to bounce back. Proper management can restore the fishery to its former productive glory, just as was done in the early 1980s. The greater worry is for other impacted populations, primarily Stellar’s sea lions, Alaskan king salmon, coldwater corals, and northern fur seals. If the pollock fishery is to continue, it must reinvent itself to be more sensitive to these co-habiting species.
I have no doubt that other environmental organizations have this issue on their radar, and that we will in the very near future begin to see more criticism of the Alaska pollock fishery from groups much larger and more established than Sustainable Sushi.
Tags: Alaska, bycatch, coral, CPUE, kanikama, msc, no-take, NPFMC, pollock, sake, salmon, sea lion, seafood watch, seal, Stellar, surimi, trawl, Update
