Back in the late 1990s, I happened to attend an exhibit at the Monterey
Bay Aquarium in California called “Fishing for Solutions.” The
experience profoundly changed my attitude toward seafood and the
supposedly limitless abundance of the sea.

The exhibit focused not only on the precariousness of the fish stocks
that have been reduced by overfishing, but also on the environmental
degradation caused by using heavy-handed harvesting techniques and
slapdash fish farming. I remember feeling stunned and shell-shocked
after seeing the exhibit — and my mood sunk even deeper when I walked
out of the aquarium and back into the daylight and the first thing I
saw was a Bubba Gump seafood restaurant. Ouch.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one dramatically affected by the exhibit.

Sheila Bowman, Seafood Watch outreach manager at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium, told me in a recent interview that “Fishing for Solutions”
jolted the aquarium staff to think hard about the oceans’ limitations.
Aquarium visitors, too, took the message of the exhibit to heart and
started asking questions about what fish were better choices for
eating, even within the aquarium’s own café.

All of these combined forces led the aquarium to create the Seafood Watch Program
— producer of those influential wallet cards that tell us which fish
varieties are OK to eat. The aquarium started by making a card that
covered the West Coast, and now they have versions for all of the
regions of the continental U.S. as well as Hawaii. The aquarium has
given away 23 million hard copies to date and there have been many
million more downloads from its website. The cards are updated every
six months. (I make sure that I have the current version by downloading
one at each equinox.)

At this point, you don’t even need a literal card in your wallet. When you’re out and about, you can also use Fishphone, a cellphone texting service provided by the Blue Oceans Institute, or the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s mobile website.

A fine kettle of fish

The Seafood Watch Program exerts considerable influence over
sustainable-minded consumers and chefs. So how do they figure out which
of our choices tread lightly on fish stocks — and which are leading to
fishery collapse?

I asked Bowman. Turns out aquarium staff members don’t do the
scientific analysis themselves; rather, they use data provided by
government and other private and published sources. They then run it
through a set of five criteria — separate ones for wild and farmed
fish. (Some of the data for farmed fish is self-reported.)

The website lists the criteria in detail (particularly in this document
[PDF], which describes the recommendation process as a whole). However,
the descriptions are somewhat technical. To get a handle on exactly how
Monterey evaluates the sustainability level of fish choices, I asked
Bowman to explain the criteria to me in layperson’s terms. Here’s what
I found out.

For wild-caught fish,
Monterey uses the following criteria. Bowman emphasizes that to gain
“best choices” status, a given species has to score well on all
criteria.

• Biology. How vulnerable to fishing pressure is the
  species? Fish that reproduce quickly and in large numbers, such as
  anchovies, sardines, and Mahi Mahi, get a favorable ranking. Fish that
  reproduce slowly, later in life, and with only a few offspring at a
  time — think sharks, red snapper, and rockfish — score lower.
• General stock structure and abundance. This one measures
  how populations fare in the wild. For example, Atlantic cod stocks
  stand at just 1 percent of their level 200 years ago. But the Pacific
  cod population is healthy and part of a well-managed fishery.
• Capture techniques. In the process of harvesting a
  particular fish, do large numbers of untargeted fish — known as a
  bycatch — get caught as well? Does the fishing technique harvest only
  fish of a certain age? (The latter is important in the reproductive
  cycle.)
• Habitat damage. If harvesting a certain fish entails
  dragging a net across the ocean bottom, for example, it will disrupt
  habitats for other varieties and score low on this criterion.
• Management regime. Are there policies and laws in place to protect the fishery? Are they being followed and enforced?

For farmed fish [PDF], here’s what Monterey looks at:

• Feed. Ideally, farmed fish eat like so many Grist
  readers: strictly vegetarian. If the species needs to eat other fish,
  then the farming practice isn’t really taking pressure off the wild
  populations of fish that will be caught and turned into feed. Also,
  some fish require a lot more protein to grow than others do. For
  example, farmed bluefin tuna require 15 pounds of ocean fish to produce
  only one pound of meat.
• Effect of the farm on the species’ wild counterpart.
  Atlantic salmon are being farmed in the Pacific Northwest — and have
  escaped from these farms by the millions. The Atlantic salmon are tough
  and, like any invasive species, compete with the native salmon for food
  and space. It’s not an interactive kind of fight — they don’t go
  fin-à-fin — just competition for resources. Also, captive and wild
  populations can interbreed, resulting in a weaker hybrid that is less
  able to survive in the ocean.
• Diseases and parasites. Fish farms, which often produce
  year-round, can provide ideal habitats for parasites — which can then
  attack wild populations. Both farmed and wild salmon, for example, are
  often beset by a charming-sounding parasite called sea lice. Wild
  salmon have evolved forever in rough balance with sea lice, but the
  existence of salmon farms threatens to tip the scales (ha!) in favor of
  the parasite.
• Waste. Aquaculture concentrates all manner of wastes.
  Pesticides used to treat parasites can harm other forms of sea life.
  Farm operations often overuse feed; the excess decays and pulls oxygen
  out of the water, creating a dead zone that smothers out other sea
  life. Then there’s good old-fashioned poo. According to Bowman, “even
  industry insiders concede that a typical 200,000-fish salmon farm
  releases nitrogen equal to 20,000 humans, phosphorus equal to 25,000
  humans, and fecal matter roughly equivalent to a city of 65,000
  people.” She added, though, that farms had made good progress in
  minimizing this problem.
• Effective management regime. The aquarium staff looks at
  whether the farm management is implementing and enforcing local,
  national, and international laws and customs, and whether they are
  functioning in a way that could be described as precautionary.
  Benchmarks include compliance with regulations regarding the prevention
  and treatment of disease, as well as the use of antibiotics, biocides,
  and herbicides.

Sink or Swim?

After hearing in detail how the aquarium comes up with its list, I feel
pretty comfortable enjoying fish types that make the group’s “best
choices” list — in moderation, of course. I told Bowman how in light
of the solid information that consumers can now access, I’m surprised
at how many sustainable-minded consumers — many Grist readers among
them — insist on completely giving up fish on environmental grounds.
Why would people who would otherwise eat seafood stay away from species
with “best choices” status? I can only imagine that they don’t have
confidence in the lists developed and published by the Monterey Bay
Aquarium and other sources.

I tried that explanation out on Bowman. “We try to keep the process as
transparent as possible,” she replied. “The aquarium doesn’t take any
funding from anyone in the fishing industry. Our mission and goal is
the stewardship of the oceans and I would hope people would take that
into consideration when they are looking for information they can
trust.”

It’s easy enough to make broad statements like “there aren’t any fish
that can be harvested sustainably.” But the truth is that the health of
the world’s fisheries is species- and situation-specific. We’re
fortunate that the Monterey Bay Aquarium has the resources and
expertise to interpret the complex data available on fisheries. The
question of precisely how reliable that data is, however, will have to
await another column.

Dungeness Crab-Stuffed Squid with Charmoula

Serves 4 people (3 squid per person)

Courtesy of Dory Ford, executive chef at the Portola Restaurant and Bon Appétit Management Company at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

When I tested this recipe here in Boston, I used Jonah crabmeat, as
there wasn’t any Dungeness available. I was shocked to find fresh corn
from Florida in the store (maybe it’s always there and I just don’t see
it because I don’t normally buy fresh corn in March) and I bought it
even though it’s out of season so that I could test the recipe
properly. I also bought some imported tomatoes so that I could make the
photo look appealing. I used a grill pan to cook the stuffed squid as
it is still very chilly here and my BBQ grill isn’t ready for the
season yet.

1. Combine all the filling ingredients in a bowl. Stir to just combine.
2. Stuff squid tubes with crab filling. Set aside.
3. Whisk sauce ingredients together in small bowl and reserve.
4. Season stuffed squid tubes lightly with salt and pepper and lightly coat them with canola oil.
5. Grill on preheated barbecue or charbroiler approximately 3-4 minutes, turning occasionally.
6. Remove to plate. Drizzle with charmoula sauce. Serve immediately.

Roz Cummins is a food writer who has worked in every possible
permutation of food co-op, natural foods store, and granola-type
restaurant. She lives in the greater Boston area and feels it is her
mission to put the “eco” back in home economy.