Hard To Crack Down On "Sustainable" Seafood Fraud When NOAA Keeps Cutting Inspectors, Enforcement

[hatrack]

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Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland and a cadre of legislators from Virginia also have highlighted the problem, asking the administration to probe the fraudulent mislabeling of seafood as Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic blue crab meat. "Some processors are importing foreign crabmeat, repacking it at a domestic facility, and then labeling it as a product of the United States," they said in a letter to the president in July. Such deceptive labeling, they added, "misleads consumers and threatens the livelihood of the watermen in our states."

There's a lot at stake. Restaurant diners who order a piece of white tuna sushi might be served a much less expensive fish such as escolar. Mislabeling also raises serious health concerns for people with allergies who could be ingesting an unknown fish, or for pregnant women avoiding mercury in certain fish products. Illegal seafood can also hurt U.S. fishers by putting them at a competitive disadvantage — including Maryland crabbing companies whose product and price can be undercut by mislabeled foreign crab.

"The level of fraud is insane," said Spike Gjerde, the chef of Baltimore's Woodberry Kitchen. That's one reason he deals directly with watermen in the Chesapeake Bay area and refuses any imported seafood. "I find it difficult to know anything about domestic seafood," he said. "And almost impossible for something flown in from 5,000 miles away."

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Special agents like Doyle are becoming as rare as some of the fish they protect, their numbers falling by a more than a third, from 147 to 93, since 2008, with further cuts in the works. He and his seven special agents make up the entire NOAA investigative crew monitoring the coast from New York to Virginia, as well as 1.4 billion pounds of annual seafood imports. Nationwide, the group of special agents charged with investigating both criminal and civil illegal fishing operations is smaller than the Ocean City Police Department. A review of NOAA records obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that enforcement cases nationwide have fallen even further. Since 2008, the number of civil and criminal cases sent to the agency's general counsel and U.S. attorneys plunged from 793 to 215 — a drop of nearly 75 percent.

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-fish-cops-20141206-story.html#page=1

[lonestarnot]

1. It is difficult to really know anything about food these days. It's a secret.

[stuntcat]

2. all meat is sustainable

well even if it wasn't we're doomed anyway so might as well eat the earth-rapingest diet we can.

also, BACON, mmmm bacon, because the smarter an animals is (meaning, the more they suffer) the better they taste. And a man's taste buds and yummy "mouth-feel" are more important than anything.
DU Climate Heroes, FTW!