Why are we eating bluefin tuna to extinction?

[marmar]

Why are we eating bluefin tuna to extinction?

by Paul Greenberg
19 Nov 2011 9:00 AM


If you eat fish regularly, you've probably grown used to regularly being told by conservation groups -- or that slightly irritating, politically correct friend -- that certain fish shouldn't be eaten: American Striped bass, Atlantic swordfish, Chilean sea bass, and Caspian sturgeon have all been the focus of vocal consumer and chef boycotts. Happily, some of these campaigns have been effective in helping fish populations recover. But amidst all the sustainable seafood media noise, we've somehow managed to let the biggest and arguably most beautiful fish of all slip away.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna -- an animal that reaches 1,500 pounds, swims at 40 miles per hour, heats its blood 20 degrees above ambient and crosses the breadth of the ocean -- is in serious trouble. The Western, American stock has declined by about 80 percent, and by about 70 percent in its Mediterranean spawned population. Even after the fish garnered a series of major PR hits (such as Greenpeace's and Sea Shepherds' campaigns to liberate netted tuna in the Mediterranean last year and my subsequent New York Times Magazine cover story) the bluefin remains persistently present on menus around the country and around the world.

Why is this the case? Why is any chef out there still serving bluefin? .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/food/2011-11-19-why-are-we-eating-bluefin-tuna-to-extinction

[Cid_B]

1. ... because it's delicious?

Just sayin...

[WinkyDink]

5. Not when it's no longer here. Just sayin'.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Yeah, but the question was why

not whether or not it's a good idea.

[undeterred]

2. We slightly irritating vegetarians are not eating bluefin tuna.

[stuntcat]

17. +1

Environmental, wild animal saving veggie here. :headbang:

[Major Nikon]

20. You don't have to be a vegetarian to understand that eating certain types of fish is not sustainable

When you are eating fish faster than they can reproduce, the conclusion that this is unsustainable is not rocket surgery.

There are plenty of other types of fish where this is not the case.

[undeterred]

21. You can eat all the Asian Carp you can catch.

[WinkyDink]

3. Why should this animal be different from the tiger, rhino, panda, orangutan, ........

We're out to kill them all, the planet, and ourselves.

[FirstLight]

4. overpopulation of humankind?

...and is that the one that ends up in the little cans? people don't realize that it's an animal when it comes in little cans...

[csziggy]

11. Bluefin is mostly used for sushi

In the United States, only Albacore can legally be sold in canned form as "white meat tuna";<34> in other countries, yellowfin is also acceptable. While in the early 1980s canned tuna in Australia was most likely Southern bluefin, as of 2003 it was usually yellowfin, skipjack, or tongol (labelled "northern bluefin").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuna#Canned

That does not mean that canned tuna is OK:

In 2010, Greenpeace International has added the albacore, bigeye tuna, blackfin tuna, pacific bluefin tuna, northern bluefin tuna, southern bluefin tuna and the yellowfin tuna to its seafood red list. "The Greenpeace International seafood red list is a list of fish that are commonly sold in supermarkets around the world, and which have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuna#Management_and_conservation

These days I try to stick to small fish like whitefish or talapia for eating rather than the larger varieties. Locally farmed fish would be preferable, but the local catfish farming business crashed a number of years ago. But I am eating less meat overall, including fish.

[Confusious]

19. odd

Someone who agrees with farmed fish.

Most of the posts I've seen say its evil.

[csziggy]

22. I don't know how environmentally responsible farmed catfish was

But it was a profitable business until it moved out of the country. Also a couple of serious droughts made it more difficult.

Many farmed fish operations are very intensive, polluting and often contaminated. Small catfish operations around here used to not seem to be all that bad. There are several places we used to drive by regularly that were just acres of small ponds with catfish in them.

Here is one fairly recent article about farmed catfish that covers many of the points, good and bad, for farmed fish, though not the full story:

What’s the dish on farm-raised catfish?
7 Aug 2009

<SNIP>

Cons:
Most of the catfish eaten in the United States is imported, and unless you specifically ask for "U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish," or see the official seal, you might be getting Asian-farmed catfish. FYI on the name game: Vietnamese pangasius (tra or basa), is a different species of catfish than the kind grown here (channel catfish), and cannot be called catfish in the American market. Because the Chinese now farm the same variety of catfish as we do, it will be labeled catfish. So, look for "Product of China" on fish labels--and avoid it! This is potentially very bad stuff. Beware also of any white fish that cannot be linked to a source. Beware of the generic term "fish."

• Many of the problems with farmed salmon identified in Tom's post apply to catfish farmed in Asia. Catfish from there is often contaminated with carcinogens such as malachite green, illegal antibiotics or salmonella In Alabama, state scientists have found banned antibiotics in catfish from China. The FDA is responsible for ensuring the safety of foreign-farmed fish. It has been notoriously lax at doing so. (Luckily, American catfish are sustainably farmed. I'll get to that soon.)

<SNIP>

Pros:

Safety standards for U.S.-grown catfish are high and catfish farmers are pushing for ever more rigorous regulation. By contrast, there are currently no international safety standards for fish, hence the nasty stuff sometimes found in Asian imports. And few imports are inspected. (See my admonition above to read the label!)

<SNIP>

• Unlike farmed salmon, catfish farmed here are freshwater fish and therefore raised in self-contained inland ponds, which means they are not very likely to escape into the sea and overtake other fish populations. These self contained pens also pose little risk to the surrounding environment (unlike open-ocean pens used for salmon). This is why green groups such as the National Audubon Society, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Environmental Defense endorse U.S. catfish as a safe environmental choice.

More: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-08-07-farm-raised-catfish

Heck, one local seafood restaurant used to have a catfish pond out front. They sometimes let people fish out of the pond and then would clean and cook the fish for them.

[flvegan]

6. Because humans are largely selfish and too stupid for their own good. nt

[RKP5637]

7. +1000 +++ n/t

[prairierose]

9. Because most people do not know anything about the problem ...

and/or are too selfish to care about it.

I stopped buying tuna fish about 4 years ago. My brother occasionally gets mad at me about it but I would like to see tuna survive. I miss eating it but I would miss it more if there were no more tuna in the world. Thanks to our corporate media, so many people know so little.

[ret5hd]

10. i don't think you were buying bluefin in a can at your supermarket.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

12. Who the hell can afford to eat it into extinction?

It's fucking delicious- but, seriously prohibitively expensive

[Speck Tater]

13. Because God told us to dominate the earth, so we dominate it to death! nt

[DCBob]

14. $$$$

sad.

[Exultant Democracy]

15. Much of the carbon we dump into our environment is ending up in the ocean turing it acidic

chances are that the fish will die from the acidity anyway, in fact it is already happening.

I don't eat fish myself but at this point Im more worried about climate change then anything else.

[slackmaster]

16. Because we haven't figured out how to manage it yet

We will.

[madrchsod]

18. because we can!