The fish we don’t eat

It’s hard to imagine just how many edible fish there are until you see them arrayed in their multicolored, multi-finned glory. Lobster Place, a bustling seafood shop in the center of New York’s Chelsea Market, is a good place to start. The store’s open display cases hold live sea urchins that respond to the touch; fat, juicy chunks of Hawaiian Wahoo; gigantic, whole tilefish that stare, glassy-eyed at the curious consumer; and other offerings that, were they not labeled, you’d need a degree in marine biology to recognize.

Some, like baby squid and octopi, razor clams, and fillets of specialty catch that retail for upward of $25 per pound, might intimidate the standard home chef in search of something to serve for dinner. This is intentional. Chelsea market draws tourists, upper-class gourmands and Food Network fans in search of weird fish that’s hard to find anywhere else.

Other offerings, though, are just … different. There’s no reason to believe most of the fillets priced by the pound are less tasty or harder to cook than typical supermarket fare. Yet Davis Herron, Lobster Place’s director, says standard fillets of salmon, tuna, cod and halibut are still the specialty market’s biggest sellers.

It’s no coincidence that the most endangered fish are also staples of the American diet. When we talk about overfishing, we’re referring to individual species that consumers — and the market – latch on to, often to the exclusion of other options. As much as we extoll the virtue of seafood, our enthusiasm for those select few suggests, we’re really not all that comfortable with it.

“There’s a fear of seafood,” said Rick Moonen, a renowned seafood chef who was one of the first to advocate sustainable fishing. “For some reason, people get nervous.” Fish are complicated, expensive and easy to overcook. They’re laced with small, sharp bones ready to choke the incautious diner. They smell. The limited number of species we stick to aren’t exceptions, but at least they’re familiar. Yet by refusing to broaden our options, we’re threatening to eat them out of existence.

Read the full article here.

Senate bill seeks millions to improve fishery science and stock assessments

Written by By Don Cuddy 

Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, will introduce a bill today designed to provide millions of dollars in federal funds to help the commercial fishing industry.

The Fisheries Investment and Regulatory Relief Act could funnel more than $100 million annually into improving scientific research and fish stock assessments nationwide.

The money would come from an existing source: the customs duties raised from fish products imported to the U.S. Legislation passed in 1954, known as the Kennedy-Saltonstall Act, directs that 30 percent of all duty paid on fish imports be transferred to the Secretary of Commerce and set aside for fisheries research and other projects.

In practice, that has not been happening, according to Kerry’s office, which said that duties collected on imported fish products in 2010 totaled $376.6 million. Of that amount, $113 million went to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But only $8.4 million was used for fisheries research and development. The remaining $104.6 million was swallowed by NOAA’s operational budget.

The New England fishing industry has repeatedly criticized NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service for basing management decisions on incomplete or outdated data, with the recent dire assessment of cod stocks in the Gulf of Maine provoking the latest controversy.

A rosy stock assessment in 2008 was followed this year by a declaration that the stock has collapsed, threatening many fishermen’s survival.

“We can’t fix our fishing problems if we don’t restore trust and you start rebuilding trust by investing in fishing science that’s credible and comprehensive and comes from the fishing community itself,” Kerry said in an email to The Standard-Times.

The bill proposes to restore the original intent of Saltonstall-Kennedy; using the money in coordination with regional fishery management councils to allow local stakeholders a voice in how funds are directed.