In the News
Fish Talk in the news – Friday, March 16
This week, a federal district court judge ruled that the govnernment has not adequately protected river herring (like the one above) from overfishing (Photo credit: Chris Bowser, NY State Department of Environmental Conservation).
- NPR’s food blog, The Salt, had an interesting post last week about sustainable sushi. The main takeaway: if you’re getting inexpensive sushi at your local takeout joint, it’s probably not sustainable fish. But the real draw to this post is the stop-motion animation video of just how exactly sushi gets to your plate.
- Also from The Salt, a post on the imported foods most likely to cause disease outbreaks – and fish makes the top of the list. According to The Salt, “More than three-quarters of seafood consumed in the United States is imported. And…45 percent of the outbreaks caused by imported food from 2005 to 2010 involved seafood.” Just another reason to support local fishermen.
- Last summer on TalkingFish.org, Earthjustice attorney Roger Fleming wrote about federal lawsuits to force the government to protect river herring. Local fishermen and conservationists won a victory earlier this week when a district court judge ruled in their favor, saying that the government had not done enough to protect river herring from overfishing by midwater trawlers. (The fight to save herring isn’t over, though – click here to learn how you can speak up to protect this little fish.)
- More bad stock assessment news – the Cape Cod Times reports that recent stock assessment updates found that many 2008 stock projections had overestimated the population size of the Georges Bank cod stock and other groundfish stocks. As a result, fishermen may have been harvesting these fish at a much higher rate than what is considered sustainable. (The news about Georges Bank cod is particular troubling given the recent dismal stock assessment update for the Gulf of Maine cod stock.)
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