Anyone not eat fish for environmental reasons?

[archman]

There's a little island in the Bahamas where I teach a biology class. At the urging of the local environmental group, I don't allow my students to purchase conch, grouper, or lobster, as they are seriously overfished in the area.

Instead, when we want seafood, we order wahoo, jack, or some open-ocean fish that is far more common. It is hoped that if enough tourists visiting the island do this, the local Bahamians will no longer fish for the more depleted organisms. As there is no commercial fishery on San Salvador, this strategy might actually come to fruition in the near future.

 

[Cacia]

bye, bye, conch fritters.

I gave up Grouper in my bvi years because we saw a lot of ciguetara (sp?) in the ER and it can be serious.

 

[vladimir]

There really isn't any reason to avoid fish as a group for environmental reasons, since so much fish is now farmed. I eat mainly farmed salmon, catfish and shrimp.

From the Monterey Bay Aquarium's website:

Fish farming can be done responsibly but not all fish farms are created equal. For example, it's best to farm fish that are omnivores (plant and protein eaters) rather than carnivores (protein eaters). Carnivores, like shrimp, salmon and tuna, require feed that's made from wild fish (either converted into pellets or processed as whole fish). Instead of alleviating pressures on wild fish, farming carnivorous fish actually creates a new demand that wild fisheries can't meet. Some fish, like tilapia, are vegetarian and thrive on inexpensive, vegetable-based foods.

Net-pen farming can be a messy business
Many farmed fish, including most farmed salmon, are raised in net pens, like cattle in a feed lot. Thousands of fish concentrated in one area produce tons of feces, polluting the water. Diseases can spread from fish in the crowded pens to wild fish. Antibiotics and other drugs used to control those diseases leak out into the environment, creating drug-resistant disease organisms. And if farmed fish escape their pens, they can take over habitat from wild fish in the area. While the U.S. has laws to protect the environment around coastal fish farms, many nations that supply farmed fish to U.S. markets do not.

Shrimp farming can harm the coast
In Thailand, Ecuador and many other tropical nations, coastal forests of mangroves once sheltered wild fish and shrimp, which local people caught to feed their families. Mangroves also filter water and protect the coast against storm waves. Many mangrove forests have been cut down and replaced with shrimp farms that supply shrimp to Europe, Japan and America. After a few years, waste products build up in the farm ponds and the farmers have to move on. The local people are left with no shrimp farms—and no mangrove forest.

 

[Cacia]

Has anyone here tried Tilapia?

I have never seen it sold here in Hawaii.

 

[vladimir]

Tilapia is common on menus here, and is quite good. It has light, white flesh like halibut.

 

[dlndavid]

My wife eats it all the time, staple food of filipinos

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

From the Monterey Bay Aquarium's website:

Yikes! Is anything safe and environmentally friendly anymore? I give up. I'm going to go gnaw on a rock or something...

 

[Mike Veitch]

Yikes! Is anything safe and environmentally friendly anymore? I give up. I'm going to go gnaw on a rock or something...

that will give you mercury poisoning

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

that will give you mercury poisoning

Oh well, I can just quit eating. Given 6000 cal per pound of body fat, I should last until about 2023.

 

[Charlie59]

Tilapia (yes it can be yummy) and catfish are usually the safest bet for farmed fish. Salmon that are farmed may have more mercury and line caught said to be better.

Strangely, canned tuna may be safer than tuna steaks.

Studies indicate that eating fish still greater health benefit than risks of difficulty with contaminants.

So eat more tilapia, catfish, and canned tuna. Watch the others.