Seafood Sustainability

SEAFOOD SUSTAINABILITY

This year for the FIRST time we saw the Federal Government close down the Flounder fishery off the mid-atlantic coasts, this included the fishing grounds of North Carolina and South Carolina.  Of course, this is not the first fishery to be closed, suspended or protected and it will not be the last. There are a lot of reasons we can explore to explain this issue but let us just focus on two for this article. 

Overfishing. As the worlds population increases so does the demand for fish, both fresh water species and ocean species. This burden saw the populations of freshwater fish species collapse. Trout, catfish and other popular fish are not available as wild caught and are no longer commercially viable in the wild. This is occurring in ocean species at an alarming rate.  Salmon is under tremendous pressure and that species is definitely NOT alone. I mention it only because of its popularity here in the United States. 

A direct result of the overfishing is the new methods of fishing. One example of this is Bottom Trawling.

Bottom Trawling is the MOST DESTRUCTIVE method of fishing for multiple reasons. The first, is by-catch. This method of fishing does not discriminate and pulls all fish from the bottom, irrelevant of the species being targeted.

The other issue is this form of fishing literally turns the ocean floor into a barren desert. It destroys the habitat, the natural structure and the entire ecosystem. 

We must protect local seafood and use only sustainable practices in harvesting, otherwise the oceans we love and have provided for thousands of years will collapse. This is also true of of food grown on the land, from vegetables to proteins.