Link posted as a “gift” so hopefully no paywall.
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Good. I hope they escaped from us for awhile and regain their population. My hope.
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While I love seafood (and have even caught my own on occasion), commercial fishing has always kinda seemed like a free ride to me. Now I have no idea what the various laws, licenses, restrictions are around the world, it just seems way less responsible than other sources of food.
I mean I can’t just walk into the forest and shoot every deer I see in order to sell venison. But you don’t need to own the coastal property you’re fishing off of, and I’ve seen way too many stories of how the local trade have severely overfished various species in various coastal regions. I get that there are sustainable resources available… and I always buy seafood labeled that way (for instance the shrimp I buy is farm raised), but when the salmon says “wild caught in Alaska - product of China” whose to say how sustainable that is? And why is China fishing of the coast of the U.S.?
OK… this is obviously my rather uninformed rant, so would welcome the discussion of what “sustainable” really means, and who/what defines/regulates it.
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I wonder if that means the fishes are packaged in China (not so much that Chinese fishermen came to USA). Anyway, I think the reason is that people just feel oceans are limitless which is getting less and less true now.
Thank you @ElsieDee ! That’s sort of scary to think about.
I know people break the law, but there seems to be a lot of regulations regarding harvesting food from the ocean in California, especially commercial crabbing.
These are the "recreational " ocean regulations.
Not sure how recreational fishing is different from sport fishing but
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At least you recognize it’s an uninformed rant. Commercial fishing is regulated like hunting deer is regulated. At least where I live and hunt if you want to hunt deer you need to have a permit and tag and there are limits to what you can hunt.
For commercial fishing there are requirements on licensing and catch quotas. Nations have jurisdiction over their territorial waters. Usually out to 12 miles. Then there is the economic zone that goes out to 200 miles. Countries set the rules within their waters. Out on the high seas anything in theory goes but it’s hard to catch much in the middle of the ocean. It’s not a freebie. Commercial fishers spend millions on ships and spend more on permits, fuel, crew and supplies. It’s a very complicated and messy process. Nations will allow ships from other nations to fish in their waters under agreed upon treaties or other international arrangement. There’s a mess right now because of the UK withdrawal from the EU and who can fish where and then what can get exported somewhere else. I agree with you though that the fishermen if left on their own would fish until there was nothing left. But it’s not as simple as you think. Some people avoid those farm raised shrimp you buy as it’s not viewed as a sustainable practice and in fact maybe quite toxic.
Did you read the article in the link? I have some disagreement with what the author wrote as there is as a lot of conjecture but the article was pointing out that the government has closed the crab fishery in Alaska and so the fisherman who just spent millions on his business is trying to figure out how to survive. Fishing has a tremendous amount of government regulation.
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Total Allowable Catch for 2022 will be announced in October:
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Sorry to go Debbie Downer on you, but farmed shrimp might have 180 degrees your desired effect. So many shrimp farms are in areas where they have to clear mangroves for the shrimp farm. I’ve seen this in Mexico. Aside from volcanism, mangroves and other such silt collecting plants are the only way to make more land. Looks like land will soon be at a premium, if the waters keep rising as expected.
So, I buy gulf shrimp, or the Argentinian reds. I know, there was an oil spill. Still, I buy gulf.
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And since then I have avoided gulf products.
Not me. I trust the shrimp. Like to support the gulf shrimp boats.
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When people say “This is why we can’t have nice things.”
Well, here you go. Some more nice things we can’t have.
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Blue crabs are also collapsing in the Chesapeake. I believe that Dungeness are also under pressure.
Scary times.
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Indeed… and I have never been a fan of commercial fishing. I saw this decades ago with abalone (always caught my own), but commercial harvesting decimated the species… and it seems crab is next on the list.
While it is great to have seafood available at the local supermarket, a lot of it is not responsibly sustained. I get that there are all kinds of regulations imposed, but in comparison to farming and ranching, commercial fishing is not all about breeding/growing food… and too much about collecting and selling whatever they can extract from our oceans and lakes.
I have seen a number of opinions expressing negatives about farmed seafood, but if we can’t figure it out, it will all eventually go away.
Apparently, we have squids for YEARS. Learn to love calamari, I guess.
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Don’t have to learn, 'cause I already know.
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I don’t know if Humboldt squid are suitable for human consumption but DO know that they are very large and dangerous, and that ocean warming has led them to prime fishing areas where they decimate the commercial catch. Even if their only uses would be pet food and fertilizer, it would be helpful to fish for them
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To save you a click: Yes. Very.
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Common southern in Chile. Supermarkets and fishmongers sell them, in huge pieces, the size of a table. They are also available in tins. Probably the only country that has tinned Humboldt squid?
