Seafood Watch

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Seafood Watch

Seafood Watch one of the best known sustainable seafood advisory lists

Sustainable seafood advisory lists and certification

Sustainable seafood advisory lists and certification are programs aimed at increasing consumer awareness of the environmental impact and sustainability of their seafood purchasing choices....
, and has influenced similar programs around the world. It is a program designed to raise consumer awareness about the importance of buying seafood

Seafood

Seafood is any aquatic animal that is served as food and eaten by humans. Seafoods include fish and shellfish .The harvesting of seafood is known as fishing and the cultivation and farming of seafood is known as aquaculture, mariculture, or in the case of fish, fish farming....
from sustainable

Sustainability

Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the ability to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems....
sources. It is best known for publishing consumer guides for responsible seafood purchasing in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
.

Seafood Watch is a program of the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Monterey Bay Aquarium

The Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is located on the site of a former sardine cannery on Cannery Row in Monterey, California, is one of the largest aquariums in the world....
, and is a partner of SeaWeb's Seafood Choices Alliance

Seafood Choices Alliance

The Seafood Choices Alliance is a program of the nonprofit ocean conservation organization, SeaWeb. It was established in 2001 to galvanize and bring together the disparate elements and diverse approaches in a growing ?seafood choices? movement in the United States and expanded into Europe in 2005....
. It has roots in the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Fishing for Solutions exhibit which ran from 1997 to 1999 and produced a list of sustainable seafood.

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Encyclopedia

Seafood Watch one of the best known sustainable seafood advisory lists

Sustainable seafood advisory lists and certification

Seafood

Sustainability

United States

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Seafood Choices Alliance

Seafood list

The group's list gives lists of the best seafood choices, fish to avoid, as well as "good alternatives". The "avoid" category is for seafood which is overfished and/or fished or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment. Health alerts for fish with high levels of contaminants (e.g. mercury, dioxins, PCB

Polychlorinated biphenyl

Polychlorinated biphenyls are a class of organic compounds with 1 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl which is a molecule composed of two benzene rings each containing six carbon atoms....
s) are also noted, although they may appear in any category.

The Seafood Watch website includes both regional and country-wide guides for the United States. Pocket guides are available from the aquarium and further information is on the web site. Several of the regional guides are also available in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
. The guides are updated twice annually, while the website is updated more often. Recommended seafood includes Sardines, US-farmed Sturgeon

Sturgeon

Sturgeon is the common name used for some 26 species of fish in the family Acipenseridae, including the genus Acipenser, Huso, Scaphirhynchus and Pseudoscaphirhynchus....
(but not wild caught), Atlantic Croaker, Pacific Halibut

Pacific halibut

The Pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis, is a large flatfish found in the northern Pacific Ocean closely related to the Atlantic Halibut....
, Wreckfish

Wreckfish

The wreckfishes are a family, Polyprionidae, of perciform fishes.They are deep-water marine fishes and can be found on the ocean bottom, where they inhabit caves and shipwrecks ....
, White Seabass

White seabass

White seabass or white weakfish, Atractoscion nobilis, is a species of croaker occurring from Magdalena Bay, Baja California, to Juneau, Alaska....
and Dungeness Crab

Dungeness crab

The Dungeness crab is a species of crab that inhabits eelgrass beds and water bottoms from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to Santa Cruz, California....
. Restaurants and retailers are also targeted with an educational program developed by Seafood Watch.

Common name	Latin name	Source	Status	Comment
Chilean Seabass/Toothfish	Dissostichus eleginoides		Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants
Atlantic Cod Cod Cod is the common name for the genus of fish Gadus, belonging to the family Gadidae, and is also used in the common name of a variety of other fishes....	Gadidae Gadidae Gadidae is a family of marine fish, included in the order Gadiformes. It includes the cod, haddock, Merlangius merlangus, and pollock.Most species of gadid are found in temperate waters of the northern hemisphere, although there are some exceptions....	Atlantic	Avoid
King Crab King crab King crabs, also called stone crabs, are a family of crab-like Decapoda crustaceans chiefly found in cold seas. Because of their large size and the taste of their flesh, many species are widely caught and sold as food....		imported	Avoid
Atlantic Flounder Flounder Flounder are flatfish that live in ocean waters ie., Northern Atlantic and waters along the east coast of the United States and Canada, and the Pacific Ocean, as well.... s, Soles		Atlantic	Avoid
Grouper Grouper For other meanings, see Grouper .Groupers are fish of any of a number of genus in the subfamily Epinephelinae of the family Serranidae, in the order Perciformes.... s			Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants
Atlantic Halibut Halibut A halibut is a type of flatfish from the family of the right-eye flounders . This name is derived from haly and butt , alleged to be called so from being commonly eaten on holy-days....		Atlantic	Avoid
Spiny lobster Spiny lobster Spiny lobsters, also known as langouste or rock lobsters are a family of about 45 species of Achelata crustaceans, in the Decapoda Reptantia....		Caribbean imported	Avoid
Mahi mahi/Dolphinfish		(imported)	Avoid
Monkfish Monkfish Monkfish is the English name of a number of types of fish in the northwest Atlantic, most notably the species of the anglerfish genus Lophius and the angelshark genus Squatina....			Avoid
Orange Roughy Orange roughy The orange roughy, red roughy, or deep sea perch, Hoplostethus atlanticus, is a relatively large deep-sea fish belonging to the slimehead family ....	Hoplostethus atlanticus		Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants
Rockfish Striped bass The striped bass is the List of U.S. state fish of Maryland, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and the state Saltwater fish of New York....		Pacific	Avoid
Salmon Salmon Salmon is the common name for several species of fish of the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the family are called trout,the difference is often attributed to the migratory life of the salmon as compared to the residential behaviour of trout, this holds true for the Atlantic salmon....		farmed, including Atlantic	Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants
Scallops: Sea		Mid-Atlantic	Avoid
Shark Shark Sharks are a type of fish with a full Cartilage skeleton and a highly Streamlines, streaklines and pathlinesd body. They respire with the use of five to seven gill slits.... s			Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants
Shrimp Shrimp Shrimp are swimming, Decapoda crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh water and seawater. Adult shrimp are Filter feeder benthic animals living close to the bottom....		imported farmed or wild	Avoid
Red Snapper Red Snapper Red Snapper may refer to:* Red snapper * Red Snapper , an electronic music band from the United Kingdom* Ethan Albright, NFL long snapper for the Washington Redskins, known as "The Red Snapper" for his bright red hair...			Avoid
Sturgeon Sturgeon Sturgeon is the common name used for some 26 species of fish in the family Acipenseridae, including the genus Acipenser, Huso, Scaphirhynchus and Pseudoscaphirhynchus.... Caviar		imported wild	Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants
Swordfish Swordfish Swordfish , also known as Broadbill in some countries, are large, highly migratory, predatory fish characterized by a long, flat bill. They are a popular sport fish, though elusive....		imported	Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants
Tuna Tuna Tuna are several species of ocean-dwelling fish in the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tunas are fast swimmers?they have been clocked at 70 km/h ?and include several species that are warm-blooded.... : Albacore, Bigeye, Yellowfin		longline	Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants
Bluefin Tuna Bluefin tuna Bluefin tuna may mean any of several species of tuna:* Northern bluefin tuna Thunnus thynnus* Southern bluefin tuna Thunnus maccoyii...			Avoid	Limit consumption due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants

Industry criticism

Recently, industry organizations have begun to push back against Seafood Watch's efforts. After publication of a sustainable sushi guide, the National Fisheries Institute wrote on its blog that the guides were "confusing and contradictory," adding that they didn't fully take into account the economic, environmental and social aspects of seafood sustainability.

In December 2008, the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association published a letter from executive director, Mary Ellen Walling to Geoff Shester, the Senior Science Manager of Monterey Bay Aquarium's Sustainable Seafood Initiative. Walling outlined several concerns about Seafood Watch's methods, specifically questioning the red list designation of farmed Atlantic salmon when British Columbia-based farms shared so many of the same methods with those used in Alaska to produce ranched salmon. Walling also contended that Monterey Bay's Report on farmed Atlantic salmon was woefully out of date and that Monterey Bay needed to demonstrate greater transparency in its review process in order to continue to be considered credible by industry.

Seafood Watch

Seafood list

Industry criticism

See also

External links