You Wanna Eat Some Gulf Fish? Sure, They're Safe, But Not Safeguarded
I received a couple of phone calls from reporters last week, looking to check into the safety of fish caught off the Louisiana coast. Apparently, the idea of toxic New Orleans water being dumped into Lake Pontchartain to filter into the Gulf of Mexico was a Katrina image worth revisiting one year later. I'll admit, the image of the NOLA 'dewatering' process and the millions of gallons of nasty, fetid, toxic gumbo being pumped into the lake was a bit chilling, but hey, it's a big lake, and the water had to go somewhere. But the feds were pretty quick to start looking at the impacts on fisheries, and the test results have been uniformly positive. Check out the latest 'all clear' from NOAA right here.
Whew. But if the shrimp, oysters, redfish and speckled trout we're famous for are all free of nasty toxins and fecal colliform, should we rush to consume as much as possible in a sign of solidarity with the rebuilding fishermen? That's a trickier issue. There are a ton of issues to sort out when you're considering what fish you want to eat, what fisheries you want to support, and the health issues involved. I just read a well-thought-out opinion piece in the New York times on those concerns. Check it out here.
I know that the Central Gulf's recreational and commercial fishing infrastructure got hammered last year, and we need to help our fishermen rebuild in a smart, and sustainable way. That doesn't change the fact the our shrimp and red snapper fisheries were overcapitalized (way too many boats, chasing way too few fish). Given the ever increasing cost of fuel, the ever decreasing price of shrimp at the dock due to cheap farm-raised foreign imports, fewer and fewer shrimpers were making a decent living. A lot of folks, including the quasi-governmental federal advisory body, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, agreed that the rebuilding plan coming out of of Katrina/Rita should take advantage of the opportunity to help shrimpers and others out of the industry if that's what they wanted, granting federal resources to buy back and retire shrimp permits and boats, to help shrimpers out from under crushing loans that would have forced them into bancrupcy or back into the water.
That move would have helped remaining shrimpers make more money, and help the ecosystems of the Gulf that are impacted by shrimp trawl bycatch. Shrimp trawls in the Gulf of Mexico are the single 'dirtiest' fishing gear in the country, catching four pounds of unintended fish for every pound of shrimp. That unintended bycatch gets thrown overboard, dead or dying. Tough on shrimpers backs, and tougher on species like red snapper, whose juveniles end up dying in big numbers.
Well, those initial instincts weren't met with much enthusiasm by the feds or vocal support from the shrimp industry associations, and at the last Gulf Council meeting the Gulf federal fisheries managers voted to halt the development of plans for action on red snapper rebuilding or shrimp fleet management - pointing to the hurricanes' impacts and a perception that an absence of heavy shrimping or charter boat activity would mean the red snapper (down to 3% of historic abundance in the Gulf, and experiencing on-going overexploitation that has kept the population from rebuilding) may be doing just fine, thank you very much.
Read the story about it in the NOLA Times-Pic right here. So, the inaction of the Council means the feds need to step in and set a more protective annual catch level for red snapper or be forced by the courts to do so (we've sued NOAA-Fisheries on the issue of continued red snapper overfishing, along with the Ocean Conservancy and the Coastal Conservation Association). On the whole, we completely disagree with the idea that one year of decreased shrimping and recreational and commercial fishing would put snapper back on track, and will be urging the Feds to set a proactive and conservative catch limit for next year's season.
Back to your shopping list. Does that mean avoid red snapper, and avoid shrimp? Maybe. Of course the irony is that right now the shrimp catch is really high for the boats able to get into the water and find a port and an icehouse, and their bycatch is probably a bit lower than normal due to the lack of competition and an ability to get into the deeper water for the larger shrimp. At the root of the problem, is that the fish managers who set the rules that commercial and recreational fishermen live by, ignore the clear mandates of the federal fisheries law, and exploit loopholes to allow continued overexploitation of our depleted fisheries.
We still have an opportunity to fix those loopholes and tighten up the law so that my kids and grand kids may still have a chance to experience the one ongoing reminder of our hunter-gatherer history. Tell Congress to fix or flush the Pombo-authored revision of the Magnuson Act, our key fisheries law - it's being decided right now.
Aaron Viles is the GRN's Campaign Director
I received a couple of phone calls from reporters last week, looking to check into the safety of fish caught off the Louisiana coast. Apparently, the idea of toxic New Orleans water being dumped into Lake Pontchartain to filter into the Gulf of Mexico was a Katrina image worth revisiting one year later. I'll admit, the image of the NOLA 'dewatering' process and the millions of gallons of nasty, fetid, toxic gumbo being pumped into the lake was a bit chilling, but hey, it's a big lake, and the water had to go somewhere. But the feds were pretty quick to start looking at the impacts on fisheries, and the test results have been uniformly positive. Check out the latest 'all clear' from NOAA right here.
Whew. But if the shrimp, oysters, redfish and speckled trout we're famous for are all free of nasty toxins and fecal colliform, should we rush to consume as much as possible in a sign of solidarity with the rebuilding fishermen? That's a trickier issue. There are a ton of issues to sort out when you're considering what fish you want to eat, what fisheries you want to support, and the health issues involved. I just read a well-thought-out opinion piece in the New York times on those concerns. Check it out here.
I know that the Central Gulf's recreational and commercial fishing infrastructure got hammered last year, and we need to help our fishermen rebuild in a smart, and sustainable way. That doesn't change the fact the our shrimp and red snapper fisheries were overcapitalized (way too many boats, chasing way too few fish). Given the ever increasing cost of fuel, the ever decreasing price of shrimp at the dock due to cheap farm-raised foreign imports, fewer and fewer shrimpers were making a decent living. A lot of folks, including the quasi-governmental federal advisory body, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, agreed that the rebuilding plan coming out of of Katrina/Rita should take advantage of the opportunity to help shrimpers and others out of the industry if that's what they wanted, granting federal resources to buy back and retire shrimp permits and boats, to help shrimpers out from under crushing loans that would have forced them into bancrupcy or back into the water.
That move would have helped remaining shrimpers make more money, and help the ecosystems of the Gulf that are impacted by shrimp trawl bycatch. Shrimp trawls in the Gulf of Mexico are the single 'dirtiest' fishing gear in the country, catching four pounds of unintended fish for every pound of shrimp. That unintended bycatch gets thrown overboard, dead or dying. Tough on shrimpers backs, and tougher on species like red snapper, whose juveniles end up dying in big numbers.
Well, those initial instincts weren't met with much enthusiasm by the feds or vocal support from the shrimp industry associations, and at the last Gulf Council meeting the Gulf federal fisheries managers voted to halt the development of plans for action on red snapper rebuilding or shrimp fleet management - pointing to the hurricanes' impacts and a perception that an absence of heavy shrimping or charter boat activity would mean the red snapper (down to 3% of historic abundance in the Gulf, and experiencing on-going overexploitation that has kept the population from rebuilding) may be doing just fine, thank you very much.
Read the story about it in the NOLA Times-Pic right here. So, the inaction of the Council means the feds need to step in and set a more protective annual catch level for red snapper or be forced by the courts to do so (we've sued NOAA-Fisheries on the issue of continued red snapper overfishing, along with the Ocean Conservancy and the Coastal Conservation Association). On the whole, we completely disagree with the idea that one year of decreased shrimping and recreational and commercial fishing would put snapper back on track, and will be urging the Feds to set a proactive and conservative catch limit for next year's season.
Back to your shopping list. Does that mean avoid red snapper, and avoid shrimp? Maybe. Of course the irony is that right now the shrimp catch is really high for the boats able to get into the water and find a port and an icehouse, and their bycatch is probably a bit lower than normal due to the lack of competition and an ability to get into the deeper water for the larger shrimp. At the root of the problem, is that the fish managers who set the rules that commercial and recreational fishermen live by, ignore the clear mandates of the federal fisheries law, and exploit loopholes to allow continued overexploitation of our depleted fisheries.
We still have an opportunity to fix those loopholes and tighten up the law so that my kids and grand kids may still have a chance to experience the one ongoing reminder of our hunter-gatherer history. Tell Congress to fix or flush the Pombo-authored revision of the Magnuson Act, our key fisheries law - it's being decided right now.
Aaron Viles is the GRN's Campaign Director
Labels: Fish
posted by Aaron at 11:03 AM
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