The "Sustainable" Sign Over a Fish You Should Avoid

Walk up to almost any seafood counter and you'll find some version of the same promise. A big sign says the store supports sustainable fishing. Right under it, on ice, there may be a fish that every independent seafood guide tells you to avoid.

That store probably didn't break any rule. In the United States and Canada, there is no standard legal definition for "sustainable" or "responsibly sourced" on a seafood label. Canada's food inspection rules have no specific definition for sustainability on a package, and the US Federal Trade Commission considered defining the term in its environmental marketing guidance and decided against it. Compare that with a regulated claim like "wild-caught." If a package says wild-caught and the fish was farmed, that is mislabelling. "Sustainable" carries no such consequence.

So treat the sign as marketing, and get your facts from tools built for the job.

The tools that have done the research for you

Independent groups have already assessed thousands of fisheries and farms so you don't have to.

Eco-labels. The Marine Stewardship Council's blue fish tick marks wild seafood from fisheries certified to its standard. The Aquaculture Stewardship Council label does the same job for farmed seafood. Each fishery or farm is assessed against a public standard, and the assessment reports are free to read. Fisheries engaged with the MSC program now represent almost a fifth of the world's wild marine catch, and since 2013 every Filet-O-Fish sold at US McDonald's restaurants has carried the MSC label.

Labels still go missing on shelves, even at large retailers. If you don't see the tick on something you expected to be certified, mention it to the staff. Andrew has done this at his own local store and watched the labelling improve after the feedback went up the chain.

Seafood guides. Most coastal regions have one. Seafood Watch from the Monterey Bay Aquarium covers the US, Ocean Wise covers Canada, the Marine Conservation Society's Good Fish Guide covers the UK, GoodFish covers Australia, and several WWF offices run guides elsewhere. Most rate seafood as a best choice, a good alternative, or one to avoid.

Why tuna is several different decisions

A good guide splits tuna by species, by the ocean it came from, and by how it was caught. Pole-and-line skipjack from one ocean might be a best choice, while a different tuna caught with different gear somewhere else might land on the avoid list. As we covered earlier this week in the bycatch episode, the gear often tells the whole story, and that detail rarely makes it onto the label.

Here's the routine that works:

1. Check the package and your guide together.
2. If you're unsure, check the store or brand website.
3. Ask the person behind the counter, kindly. They may be at the end of a long shift on minimum wage, and sourcing information is the retailer's job to provide.
4. If nobody knows where or how the fish was caught, choose something else.

Almost every grocery store has some sustainable options. You may need to set aside a few favourites until you can confirm they're well sourced.

Local, invasive and shark: three special cases

Local isn't automatically better. Andrew tells the story of a diver on a Caribbean dive boat who raved about eating all the fresh, locally caught fish he wanted on the islands. After the dive, the reef seemed to have far fewer fish than he remembered. Local catch can mean heavy pressure on a small reef feeding a lot of tourists, so check the guide on vacation too.

Eat the invaders. Lionfish in the Caribbean and Western Atlantic and blue catfish in the Chesapeake Bay are predators eating native fish and crabs where they don't belong. With invasive species, heavy fishing is the goal. Prevention remains the best tool, and eating them is still far better than doing nothing.

Sharks. Overfishing is the top threat to sharks, and many species are in serious trouble. Some guides tell you to avoid all shark. A few shark fisheries are well managed enough to earn MSC certification or a good guide rating. Choosing never to eat shark is a fair personal decision. Saying no sustainable shark fishery exists is a different claim, and accuracy protects your credibility when you talk about ocean conservation.

Does one shopper really matter?

If you were the only person in the world skipping a red-listed fish, the fishery wouldn't notice. When thousands of shoppers, and the retailers buying on their behalf, follow the same guide, the fishery notices fast.

Louisiana shows how. In 1987, the state passed a law stopping its officers from enforcing the federal rule requiring turtle excluder devices in shrimp trawls. These devices are the trap doors that let sea turtles escape a net before they drown. Louisiana became the only state refusing to enforce the rule.

In October 2013, Seafood Watch put all Louisiana wild-caught shrimp on its red avoid list, specifically because of that law. It was the only state to get that rating. Thousands of businesses use Seafood Watch to guide their buying, including major retailers like Whole Foods, Costco and Trader Joe's, and the red listing put Louisiana shrimpers at a disadvantage.

The shrimp industry, which had backed the original law, asked for it to go. In 2015 the Louisiana legislature passed House Bill 668, repealing the ban on enforcing turtle excluder device rules. It took effect that summer, and Seafood Watch removed Louisiana shrimp from its avoid list a day later.

That's the whole week in one story: a science-based rating, the shoppers and businesses who used it, and a fishery that improved so it could keep selling.

Your next step

Before your next seafood purchase, download your country's seafood guide and look up one item before you buy it. One item, one lookup. It takes about ten seconds, and it becomes habit quickly.

Fishing is one of the biggest pressures on ocean life, and the fixes we covered this week work. Catch limits based on science help stocks rebuild, and some collapsed stocks have started to come back. Most bycatch has a gear fix. Where we fish matters as much as how much, and real protected areas let reefs recover. The seafood counter is where all of it connects back to you.

Want to go deeper? Pre-order David Shiffman's book Why Sustainable Seafood Matters, and listen to the full sustainable seafood series on How to Protect the Ocean.

Takeaways

• "Sustainable" on a seafood sign has no standard legal definition in the US or Canada
• Trust independent tools: the MSC blue tick, the ASC label, and your regional seafood guide
• Species alone isn't enough; check where and how the fish was caught
• Ask politely, and choose something else if nobody can answer
• Check the guide on vacation, eat invasive species, and keep shark claims accurate
• Louisiana's 2013 red listing helped drive the 2015 repeal of its anti-TED law
• Look up one item before your next purchase