HOT ISSUES @ bpeg.ca

It appears that the shrimp ring has become an expected part of the holiday appetizer table, centered like a wreath between the cheese ball and plate of shortbread. And for good reason… they taste great, they are easy to purchase, and it is the season for indulgence. So why should I run the risk of sounding like a Grinch by questioning one of our nouveau traditions?

Well, worldwide our fisheries are in crisis and although we’ve heard this our entire lives, there is little evidence to suggest a change in tide. We continue to fish down the food web (e.g., we now fish for smaller/lower things including jellyfish, sea cucumber, etc…), destroy habitat, over harvest (e.g., since the 1950’s we’ve lost 90% of the large fishes), and drive species to commercial extinction. Unwittingly, our consumption patterns support economies that are not sustainable.

Although shrimp appear as common as cod in a 1970s grocer’s freezer, they are not exempt from this crisis. In fact most of the shrimp we are likely to find in the local grocery stores (e.g., imported black tiger shrimp, tiger prawn, white shrimp, etc…) do not come from sustainable fisheries. As much as I like shrimp I feel compelled to avoid these products. Imported wild shrimp are usually caught in trawl nets which have the highest bycatch of any commercial fishery - for every pound of shrimp hauled in, three to 15 pounds of unwanted animals die in the process. Imported farmed shrimp has problems too. About 3.7 million acres of tropical coastal mangroves have been converted to shrimp farms, destroying important habitat for fish,
birds and people. So much waste builds up in the farm ponds that the farmers have to move on within a few years, leaving a legacy of polluted water and destroyed mangrove forests.

My background is as a fishery biologists and I’ll admit it is a daunting task sorting out this whole issue of what seafood we should buy or avoid. But, fear not there is lots of help out there. While on vacation a few years ago, we found ourselves in Monterey Bay, California. Two things, Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and a friend researching sea otters drew us there. Both were great to see, but the one thing I carried away was an introduction the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood WATCH program (http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp). I strongly
suggest you go to the website and copy the one page handy pocket reference guide. The intention of the program is to help consumers make wise seafood choices – choices that create a market demand for sustainable fisheries. So have a look and discover why Atlantic salmon and bluefin tuna should be avoided, while Alaskan sockeye or canned skipjack are better choices.

The Seafood WATCH website can also help us figure out what to do with that jar of shrimp sauce. It tells us, for example that there are some sustainable shrimp fisheries out there. The BC spot prawn fishery uses traps (I even had my own sets) thereby minimizing habitat destruction and bycatch. In Oregon the trawl configuration used to catch pink shrimp is deemed to be less damaging and to have less bycatch than traditional bottom trawlers.

The reality though is that these products can be hard to find. Most often you’ll read packages and ask questions only to learn the shrimp are from Thailand or India, two areas to be avoided. And so, as we set the appetizers out this holiday season, the shrimp wreath can still be the centerpiece, but perhaps you could look to the North Pole or at least northern BC for your supply.

Just one more thing for our conscience to machinate.

Scott Parker