Tribewanted: Vorovoro

What does it mean to eat sustainably from the sea?
It means that you make conscious consumer decisions about what seafood you purchase from the market, as not all fish (and other sea-dwelling critters) are created equal, meaning they are not all equally resilient when faced with overfishing.

Why can some fish handle more fishing than others?
It all depends on their life-history traits. If they live for a long time, they might not mature until later in life, meaning it takes years for an individual to replace itself in the population. In this case fish are saving their energy to reproduce later in life, which is a fine strategy if there is no fishing, but if there is fishing these individuals are caught before they reproduce, meaning they don’t have offspring to replace themselves in the population, causing the numbers to shrink! If fishing always takes out the largest specimens, which it usually does as it is more meat per fish and a better price at the market, the maximum size of that fish decreases over time.

Why are some farm-raised fish and invertebrates not considered good choices?
Land is being lost to create aquaculture facilities – mangrove forests are being clearcut just to establish area for raising shrimp and fish, especially in Asia. Furthermore, the waste from the facilities, the fish waste, excess food, etc., is carried downstream and the high input of nutrients can cause harmful algal blooms. It takes fishmeal to feed the fish, and can take 2kg of fish meal (from wild ocean fish) to produce 1kg of farm-raised shrimp or fish! Some farming like that of seaweed or algae can be done without much waste, and the trend is moving to incorporate many species to clean up the waste, in the future this might be more sustainable. That is why in the states salmon farm raised in rivers is a bad pick but wild Alaskan salmon is a good pick. However, aquaculture that is totally cut off from natural water bodies and is entirely self-contained is a ok as it doesn’t pollute – like farm raised tilapia and trout.

What is sustainable in my area?
Look online! There are new websites popping up everywhere listing sustainable choices.

Best Picks
Anchovies
Sardines
Tuna (U.S.)
Albacore (U.S.)
Mackerel (Atlantic)
Mussels
Salmon (wild, Alaska)
Oysters (farmed)
Sablefish (AK, Canada)
Good Choices
Wild Clams
Pacific Cod
Snow Crab
Flounder (Pacific)
Squid
Shrimp (U.S., wild)
Lobster (U.S.)
Do not buy!
Chilean Sea Bass
Grouper
Monkfish
Orange Roughy
Farmed Salmon
Shark
Imported Swordfish
Bluefin Tuna

What types of fishing are best?
Hook and line or spearfishing (like on Vorovoro) is the best type of fishing as it has lower bycatch (fish unintentionally caught that will be thrown overboard injured or dead as they can’t be sold in market). Purse sein and long lining (thousands of hooks on a line) are intermediate methods. Bottom trawls are not good as they drag along the sea floor with weighted nets and catch anything and everything in its path. It ruins anything growing on the seafloor like coral and sea fans. Any fish that live on the sea floor are typically caught in this manner. Gill nets are another poor way to fish; it is a net that hangs in the water column to catch fish that swim around for a living. Fish swim into the net and try to back out but their gills get caught and they are stuck in the net. This net catches all kinds of bycatch as well, including many sharks and even turtles and whales.

What about on Vorovoro?
Almost all reef fish are sustainable. Groupers should be large in size (so they have already reproduced and replaced themselves in the population) and not caught too frequently. Sharks are a definite item to not catch often. However if it was caught on a hook and line and died, it might as well be eaten. Sharks should not be targeted as they are often caught incidentally on hook and line set at nights from the island. Most of the turtles are endangered, and should not be used for food. Otherwise it is simply best to follow the mantra “everything in moderation” and try to catch a diverse number of species of decent sizes for our subsistence fishing. We are doing a good job on the island of this thus far.