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Tales
The decision by Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch to red-list American lobster set off a firestorm earlier this month. It is an unfortunate byproduct of big environmental organizations hijacking the sustainable seafood narrative and trying to dictate policy while leaning on data that many in the industry say is incomplete and inaccurate. In this case, Seafood Watch relied on data extrapolations from different sources essentially saying that all traditional lobster gear (trap and buoy) is an imminent threat to right whales. But many lobster industry folks as well as politicians and academics discount that claim since only one right whale entanglement has been linked in the past 20 years (in 2004) to Maine lobster gear ... and that whale lived. So this is why we continue to encourage students of all ages to ask questions, learn more about the seafood they eat, and own their decisions. Also in this newsletter, we are gearing up for a busy fall. As we're ramping up classroom activities, we're also preparing to fly to Alaska for the Local Catch Network's Local Seafood Summit Oct. 2-3. We've been part of a great team planning this event for the past year, creating a space for deep dive conversations around supporting local seafood systems and values. You'll also see a link to a great blog by One Fish Foundation Communications Coordinator Malia Guyer Stevens about her trip to Ireland this summer to forage wild produce with Sally Barnes, the smoked salmon whisperer who has bestowed much knowledge upon many students from around the world as well as several Slow Fish events. We have updates on Bristol Bay, as well as cool stories on dragonfly larvae as pollution sentinels, new nesting areas for endangered Ridley's Sea Turtles, a less invasive way of harvesting scallops, and the not-so-charming Atlantic Wolffish. You'll also see a heartwarming recipe for wild fish and foraged greens risotto recipe. Enjoy!
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One Fish Foundation News
September 2022
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Foraging with Sally Barnes in West Cork
Sally Barnes has been smoking wild fish for over 40 years, and today she runs Woodcock Smokery, the last smokehouse in Ireland to only use wild fish. Working with wild is not only a way to stay connected to Ireland's ancient history of smoking fish, but it has also become Sally's way of advocating for local fishermen and environmental conservation. Malia, our communications coordinator, got a chance to visit Sally's smokehouse earlier this summer and learn firsthand from her decades of knowledge of the local ecosystems and history. Read more on our blog!
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Local Seafood Summit in Alaska
Colles will be heading to the Local Catch Local Seafood Summit at the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska on Oct. 2-3. He has been working with a dedicated team for nearly a year to help plan a comprehensive, engaging, and in-person event drawing seafood harvesters, fishmongers, retailers, seafood business owners, chefs, and advocates from around the world to talk about how to envision resilient local seafood systems. This will be the first in-person Local Catch event since the last Local Seafood Summit in 2019 in Portland, Oregon. Deep dive discussions will range from community supported fisheries best practices to ways to extend seafood with values to more communities. We'll post updates from the conference. Stay tuned!
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Calls for Action
Here are concrete action items and opportunities to make your voice heard
or learn more about crucial issues.
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Sign on letter calling for a stop to Canadian mining near salmon rivers
- Salmon Beyond Borders' sign on letter to the Biden Administration calling for outreach to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau to ban toxic mining near critical, cross-boundary salmon watersheds such as the Taku, Stikine and Unuk rivers.
Send a letter to President Biden to protect Alaska's Yukon Kuskowkim River Delta
- The proposed Donlin Gold mine in Alaska's Yukon Kuskowkim River Delta would allow for the dredge and fill of water bodies in the headwaters of the Kuskokwim River, in some cases permanently eliminating salmon streams. Sign the letter, or write your own, urging President Biden to revoke the mine's permit and provide a fair, balanced and rigorous process that is led by the people of the region.
Take action to defend the Tongass National Forest
Help #BlockCorporateSalmon
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Sustainable Seafood News
Here's what you need to be hearing about, thinking about, and why.
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EPA receives half a million comments supporting Bristol Bay
More than half a million people from around the world submitted comments on behalf of Bristol Bay, Alaska during the EPA's recently closed public comment period on its draft ruling that the Pebble Mine would threaten the bay's pristine watershed. In total, the EPA has received more than 4 million comments supporting Clean Water Protections for Bristol Bay during seven federal comment periods since 2014. Bristol Bay is home to the world's largest wild sockeye salmon run, along with runs for several other species that collectively are vital to the communities that live in and around the bay, and to the more than 15,000 people employed in businesses supported by this vibrant watershed. More than 78 million sockeye returned to Bristol Bay this summer, setting a new record. The recent string of records over the past few years has some scientists scratching their heads since other areas have seen plummeting salmon returns. Researchers are working to understand why this is, and at what point the waters may become too warm even for the Bay's wild sockeye. Either way, the process to fully protect Bristol Bay continues. The EPA has set a deadline for December 2 to make a final decision on using Clean Water Protections to stop the Pebble Project. Read the statement from the EPA here. Stay tuned for more updates!
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Lobster "red listed" by Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch entered the lobster/right whale fracas by placing American lobster caught along the Northeast US coastline on its red list of seafood species to avoid. In doing so, Seafood Watch has aligned itself with several big environmental organizations claiming that the vertical lines used in traditional lobster gear (buoy, rope and trap) are potentially the most significant threat to endangered right whales. However, the lobster industry in Maine and elsewhere, along with scientists, politicians, and business owners have pushed back, saying the cause of the right whale's recent population decline is much more complicated than just vertical fishing lines. Some scientists and fishermen say that climate change is shifting the migration of the key plankton right whales depend on, and is largely to blame for putting right whales in the path of ships (ship strikes are a major mortality threat) and into areas of lobster fisheries. There has only been one confirmed right whale entanglement in Maine lobster gear in the past 20 years (in 2004). Lobstermen fear that ever more restrictive and expensive rules imposed by National Marine Fisheries Service will eventually shut down the industry completely. The overall impact of the red listing is yet to be determined, but several major retailers have already said they aren't stopping lobster sales in the near term. And some industry watchers don't think the net effect will be that significant. Still, this is another example of why we tell folks to learn more about the seafood they eat. If not, they may blindly take direction from an organization whose decisions may rely on incomplete or inaccurate data, and whose values may not truly align with their own.
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'Scallop Discos' – a new way to catch scallops?
Fishermen in the UK were using flashing lights inside crab pots to attract crabs when they accidentally discovered a new way to catch scallops. Swimming by shooting water out of their valves, scallops entered the crab pots to check out the lights. This could have a huge effect on an industry that relies on trawling and dredging, which can lead to bycatch and scar the ocean floor. How cool is that? Listen to an interview with one of the scientists involved in this discovery, and watch the eureka moment (beware some salty language, but apparently the fishermen were quite surprised!).
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Dragonfly larvae to monitor pollution in National Parks
Dragonfly larvae are at the center of a National Park Service research project to measure levels of mercury, or more specifically methylmercury, a dangerous neurotoxin that builds up in fish, birds, and people. Over 100 national park sites across the country are taking part in the research to track changing mercury levels in water and the long-term effect of policies to ban mercury use. Highly active predators who live near bodies of water, dragonflies will accumulate toxins such as mercury that might be moving through the water and other species that live in it. Scientists hope that by detecting and measuring the amount of mercury found in dragonfly larvae, they can determine how carbon cycles are building in fresh water bodies, then determine if any policy can effectively address and/or stop the mercury cycle.
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The Greenland ice sheet is losing ice faster than forecast, but there's still hope
Research shows that Greenland's ice sheet is going to lose 22,780 square miles due to climate change. The new report also suggests that even if we managed to stop all greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming today, Greenland's ice loss under current temps would cause global sea levels to rise by 10.8 inches. But one researcher involved in this study still sees hope, claiming that imminent action could prevent catastrophic coastal flooding. This ice sheet has seen a lot in its 2.6 million years, but this doesn't have to be the end of it. We just need to act collectively now!
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Kemp's ridley sea turtle nests in Louisiana for first time in 75 Years
Good news for the world's most endangered sea turtle! Kemp’s ridley sea turtles have recently been spotted on the Chandeleur Islands just off the Louisiana coast. The area hasn't been a nesting zone for decades, but their return is the result of years of barrier island restoration efforts to combat erosion and the effects of the 2010 BP oil spill.
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Fascinating Fish of the Month
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Photo: NOAA Fisheries
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Atlantic Wolffish (Anarhichas lupus)
Lifespan: up to 20 years
Habitat: Atlantic Coast of North America from Labrador to Great South Channel and Georges Bank.
Good at: Smiling for the camera
Bad At: Keeping up with old friends
These blueish-grey fish tend to spend their lives solitary, pairing up with a mate for only a few months each year. The tapered bodies and large round heads of the Atlantic Wolffish are not their most distinguishing features. That would be their multiple rows of teeth. So many, in fact, that their front teeth will protrude from their mouths, giving them a wolfish smile. They've been heavily fished off of Cape Cod and the coast of Maine, and have recently been added to the Slow Food Ark of Taste, which calls for their protection from over-fishing. Their disappearance means the growth of their preferred prey – sea urchins and green crabs – which have begun to disrupt the region's ecosystem.
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Sustainable Seafood Recipes
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Preserved Wild Fish and Foraged Greens Risotto
This recipe comes to us from Max Jones of Up There The Last and Woodcock Smokery. He was part of the foraging trip that Malia made with Sally Barnes earlier this summer.
The nature of this recipe is that it’s adaptable to what you have on hand, and how many people you’ll be feeding. Play with the ingredients and add what’s local to you. This includes the local seaweeds and other edible ocean flora.
A note from Max:
"The point of the coastal harvest course is to get people to look at wild food not as “foraging” to find weeds with which one can garnish a salad, but rather look to the wild as a source for true sustenance. The best way we can learn this is by looking to those people who have been living in and of the place, without romantic foraging notions, but rather learn from them as they would have had to rely on wild food to survive, and therefore learn the best spots out of necessity. It also ties you into seasonality rather beautifully, with the summer glut being preserved to make it last longer, oering a supplement to diet in the leaner winter months. By having a few staples in the pantry, it’s great to go out and take the bulk of what a dish might be from the wild."
Ingredients
- A large onion, head of celery, or other vegetables you have handy.
- 2 tablespoons of butter (or local source of fat for cooking)
- 2 cups of risotto rice
- ¼ cup white wine, vermouth, or other alcohol for cooking
- 4-6 cups fish or vegetable stock
- 3-4 cups of fresh foraged greens, such as Sea Beet, Sea Orache, Sea Plantain
- 1 tablespoon diced preserved lemon (optional)
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
- ½ cup of grated parmesan (optional)
- ¼ pound or so of preserved wild fish (smoked hake, haddock, anything really)
Directions
- Heat a large skillet and melt your butter.
- Chop your vegetables into large chunks and cook for a few minutes until they’ve softened.
- Add risotto and stir it around so the rice absorbs some of the fat and goes translucent around the edges (around 2 mins).
- Add wine or vermouth to the pan and let it sit until the liquid has mostly cooked down.
- Add a cup of fish or veg. stock to the pan, bring to a boil and then let it simmer. As the liquid cooks down add another cup and keep cooking it down and adding more until it’s cooked al dente.
- In a separate pot, bring a couple of cups of water to a boil, add nutmeg and preserved lemon, and toss in your roughly chopped foraged greens.
- Cook the greens just for a few minutes until they’ve softened.
- Mix the cooked greens into the cooked risotto.
- Grate loads of parmesan and when it’s all cooked through, stir in the parmesan, take the rice off the heat and cover in a dishcloth and lid and set to the side.
- Now take your preserved wild fish and cook it in a little bit of butter skin side down. Don’t flip it – this will make the skin crispy and Maillard-sticky brown, and it is ready when the fish is cooked through. Press with your finger and if it slides apart in flakes, you’re done.
To Serve:
Place the fish on top of the rice, and garnish with raw pepper dulse, which tastes of truffles and whose minerality ties off the whole dish bringing out gorgeous umami rich flavors of the sea.
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Donate to One Fish Foundation
We are a small non-profit with big impact. Every dollar goes toward classroom and community education, engagement, and participation as we change our eating habits and the domestic seafood supply chain, one conversation at a time. Your donation helps us grow the community of those who care about where their seafood comes from, the people who harvest it, and protecting the resource we all depend on. One Fish Foundation is a 501(3) non-profit organization, and all donations are tax deductible.
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