Remember that big Trader Joe’s campaign going on to get the company to stop selling endangered fish like Chilean sea bass and orange roughy? Greenpeace launched one of their famous all-out campaigns against the company, calling them “Traitor Joes” and giving them their own little website, cartoon, Facebook page—the works.

Environmental and animal rights activists the world over spoke up against the store’s practices, deeming the sale of such threatened species as crimes against humanity—okay, as at least really bad things to do. This campaign lasted for several months, during which Greenpeace and activists pressured Trader Joe’s to get greener with its fishing policies and to stop putting endangered animals on the menu.

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What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of seafood? (Besides some idiot mumbling, “See food!” as he proceeds to unveil what amazing thing he’s masticating in his jowls for all to see.) Does Deadliest Catch come to mind, maybe? Or the Modest Mouse King Rat video? Whatever it is, it probably involves some men in plastic-looking coats out on the open sea, dragging in nets of catch to be used at your nearest Long John Silver’s.

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Asian CarpHave you heard about the Asian carp tragedy going on up in the Midwest right now? Lake Michigan, a large Great Lake that juts south from Canada and gave birth to the port towns of Milwaukee and Chicago, is in very real danger of letting in an invasive species of fish that could potentially take over the lake, effectively destroying the fishing industry of the upper Midwest. Michigan currently has a $7 billion fishing industry. So if your $7 billion dollar industry was in danger of dying because of another fish, what would you do?

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I'm catching up on my Hulu queue this week, after a big lag over the holidays, so it wasn't until this morning that I saw Charles Moore as Stephen Colbert's interview guest.  Captain Moore is the one who first discovered and identified the Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre while sailing back to Los Angeles from Hawaii.


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I enjoy watching MonsterQuest, but it tends to irritate me.  My feelings towards the show were handily summed up by a quote from the latest episode I watched.  "If ____ happens, the results would be frightening."  Well, sure!  And if crocodiles learned to drive cars, the results would be frightening, too.  What's your point?

The point of their episode "Killer Jellyfish" is that if jellyfish take over the ocean, the results would be frightening.  (Except for some of the clips from night diving in Australia, the point of which was "if these sharks were hungrier, the results would be frightening."  I mean honestly, sharks have it hard enough without the narrator throwing around terms like "feeding frenzy" to describe sharks swimming around peacefully, over a suite of horror movie music, don't you think?)


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tunaWe have all heard about the importance of adding healthy fish to our diets, yet there are a number of problems with the commercial fishing industry that leads to the destruction of the ocean and depletion of fish stocks. In addition to environmental problems that can be caused by commercial fishing, the coal industry and other dirty industries have polluted the rivers and oceans to the point that there is a rising level of harmful mercury found in much of the seafood that is available. So in addition to finding ocean friendly seafood, how can you also select healthy choices that will be safe for you and your family? It is important to get acquainted with the mercury issue and know which choices are safer and which will have higher rates of mercury that can be potentially dangerous.

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Fisheries around the world are in serious trouble, with many facing a complete collapse due to unsustainable and destructive fishing practices that have wrecked havoc with the ocean's ecosystem and depleted many fishing stocks to near extinction. This can pose a dilemma for those seeking the important health benefits of including fish in your regular diet. So how can you still find ways to fit in the important health benefits of seafood in a safe and ocean friendly way?

To find safe, ocean friendly seafood you need to know three things:

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I recently read an interesting New York Times article about how evolutionary biologists have finally cracked the "tetrodotoxin mystery."  Tetrodotoxin is a wildly effective neurotoxin which is found in puffer fish (although hopefully not in the famous fugu dish made from their flesh), as well as in some newts, a few species of frog, a poisonous octopus, and a species of crab.  But how does the same, relatively exotic, neurotoxin evolve in the bloodstream of so many divergent animals?


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The Dungeness Crab, Cancer magister is named for the town of Dungeness, Washington, because it's the site of the first commercial commercial crabbing venture for the species. Today, Dungeness is the home of a major annual Dungeness Crab Festival. You can usually find fresh local dungeness crab in coastal Oregon and Washington from December to February, and then again, briefly, in June. If you don't want to try catching and cooking your own dungeness crab, you can buy it fresh crab at most local grocery stores, directly from crabbers, or seafood specialty shops like VIS Seafoods or the fish markets at Pike Place Market in Seattle, and settlements around Washington's Hood Canal.

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While unsustainable fishing practices threaten to wipe out schools—entire species, even—of fish worldwide, people are standing up against the greed and environmental destruction and taking action.

While much remains to be done, there are plenty of stories out there that prove that there is plenty of hope—and that people in power give a damn, too. From Seafood Watch to the makers (and viewers!) of The Cove, people are not taking these oceanic issues lightly.

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