Pacific Albacore tuna season started a bit late this year but is now in full swing, running from July through September. In case you didn’t realize it, Albacore, IS NOT its overfished and mercury-laden tuna cousins. It is troll or pole-and-line caught, endorsed as a “best choice” by Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch and certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga), also called Tombo tuna, is a medium-size tuna found in temperate, subtropical and tropical oceans. Albacore tuna live longer and grow more slowly than other tunas. Most Albacore is sold as high-priced “white meat” canned tuna on supermarket shelves. Fresh Albacore has whitish-pink flesh, fairly soft texture and a mild, leaner flavor compared to other tuna species. I do not recommend Atlantic Albacore because it has been substantially overfished, but Albacore populations have remained abundant and sustainable in the Pacific.

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If you’re concerned about health risks (or have given up fish for other reasons), but can’t get enough of that lunchtime staple, here’s a simple recipe for an alternative to traditional tuna salad:

1 Can of chickpeas (Bonus points if you can soak them yourself. Find instructions here.)
2 Heaping tablespoons of mayonnaise, or alternative (My favorite is eggless Vegenaise.)
1 Tablespoon flax seed oil
1 Medium carrot, shredded
1/3 Cup chopped celery
4-5 Sprigs of dill, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

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As a marine scientist who has been researching seafood sustainability and health issues for a long time, I’ve known for a while that bluefin tuna not only has high mercury levels but is severely depleted, too.

These magnificent fish are highly prized for their rich, buttery flesh. The global sushi market can’t get enough bluefin, and as a result, exorbitant prices and severe overfishing are driving bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction.

I love sushi as much as the next person, but given its dire population numbers and high mercury levels, maybe its time that we all lay off for a while.

Now making big headlines is a New York Times report that found that much of the bluefin sushi served in upscale New York City restaurants actually exceeds the Food and Drug Administration’s “action level” for mercury. (The threshold is 1 part per million.)

To reiterate: It’s no surprise that bluefin tuna has high levels of mercury – it’s one of the largest and most predatory fish species in the ocean. What is surprising is just how many New York City restaurants are serving the really high-mercury tuna.

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In my first exploration of the issue of by-catch in commercial fishing, I looked at the devastating effects of fishing not simply for the "target" species, but on those animals who are unlucky enough to be caught in the lines, traps, hooks, and nets not meant for them. In this second part, I further explore this issue and take a look at how the dolphins, sea turtles, and seals - animals for whom we have affection - fare in our pursuit of gastronomic pleasure.

DOLPHINS
The public became aware of the problems of by-catch in the 1980s when campaigns were led against tuna companies for harming and killing dolphins when tuna were the targets. The relationship between dolphins and tuna is that yellowfin tuna follow and school beneath dolphins, so fishing fleets would look for dolphins on the surface, herd them and encircle them and set out the nets to catch the tuna – ensnaring the dolphins at the same time. An estimated 5 to 7 million dolphins have been killed by this fishing method over the past four decades, the largest marine mammal kill in history.

In 1986, the International Marine Mammal Project organized a campaign, including a consumer boycott of tuna, in order to urge U.S. tuna companies to end the practice of intentionally chasing and netting dolphins, and to adopt "Dolphin Safe" fishing practices to prevent the drowning of dolphins in tuna nets. Dolphins are mammals and don’t have gills, so they drown while stuck in the nets underwater. There are other standards that a company must adhere to in order to label their tuna “dolphin-safe,” but it’s worth noting that just because it says “dolphin-safe” or “dolphin-friendly,” it doesn’t mean that dolphins were not killed in the production of a particular tin of tuna. It means that the fleet which caught the tuna did not specifically target a pod of dolphins.

Though the numbers are down since new techniques are used to catch tuna (400,000 dolphins killed annually in the 1960s and 100,000 in the 1980s), several thousand dolphins are still killed each year to satisfy our appetites for tuna. Dolphins — social, playful, intelligent animals — are also killed as by-catch in nets targeting trout. According to a 2003 BBC story by Alex Kirby called “Nets Kill 800 Cetaceans a Day,” more than 800 dolphins, porpoises, and whales die every day as they get tangled in fishing nets – that’s 300,000 every year.

TURTLES
Turtles are also common victims. Sea turtles are killed by the thousands. It’s estimated that more than 20,000 sea turtles die each year after getting hooked on longlines. Six of the seven species of marine turtles are listed as "Endangered" or "Critically Endangered," and the outlook is increasingly grim. In the Pacific, leatherbacks are heading for extinction, fast, and in the Mediterranean, green turtle numbers have plummeted. Though pollution and disease contribute to this, the nets and long-lines of fishing fleets play a major role in their demise.

According to Duke University, which recently conducted a global assessment of the problem, more than 250,000 loggerhead and 60,000 leatherback turtles are snared each year by commercial longline fishing, and tens of thousands die. The authors estimated that longline fleets from 40 different countries set about 1.4 billion hooks in the studied year of 2000, the equivalent of about 3.8 million hooks each day. Again, longlines are fishing lines that can stretch for 40 miles and dangle thousands of individually baited hooks. They are set at optimal depths and times to catch tuna and swordfish, shark, and other fish, and according to the data studied, the turtles most often die – not by drowning, by some kind of injury related to hooking or entangling.

SEALS
Another byproduct of the fishing industry is the brutal death of baby seals. Because of the overfishing of cod by the Canadian fishing industry in eastern Canada –- in the Atlantic Ocean for Newfoundland’s northeast coast — the cod population declined to such a degree that the government stepped in the late 1980s and imposed severe restrictions on commercial fishing. But it was too late. Because of overfishing, the fishery collapsed, never recovered, and the ecosystem changed such that it was no longer able to support cod fish.

What does all this have to do with the seals? Scapegoating the seals for the collapse of the cod fisheries, fishermen demanded a kill. In 2003, the Canadian government bowed to pressure from the fishing industry, and ordered the massacre of hundreds of thousands of seals, declaring war on the seals in hopes that massive seal kills will bring back the cod and keep their disgruntled fishermen working.

In fact, cod is not a major food source of the harp and hood seal diet. Further, recent evidence suggests that killing seals contributes to bacterial infestation on the ocean floor which leads to hypoxia, a condition in which patches of ocean lose all the dissolved oxygen and are unable to sustain cod or fish or marine life of any kind. However, these facts seem to have been brushed aside by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans in their efforts to justify and continue the slaughter.

During the 3-year period of 2003-2005, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) allowed a kill quota of 975,000 baby and adult harp seals and 30,000 adult hood seals. When the "struck and lost" seals are included (these are the animals who’ve been hit but lost in the icy waters), the total killed exceeds one million, making this the largest marine mammal slaughter in the world.

To find as many avenues as possible to profit from the annual, government-subsidized slaughter, Canada exports sealskins (furskins/pelts and leather), seal oil, and seal meat. Unfortunately, the demand for seal pelts has sky-rocketed, especially in Europe. Though seal meat isn’t doing so well, the Canadian government is trying to find markets for the bodies of the skinned seals. The kill continues to this day. The quota for the 2007 massacre was 270,000. Visit www.protectseals.org for more information.

TSUNAMI
Finally, while we’re talking about by-products/effects (not just "by-catch"), there is another by-product of consuming aquatic animals that went under the radar screen when an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in southeast Asia destroyed lives and communities at the end of 2004. Over 200,000 human lives were lost and an uncounted number of non-human lives. Experts agree that the destruction of coral reefs and mangrove trees played a significant role in the destruction caused by the tsunami. In many countries across Asia, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, mangroves stood all along the coasts in shallow waters. They offered protection against things like tsunamis. Over the last 20-30 years, they were cleared for shrimp or prawn farms. The shrimps and prawns are sold to Europeans and other foreigners at a price that does not take into account the environmental cost. The destruction of the coasts was also due to the building of large resorts where they should never have been built.

Of course, there are efforts to rebuild the shrimp farms, and we’ll see if we learn anything from the disaster. I’m a little skeptical, considering the fact that worldwide, shrimp farming has grown at an annual average of over 18% since 1970, and is the single most valuable internationally traded seafood product worldwide, valued at an estimated $50-60 billion at the point of retail.

BEYOND BY-CATCH
The cost of our consumption of aquatic animals is extremely high - not just to the target species who were living perfectly peaceful lives before we come along and snatch them out of their homes, but also to the non-target species and entire ecosystems. And this is just one aspect of this issue. We have yet to talk about all the others, including factory-farm raising fish; the pollution in the ocean; the fishing of smaller fish to feed to the larger fish we raise to eat; the toxins, such as mercury, in the fish that we consume when we eat their bodies; the research that supports the fact that fish feel pain; the human health concerns of eating fish; or the ethical considerations of “catch and release sport fishing."

We have yet to explore the many problems with consuming salmon – for instance, the problems with farm-raised Atlantic salmon, which is probably one of the worst choices we could make: the fish are raise in cramped pens in the ocean, and their waste pollutes the surrounding water and spreads disease to wild fish. In the Pacific, escaped farm-raised salmon also compete with wild fish for food, and interfere with spawning. Furthermore, salmon are fed a diet of fish meal (tinted to give their flesh that characteristic "salmon pink" color) which further depletes the ocean food chain. Wild Washington or Oregon salmon is a poor choice, since overfishing and habitat destruction have endangered many species. And remember: the fish have to consume Omega-3 fatty acids from phytoplankton, from algae. If they don’t consume it, they don’t have it in their flesh. If they don’t get it, we don’t get it. So again, go right to the source for your nutrients.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
A recent issue of Fish and Fisheries magazine cited more than 500 research papers on fish intelligence, proving that fish are smart, that they can use tools, and that they have impressive long-term memories and sophisticated social structures. The introductory chapter said that fish are "steeped in social intelligence, pursuing Machiavellian strategies of manipulation, punishment and reconciliation … exhibiting stable cultural traditions and cooperating to inspect predators and catch food." A wonderful U.K. Guardian story explores these notions, quoting Dr. Culum Brown, a specialist in fish behaviour at Macquarie University in Sydney, and co-author of Fish Cognition and Behaviour. He says, "I spend half my life telling people fish aren’t stupid. Fish are more intelligent than they appear. The trouble is that most aquaculture treats fish as if they are little robots. They are not."

My hope is that we begin to question the criteria we use to determine the value of an animal’s life, who deserves to be spared pain, and who has a right to live free from harm, free from suffering, free from premature and unnecessary death.

My hope is that our hearts are large enough to include not only those with whom we can identify, with whom we can communicate but also those who don’t look us, those who don’t sound like us. May we be as fascinated by our differences as we are consoled by our similarities. We don’t need to travel to other planets to find interesting, exotic, different life forms. They exist right here, right now, on the earth and in the sea.

I've also seen thousands of people change their diets from one based on animals to one based on plants, and the transition they experience winds up being a lot easier than even they anticipated. Whatever you want to say about how humans eat, the fact is we're not true carnivores. We don't crave flesh the way a lion does: we have neither the strength, claws, teeth, or desire to take down our prey with our bare hands, and we wouldn't die without meat, as would a true carnivore.

The truth is whereas we don't crave the flesh of an animal, we do crave texture. We crave flavor. We crave fat. We crave salt. We also crave satisfaction and familiarity, bringing an entire emotional history to the table when we sit down to eat. When someone says "I tried to eat vegetarian, but I just craved meat," I tell them with confidence that it wasn't meat they were craving. It may have been salt, it may have been fat, it may have been calories, but it most certainly was not the flesh of an animal. Anyone who's ever lived with a true carnivore (i.e. a domestic cat) knows how a carnivore reacts when he spots his prey: teeth chatter, tail flickers, mouth waters. If this happens to you when you spot a bird in your yard or a steer grazing peacefully on the hillside, frankly, I don't want to know.

When we embrace the endless plant options available to us, we recognize a world of foods we didn't even see before. Though we may experience a transition as we let go of certain habits, we can also anticipate the excitement and joy of reshaping old traditions and creating new ones. There's nothing wrong with seeking out familiar-tasting and familiar-looking dishes that we may have enjoyed in the past, because it is the texture and familiarity we still have a right to enjoy.

This "Better Than Tuna Salad" is an example of a dish that provides familiarity and gustatory pleasure without the ethical, environmental, and health concerns associated with eating aquatic animals.

Better-than-Tuna Salad
Serves 4-6, depending on serving style: sandwiches or side dish

1 can organic garbanzo beans/chick peas, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup (or more) eggless mayonnaise (Wildwood’s Garlic Aioli, Nayonnaise, or Vegenaise are great options)
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
3 scallions (white and light green parts), finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1-2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon sea salt or to taste
Black pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Add the chick peas to a food processor or blender and grind them down into small pieces. You can even grind them down so it becomes somewhat like a thick puree. The ultimate texture is up to you. Grinding the beans is optional, but I find that it’s easier to eat it as a sandwich this way; plus, it really does resemble tuna in taste and texture when the beans are ground up. It's best if you use the "pulse" button on your food processor so you can control the ultimate texture of the beans.

2. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix well. Season with salt, pepper, and the amount of aioli/eggless mayonnaise you desire.

Serving Suggestions:

*Wonderful as a sandwich filling on a hard roll or stuffed in a pita
*Serve on crackers as an appetizer or party dish
*Serve as a side salad – great for picnics and BBQs!

Variation Suggestions:

*Of course you may also use beans made from scratch, as opposed to canned beans.
*Use cubed, steamed tempeh for a “Better Than Chicken Salad."
*Use potatoes for a tasty potato salad.
*Use mashed extra firm tofu for an “eggless egg” salad.
*The walnuts are optional, but they add a really nice texture.
*You may sprinkle some kelp flakes in as well, to really add to the “fishy” flavor.

Copyright © 2007 Compassionate Cooks, LLC – All rights reserved - More recipes, resources, and information can be found at Compassionate Cooks' website.

Incidental catch, or "by-catch," refers to unintended or unwanted animals caught by the fishing industry. It is estimated that by-catch-related mortality is causing population declines in 13 out of the 44 species of marine mammals that are suffering high death rates from human activities. Commercial fishers use a number of techniques for ensnaring animals, from setting miles of line and baited hooks (called longlines) to catch animals such as sharks, swordfish, and tuna, to using large nets to catch schools of fish. These large nets are towed underwater by what are called trawlers. A trawler is a fishing vessel designed for the purpose of operating a trawl, a type of fishing net that is dragged along the bottom of the sea (or sometimes just above the bottom at a specified depth).

UNEARTHING THE OCEAN FLOOR
A single pass of a trawl removes up to 20% of the seafloor fauna and flora - legally. And the fisheries with the highest levels of by-catch are shrimp fisheries: 80%-90% of a catch may consist of marine species other than the shrimp being targeted. 80%-90% of the animals caught in these nets that are targeting shrimp and prawns are actually non-target animals – they’re by-catch.

Shrimp are bottom-dwellers, which is why trawling nets are used to – remove them from the ocean. Since even jumbo shrimp are really small, the nets used to catch the shrimp are very fine, which means these nets scoop up all the animals – all the life – found on the ocean’s floor. According to a 2003 U.S. News and World Report article on fishing and its detrimental affects on the oceans of the world, every pound of shrimp that’s caught results in the killing of ten pounds of other marine life. According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, in the Gulf of Thailand it can be 14 pounds of by-catch per pound of shrimp.

Now, a lot of the dead by-catch is made up of tiny animals that people don’t have emotional attachments to; that is, they may not be as cute as baby seals or dolphins, but they contribute to the oceans’ biodiversity and they have a right to be there – to live.

The other thing to consider is that the dredging along the ocean floor also breaks up coral and the habitats of bottom-dwellers. And because the same areas are dredged again and again, it’s not like these habitats and inhabitants have time to recover before being destroyed again. Fish populations, communities, and ecosystems are being destroyed so humans can eat shrimp cocktail.

The animals termed as by-catch are often discarded back into the ocean already dead or dying. Many are half-alive and die slow, unnecessary deaths. Trawl nets in general, and shrimp trawls in particular where the discard may be 90% of the catch, have been identified as sources of mortality for many species of concern, including endangered animals and cetaceans, such as whales, dolphins and porpoises. Sea turtles, already endangered, have been killed by the thousands in shrimp trawl nets.

It's hard to get exact number, but another way to put this is that anywhere between 6.8 million and 27 million tons of fish could be being discarded each year. We may be looking at the one fish on our plate or the 5 shrimp in our seafood salad, but countless numbers of animals were dredged up and killed for the individuals we see on our own plates.

CETACEANS (WHALES, DOLPHINS, PORPOISES)
I've been focusing primarily about the by-catch caused by trawling nets and shrimp nets, but there are other commercial fishing methods that also result in by-catch. Nets tend to kill cetaceans (dolphins, porpoises and whales), and longline fishing kills birds, for instance. As for the first group, an estimated 300,000 cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) die as by-catch each year, because they are unable to escape when caught in nets. We may not think cod fish are particularly cute, but most people get pretty emotional about whales, dolphins, and porpoises. If we don’t consider the cod, perhaps we can consider the animals for whom we do have sympathy.

SHARKS - THE TRUE VICTIMS IN THE HUMAN-FISH RELATIONSHIP
In the case of the shark by-catch in the tuna industry, "data for Pacific longline tuna fisheries are limited, but available data indicate that shark catches are often as high as tuna catches and more than 50 species of sharks and fish are captured as by-catch in West Pacific tuna longline fisheries." (Incidentally, in defense of sharks, it has been estimated that a staggering 100 million sharks are caught every year, have their dorsal fins cut off - to serve in soup, and are thrown back into the ocean to die a slow death.

SEABIRDS - MANY ON THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION
As I mentioned earlier, seabirds are also inevitable "by-catch" victims, as they dive for the bait planted on long fishing lines, swallow the bait along with the hook, and are pulled under the water where they drown. Around 100,000 albatrosses are killed by longline fisheries every year, particularly where tuna are fished, and because of this, many species are facing extinction. This is very prevalent in the waters off Chile, where sea bass is aggressively hunted by boats towing fifty-mile longlines.

According to the Pew Oceans Commission, Patagonian toothfish long-liners killed around 265,000 seabirds between 1996 and 1999; in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where the total breeding population of the black-footed albatross is 120,000 birds, annual fishing-related mortalities of 1,000 and 2,000 birds are significant; and longline fisheries in the U.S., including the Pacific cod fishery kills some 9,400 to 20,200 seabirds every year.

In subsequent posts, I'll address the dolphins, sea turtles, seals, and other marine mammals who are also written off as "collateral damage." Look forward to more on the un-sustainability of farm-raising fish, on the evidence of fish intelligence, and much more related to our pursuit of gustatory pleasure. Check out my previous post for the reasons to obtain Omega-3 fatty acids from plant sources rather than fish (hint: the fish obtain these fats from plant sources, too!)

Humans have no nutritional requirement for the flesh or secretions of other animals. Like the non-human animals we eat, we can go straight to the source - to the plants - for all the nutrients we need to survive and thrive.

By Timothy Fitzgerald, Environmental Defense scientist

Seafood lovers who want safe and eco-friendly fish might need help sorting through the mixed messages out there. The issue is complex – but here's how to sort through it why to choose healthy, sustainably caught or farmed fish.

Eating even modest amounts of fish helps protect against heart disease and is essential to the developing brains of fetuses and young children. The federal government and the American Heart Association both recommend two servings of seafood a week to reduce the risk of heart disease and death from heart attacks. The greatest cardiovascular benefits come from eating fish high in long chain omega-3 fatty acids, such as small oily species like herring, and mackerel, and larger predatory fish like salmon and some tuna.

Fish are disappearing from the oceans

Sadly, even as the health benefits of eating fish are becoming clearer, the ocean's ability to provide plentiful seafood is diminishing.

Since the 1950s, when industrial fishing began in earnest, large fish have mostly disappeared from the oceans, plummeting by an astonishing 90 percent according to a 2003 analysis. If we continue current fishing practices, most fisheries will be exhausted by mid-century, a recent report concluded. Many of America's favorite seafood – Atlantic cod, sea scallops, flounder, grouper, snapper and more – are already overfished.

At the same time, health-conscious consumers worry about fish with toxins such as mercury, dioxins or PCBs. To avoid too much mercury, children and women of child-bearing age should be careful about how much large fish they eat, such as swordfish and shark. Some farmed Atlantic salmon is also high in cancer-causing toxins like dioxins and PCBs.

(More on the health benefits of eating fish and sustainable fisheries [PDF])

So how can these complex tips be simpler?

Environmental Defense's Seafood Selector provides a list of best and worst choices for the ocean. It highlights fish that are heart-healthy (high in omega-3s) and those that are either high or low in contaminants. It includes advice on how many times it is safe to eat a particular fish each month.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts where I'll focus on the environmental and health aspects of specific seafood choices.