The Peak

The raw deal

By Matt Lee, Tracy Duong

In this great big city on the West Coast, people love their sushi.

There’s no denying it: when it comes to local cuisine in Vancouver, Japanese restaurants are littered across the city scene like wannabe hipsters in an American Apparel store. After all, Vancouverites enjoy all things multicultural.

But hold onto your chopsticks, folks. What you don’t know is that the piece of tuna sashimi you’ve been snacking on is not so good for the ocean, or anything living in it for that matter.

In 2003, Dr. Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University, conducted a four-year study of the seafood industry. In the study, the researchers came to the conclusion that due to a combination of overfishing and pollution, by the year 2048, the world could see a complete collapse of the seafood industry, an industry which generates $80 billion a year.

Now, we’re all for protecting our oceans and eliminating global warming — but often enough, we only support it if doing so would be of little effort on our end. And this means very little effort — we’re busy people with term papers to write and the next issue of Vice to search for. Make no mistake, it would take a great deal of negotiation for us to give up our $1.99 sashimi for the sake of the ocean. 

This fish didn’t come from Pepperidge Farm...

When you go to a restaurant serving sushi, your server will most likely not know where, or even what type of salmon it is. Sometimes, the manager of the restaurant doesn’t even know.

So here’s a pickle: why do you continue to stuff raw fish in your mouth, chopsticks in hand? There’s a very real possibility your favourite Japanese restaurant is using unsustainably caught farmed fish.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen and heard a lot of discussion about the possible side effects of fish farming and aquaculture. In case you’re not aware of the fish farming fuss, let’s give you a quick crash course.

Farmed fish are kept in tight groups in nets with little room to move. These huge nets of fish are kept in one spot, floating in the ocean until they’ve gained weight quick enough to be “caught.” The individual fish don’t move much, and so they eat and produce large amounts of waste in the ocean below, polluting the ecosystem. In addition, there’s a high probability that these farmed fish harbour sea lice, which are detrimental to the ocean; sea lice can jump onto other wild fish in proximity and infect and kill these fish, ultimately afflicting the entire ecosystem.

Perhaps most discomforting for sushi consumers is the type of food fed to the enormous farmed population of salmon. It’s instilled with pesticides trying to offset the amount of sea lice.

The harsh reality for many sushi consumers is that the salmon sashimi they ordered may actually be pesticide sashimi.

Fish farmers also have their products dyed to make it a certain shade of pink that is more pleasing for the buyer. At the beginning of each salmon season, farmers fan out a colour palette of pinks. They pick a certain shade that is appropriate for that year and apply it to the food accordingly.

To add, those white lines thickly decorating your sashimi is a result of unnecessary processed fat resulting from the fish being held in such tight quarters, with little room to swim. It’s an alarming contrast when compared to the likes of wild fish, which are free of excess fat and hold their natural colour.

But is there a solution to all these problems? Salmon farm campaign coordinator Will Soltau from the Living Oceans Society believes it’s entirely possible. “I’m optimistic about salmon farming and other potential forms of aquaculture in BC,” he answered. “Once the technology of the engineering is completed and construction begins, it’s a two-year pilot project and we could see some great results sometime in 2012.”

Advocates agree that one of the best solutions against sea lice and pollution of the ocean lies in simply seperating farmed fish from wild fish. This is a solution that Raincoast Research Society suggests in an appeal to the United Nations. What fish farmers have against this, however, is the high cost this would incur. Housing salmon in nets in the natural ocean is far cheaper than creating their own on-land habitat for these fish, as pointed out by biology undergraduate Brittany Swanson, who has studied salmon.

The jury’s still out on the benefits and setbacks of aquaculture, but unfortunately fish farming is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the seafood industry’s problems. 

The overfishing of our seafood

Famed scientist David Suzuki has often been an advocate of protecting our oceans’ most endangered species. Equally, his daughter Sarika, an expert on ocean sustainability and fisheries, weighed in on the issue of overfishing.

“The problem is that seafood is still too cheap; we can go to any restaurant and order all you can eat for cheap,” she said. “Seafood should not be that cheap. Until our stocks are overfished, we’re not going to know.”

As a seafood lover herself, Sarika’s given up a lot in her diet for the sake of ocean sustainability. Among the list of endangered and farmed fish found in our local sushi restaurants are: tiger prawns, bluefin and yellowfin tuna, farmed salmon, Chilean sea bass, King Crab, Atlantic cod, and Atlantic salmon.

To make your own diet more ocean-friendly, make the effort to enjoy only locally and sustainably-caught seafood. This includes bottomfeeders like oysters, sea urchins (impress your friends), fresh sardines, dungeness crab, scallops, and mussels, to mention a few.

Unfortunately, sushi — espcially tuna dishes — is quickly becoming an expensive delicacy, as Suzuki stated that many Japanese fishermen are overfishing for the rare bluefin tuna on purpose, so that when these fish become extinct, the price becomes much higher. She expressed the need for consumers to attempt to avoid consuming tuna altogether.

Working towards a sustainable seafood industry

Alright, so now you might be sold on the alarming state of seafood. The next thing you might want to know is how we can begin to make a difference.

The first step is to educate ourselves. Sustainable seafood programs such as SeaChoice are constantly attempting to provide consumers with ways to be more seafood-friendly. A handy guide known as the Sustainable Sushi Guide provides a list of fish which are the best and worst choices when it comes to sustainability — since launching in 2006, over 250,000 copies have been circulated across Canada.

Another way to make a difference is to start asking your local seafood restaurants and retailers where their products are coming from. Unfortunately, many consumers are unaware of what type of salmon they’re eating and whether or not they’re eating wild and sustainably caught or farmed fish.

One of the best programs in Vancouver striving towards sustainable seafood is located at the Vancouver Aquarium, where the Ocean Wise program works with local restaurants.

Mike McDermid, the Ocean Wise program manager, offered up his take on why it’s important for consumers to take action when it comes to ocean and seafood sustainability: “As far as people are concerned, they want to be part of the solution and not the problem,” McDermid explained. “Having these consumer-empowerment programs like Ocean Wise are very effective and I think act a lot quicker then government or policy change. Consumer demand drives change.”

What Ocean Wise does is audit and assess the seafood options of these restaurants to help identify the alternatives for the items which are unsustainable. The program highlights the changes with their logo to demonstrate the corresponding restaurant is making the effort to change. Since 2005, Ocean Wise has accumulated over 350 partners, and has recently gone national.

Some of the restaurants which have made the commitment to sustainable seafood in downtown Vancouver include: Zen Japanese Restaurant, Blue Water Cafe, Miku, and the Sushi Bento Express located on Robson. Some of these restaurants have made the move from very unsustainable tiger prawns to local B.C. spot prawns, which, as McDermid explained, are a far more sustainable — and delicious — option. 

No one is asking you to give up all of your seafood eating: it’s virtually impossible to do. But it’s pretty evident that consumers hold great power in the choices available in their local grocery store and restaurant — when you become mindful of the choices you make in terms of seafood consumption and apply it to your purchasing, you can help make a difference. What sells and doesn’t sell is noted by stores and suppliers alike, and if consumers demand change, local retailers and government will have no choice but to listen.

You can be the tipping point for change in our oceans — otherwise, according to Dr. Boris Worm, your sashimi could be just a story you tell to your children. ●