The species that I should avoid: Eels
I used to eat eels in summer since Japan has a tradition to eat it to gain energy for severe summer. As the website shows, all listed methods to harvest eels haven’t been certified by ocean wise. Especially, European eel and Japanese eel are listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.
For this reason, basically, almost all eels are produced by farming. The reason why ocean wise hasn’t certified farming is lack of availability in data. So, few records about how many species of eels being farmed, production volume and trade route are monitored. In addition, there is a controversy in the way of farming. Farming system requires moderate amount of fish to feed eels and overpopulated condition often causes outbreaks of diseases. Diseases can affect to wild life species due to the open nature of the farms.
The species that I should consume: Pink salmon
This website shows 7options out of 10 are certified by ocean wise. This fish can be harvested near Vancouver and the area is in the 7option. Instead of consuming Tuna which is significantly decreased its number by overfishing, we can have pink salmon as one of substitution.
How sustainable aquaculture is?
The video shows us that salmon aquaculture can be quite deadly to the environment. Here in BC, wild salmon is significant nutrient source for wildlife, and its reduction directly affect to the animal’s life in the coast.
Since we only consume fish which we raise, to harvest fish by farming them seems friendly to the environment and sustainable, however, there are serious impacts on the environment. The system requires some amount of fish to feed product fish. In addition, as the video reveals, farms are hot bed of diseases since fish are in concentrated and dirty condition.
The video implies the outbreaks of diseases can affect to wild salmon and that should be the reason for decrease the number of wild salmon. The video shows some convincing evidence, such as, the fact salmon reduction began at the year farms opened and a deadly virus was detected from both firm salmon and wild salmon. Therefore, if we continue salmon faming in open nature environment, we damage wild salmon and wildlife that nutrient source is consisted by salmon.
For this reason, conventional way of farming salmon isn’t very sustainable.