Let me start by saying I’ve been vegan for just over a year so I might come across a little biassed in this article, although I will try to be balanced. I should also say that the point of this article is not to focus on the ethics of eating a living being rather it’s about the environmental impact of eating fish, the impact of fishing on ‘protected species’ and the health implications of eating seafood from polluted oceans, lakes and rivers. Bearing those points in mind should you give up fish and seafood?
8 Reasons To Give Up Fish
1. Ocean Plastic
You’d have to have been living under a rock to not be aware that our oceans are now filled with plastic and other rubbish. We’ve all seen images of plastic bags floating in the sea. They look like jellyfish to many sea creatures, like turtles, and so they are often mistaken for food. The oceans are also polluted with many other non-biodegradable items which are mistaken for food by fish, marine birds and all other sea-life. If fish eat the plastic, you might very well end up eating it too.
“the vast majority of ocean pollution — a whopping 80 percent — comes from the land. It’s often caused by something called nonpoint source pollution, which occurs when the rain or melting snow picks up garbage on the ground, carrying the runoff into waterways.” – Green Matters
You can help to prevent so much rubbish from entering our waterways by buying less, properly disposing of your litter, going litter picking or demanding that your local council spends more time and money on keeping Britain tidy!
2. Raw Sewage
This one is really disturbing. Raw sewage is often released into rivers and the ocean after heavy rain or storms. Sewage is supposed to be treated before being discharged but when there has been a lot of rain or surface water, sewage plants have stormwater overflows. People and property are protected from the sewage but marine life isn’t. You’d be daft to enter any river or the sea after bad weather.
“If there is too much (rain) in a short amount of time, then the facilities containing the sewage have to release some of the pollution into the ocean through pipes, to prevent it from coming up into streets and homes across the country.
However, this then means that the sea around the country could be unsafe to swim in.” – The Sun
Follow Surfers Against Sewage and get their #saferseasapp to be kept up to date with which beaches are safe to visit, especially after heavy rainfall.
Eating shellfish is not recommended…
“A shellfish farm business has been ‘ruined’ and staff made redundant after raw sewage was discharged into the River Yealm.” the “water quality standards of the Yealm do not meet the requirements for shellfish to be safe for human consumption”. – Plymouth Herald
3. Super Trawlers
I think just the titles of the articles I’ve linked to below give a good enough reason why super trawlers are bad. It’s often difficult to know where our fish comes from, especially in the case of tinned fish. Buying seafood means we create demand and super trawlers provide a way to fulfil this demand, by supplying huge quantities of seafood.
So what makes super trawlers so bad? “Super trawlers are massive fishing boats that haphazardly capture, freeze and store thousands of tonnes of fish and other sea life. They are notorious for wiping out fish stocks and contributing to large scale extermination of dolphins, seahorses, whales, and turtles.”
- “Supertrawlers ‘making a mockery’ of UK’s protected seas” – The Guardian
- “Super trawlers: the boats you didn’t know are ruining our seas” – Medium
- “Calls for ‘destructive’ super trawlers to be banned from fishing off Devon and Cornwall” – ITV
- “5 reasons you should be super worried about super trawlers” – Animals Australia
4. Overfishing
Super trawlers contribute to over fishing but why is overfishing bad? In short…
Fish stocks are running out.
Communities that rely on fish as food will struggle to feed themselves.
Fishermen will lose their source of income.
Many ‘protected species’ are killed as bycatch, leading to the unnecessary loss of so much more sea life.
“Fishing is one of the most significant drivers of declines in ocean wildlife populations. Catching fish is not inherently bad for the ocean, except for when vessels catch fish faster than stocks can replenish, something called overfishing.
Overfishing is closely tied to bycatch – the capture of unwanted sea life while fishing for a different species. This, too, is a serious marine threat that causes the needless loss of billions of fish, along with hundreds of thousands of sea turtles and cetaceans.
The damage done by overfishing goes beyond the marine environment. Billions of people rely on fish for protein, and fishing is the principal livelihood for millions of people around the world.” – WWF
5. Mercury Levels in Fish
Eating seafood, especially certain types of seafood, increases your risk of mercury poisoning. Some fish contain high levels of mercury which can be very detrimental to your health. Exposure to mercury has been linked to numerous health problems including memory problems, a decrease in motor skills, increased risk of heart attack, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, depression and anxiety.
“The amount of mercury in fish and other seafood depends on the species and the levels of pollution in its environment. Overall, larger and longer-lived fish tend to contain the most mercury. These include shark, swordfish, fresh tuna, marlin, king mackerel, tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico, and northern pike. Larger fish tend to eat many smaller fish, which contain small amounts of mercury. As it’s not easily excreted from their bodies, levels accumulate over time. This process is known as bioaccumulation.” Healthline
“Mercury itself is a naturally occurring element that is present throughout the environment and in plants and animals. But human industrial activity (such as coal-fired electricity generation, smelting and the incineration of waste) ratchets up the amount of airborne mercury which eventually finds its way into lakes, rivers and the ocean, where it is gobbled up by unsuspecting fish and other marine life.” – Scientific American
6. Dolphin Friendly Tuna
We’ve all seen the happy dolphin logo on a tin of tuna and consoled ourselves that at least dolphins were being protected from becoming bycatch of the tuna industry. But things are rarely that simple. Most of the tuna we buy in the UK was never really a threat to dolphins anyway…
“dolphin safe eco-labels in the UK may satisfy consumer anxiety regarding dolphins but do nothing to improve fishing practices or address broader conservation concerns. Almost all canned tuna sold in the UK is skipjack tuna, which does not associate with dolphins in the same manner found in eastern Pacific yellowfin tuna fisheries.” The Conversation
Dolphins might be ‘safe’ from tuna fishing, but what about all the other species that become bycatch? (Sharks, turtles and even albatross!) And what about tuna itself whose population is dwindling?
“Every chunk of tuna comes from a wild fish. Because tuna are wide-ranging, fast-moving ocean fish, fisheries have developed awesome techniques for catching them. Fleets use vast purse-seine nets to scoop them out of the sea, while Japanese vessels, in particular, trail lines of baited hooks many miles long.
Such methods are undiscriminating. The bycatch – that is, the non-target species – routinely includes sharks, turtles and albatrosses. The ratio is about four sharks caught for every tuna. According to the Shark Trust, longlines operating off New Zealand have snapped up 450,000 blue sharks in 10 years.” – The Independent
Tuna are extremely vulnerable to overfishing. It can take 10 years for them to be able to breed. With tuna becoming ever more popular, especially as many people think it’s a ‘good’ sustainable fish to eat, overfishing of bluefin tuna in particular is a big problem.
7. Abandoned Fishing Gear
The fishing industry are terrible polluters. Nets and other fishing gear is regularly just dumped overboard. This is deadly to so much marine life…
“Up to one million tonnes of fishing gear is left in the ocean each year, creating “deadly” debris for marine mammals, seabirds and sea turtles, conservationists have warned.
The WWF has said “ghost gear” of lost, abandoned or broken nets, lines and ropes makes up at least 10 per cent of marine litter and is the most likely type of plastic debris to prove fatal to marine wildlife.” – The Independent
“Photographs of an Atlantic grey seal at a breeding site with fishing debris stuck around her neck have prompted warnings from conservationists of the dangers of ocean waste.” – The Independent
8. Fish Farms
It might seem that fish farms are the sustainable solution to overfishing. By farming fish we surely have less need to plunder the oceans? However by purchasing farmed fish we’re still showing there’s a demand for it and if those farms can’t fulfil the demand then fishing fleets and super trawlers will supply the rest. Fish farms also have their own issues…
The problem with salmon farms
“The fish farming companies are complicit in the headlong rush towards the sixth mass extinction. The profligate use of toxic chemicals; the spread of sea lice to wild fish stocks; and the decimating of indigenous fishing industries in their plundering of wild fish to make salmon farm feeds are all playing a part in the destruction of our environment and ecosystems.”
“Fish Welfare on Scotland’s Salmon Farms exposed a number of animal welfare breaches on these farms, including mass mortality, sea lice infestations, disease and the shooting of seals.”
“There are better ways of managing this polluting industry without the chemicals, with more jobs and bigger benefits to the Scottish economy. The first thing people can do to help is to stop eating farmed salmon.”
– all of the above quotes about Scottish salmon farms are from Sum of Us
Sustainable Fish
If fish is part of your diet then you should always look for MSC certified fish. MSC stands for Marine Stewardship Council. Their definition of sustainable fishing “means leaving enough fish in the ocean, respecting habitats and ensuring people who depend on fishing can maintain their livelihoods.”
Look for the Blue MSC label when buying fish and ask restaurants, bars and fish and chip shops whether the fish they sell is MSC certified. There are more than 40,000 MSC certified sustainable fish and seafood products on sale around the world. 10 Reasons To Choose The Blue Fish Label
However, it’s well worth reading this article “Is MSC Certified Fish Really Sustainable?” for some really interesting arguments against MSC certification and potential ethical issues. One of which is that although they’re a non-profit they charge companies for the certification. As the article says; “This immediately puts them in an ethically murky/conflict of interest territory, as it means it is in their financial interest to get larger businesses certified, in order to bring more money in.”
Should You Give Up Fish?
By eating seafood of any kind you are supporting an industry that is decimating our oceans and that is causing hunger and poverty in other parts of the world. Even if you care little for dolphins, whales or turtles you could be causing yourself and your family serious health problems by eating something that contains plastic and potentially dangerous levels of mercury.
Reducing the amount of seafood you eat is certainly something you should consider. At the very least make sure you always buy fish that is sustainably sourced. Personally I think farmed salmon should be avoided at all costs, unless you’re happy with the amount of devastation these salmon farms cause to their local areas and to wild salmon.
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