photo credit A. Orlov & FishBase
I smell something fishy...and it's not the fish.
Orange roughy is a conservation-dependant species. That means that unless we're very careful about how many we catch, it's going to go extinct. The orange roughy fishery off South Island, New Zealand closed 10 years ago due to dwindling stocks. Now it is to be opened again.
If you were to walk into your local Whole Foods Market or check out the earlier sustainable seafoods post - or even just Google it, really - you would find that orange roughy is one of the worst choices you could make when purchasing seafood. This ugly little pink fish has unfortunately been found to taste good (I assume, I've never had it as far as I know), and now it's ridiculously overfished to the point where it could be wiped out completely. I still find it shocking that somehow it's okay to eat endangered species from the ocean. You don't go to your local supermarket and pick up tiger steaks, do you?
Anyway. Have the orange roughy stocks really come back enough to re-open fishing? Probably not. And even so, stocks are still in decline in other areas not so far away.
"The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand says evidence supporting the re-opening is unsound. Spokesperson Kirstie Knowles says it is based on an eight-fold increase in the fish stocks there, which is impossible."
Are we really ready for this?
Full article here (Radio New Zealand News)
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