A     AQUARIUM ISSUES NATIONAL SEAFOOD GUIDE

Consumers nationwide now have a tool to help them protect ocean wildlife every time they order seafood at restaurants and seafood markets: a national pocket guide to sustainable seafood created by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The national guide features 60 of the most popular seafood species found on menus and in markets across the United States, ranked in “Best Choices,”  “Caution” and “Avoid” categories by the aquarium’s Seafood Watch research team.

Topping the “Best Choices” list are items including farmed catfish and farmed caviar, stone crab, wild-caught Alaska salmon, tilapia and Pacific halibut. The “Avoid” list includes Atlantic and Icelandic cod, Chilean sea bass, orange roughly, swordfish, imported shrimp, red snapper and shark.

The guide, modeled on the aquarium’s West Coast pocket guide first issued in 1999, will reach 2 million people by Earth Day 2004, including 770,000 cards distributed in the January issue of Sierra magazine, and another 600,000 in the March/April issue of National Wildlife magazine. The cards are also available through partner organizations across the country (see attached list), and on the aquarium’s web site, www.montereybayaquarium.org.

More than 8,000 national pocket guides were downloaded in December – the first month they were available. That month, the Seafood Watch pocket guide was singled out by the New York Times Magazine in its “Year in Ideas” issue as one of the notable innovations of 2003.

“Fisheries conservation is among today’s most important marine conservation issues,” said aquarium Executive Director Julie Packard. “It’s an environmental problem whose solution is in people’s hands every time they buy seafood. Through Seafood Watch, we want people to have the information they need to make wise choices when they shop.”

“Fish are the only wildlife on Earth still actively hunted as a major food source,” noted Jennifer Dianto, who heads the aquarium’s Seafood Watch program.

Increased consumer demand for seafood and the growth of destructive fishing practices have had a profound effect on the health of the oceans. Today, 11 of the world’s 15 most important fishing areas – and nearly 70 percent of the world’s fisheries – are either fully fished or overfished. Perhaps 30 million tons of fish, sharks and seabirds die each year as “wasted catch” – animals caught accidentally and discarded, dead or dying.

Fish farming, or aquaculture, has its own set of problems, including pollution, spread of disease to wild populations and the destructive conversion of coastal wetlands into commercial fish farms.

The national guide reflects the best information available on the status of the featured fisheries and farm-raised species, as gleaned from government fisheries management agencies, the academic research community, and the fishing and aquaculture industries. An expert panel of scientific advisors reviews the aquarium’s methodology for evaluating seafood. Full reports on each seafood species, all reviewed by external experts, are available on the aquarium’s web site, and on the Seafood Information Center, at www.seafoodinfo.org. The Seafood Information Center, created by Seafood Watch, serves as an online clearinghouse for resource managers, scientists, environmental groups and fishing organizations that want access to the background documents supporting each recommendation.

“Information about fisheries and aquaculture is constantly evolving,” Dianto said, “and therefore, recommendations on Seafood Watch pocket guides are updated twice a year.”

With support from aquarium donors and the aid of a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, regional guides for Hawaii, the Southeast/Gulf Coast, the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes will be released in 2004, she said.

Another outgrowth of Seafood Watch is the aquarium’s annual Cooking for Solutions celebration, which brings renowned chefs to Monterey for a series of public events celebrating sustainable seafood, organic cuisine, and sustainable/organic wines. Inaugurated in 2002, it has attracted chefs including Alice Waters, Diana Kennedy, Rick Bayless, John Ash, Martin Yan and others for tasting galas, cooking demonstrations and farm tours – all to demonstrate that fine dining can contribute to healthy soil and oceans. Cooking for Solutions 2004 will honor Jacques Pépin on May 21-22.

Throughout the year, the aquarium itself serves only seafood on the “Best Choices” and “Caution” lists to visitors and exhibit animals, and always from sustainable sources.

Through the Seafood Choices Alliance, www.seafoodchoices.org and The Ocean Project the aquarium collaborates with environmental organizations, zoos, aquariums and science centers, to raise consumer awareness about sustainable seafood.