A small handful of occupations seem to captivate the minds of young children - medicine, space, and, of course, marine biology. I was one of the marine biology kids, dreaming of studying the Great Barrier Reef in Australia along with my childhood friend Katie Shapley. I still fondly remember one of my favorite books growing up, a story of a hermit crab called Pagoo who started out as a tiny plankton and survived the many perils of ocean life to a reclusive adult with a handsome shell. As I grew up, I found the exactitude of mathematics, and later the social relevance of economics, more suitable to my intellectual disposition, but I never lost my early fascination with the ocean.
My interest in the sea has been rekindled by a confluence of factors lately. A few years ago, I discovered the Blue Planet, a DVD set produced by beloved naturalist David Attenborough for the BBC. The series contains spectacular footage of ocean life, including vast silvery shoals of sardines, glinting as they’re snapped up by dolphins, killer whales on the hunt, and my favorites, the otherworldy denizens of the abyss.
The proliferation of excellent podcasts on the web has also fed my curiosity. My good friend Ari Daniel Shapiro, who recently graduated from oceanography at MIT, is now an independent radio producer and host of an awesome podcast on ocean-related research called Ocean Gazing, which I’ve been listening to intently. Fascinated by another podcast I heard from ocean luminary Sylvia Earle, I eagerly snapped up the new National Geographic Atlas of the Oceans from the campus library. A massive and unwieldy tome, it contains a wealth of cutting-edge science and eye-popping images of the ocean, and reading it before bed in the last few weeks has brought back memories reading encyclopedias as a kid.
With all the reading I’ve been doing, perhaps the biggest thing that has changed is my view of seafood. Although I’ve been quasi-vegetarian for nearly fifteen years now, a big fraction of that time I’ve felt fine about indulging in the occasional seafood meal. One thing that has always struck me as funny about the vegetarian movement is the inconsistency of the distinction between animal flesh and foods derived from animals, namely milk and eggs. Although most vegetarians consider seafood verboten, eggs and dairy are staples of the standard (ovo-lacto-)vegetarian diet as most people understand it. But why the distinction? It doesn’t seem obvious that chickens and dairy cows suffer any less than fish or shellfish caught by fishing lines. Furthermore, the negative impact of large-scale farming on the environment has been well-documented. In fact, many farm animals living in industrial farms seem to suffer more cruelty and contribute even more to environmental degradation than wild seafood. I don't know whether seafood or dairy exacts a hire price on animals or the environment, but I think that consciencious omnivores should push for greater understanding of the true impacts of our food instead of sticking with traditional categories.
In any case, although I have largely avoided milk and egg products, until recently I’ve been more accepting of eating seafood because of my perception that that fish suffered less pain than livestock and that livestock practices were particularly cruel and polluting. But that view has gradually changed over the years. First of all, the characterization of sea life as cold and unfeeling is clearly incorrect, especially for two particular species I used to enjoy: squid and octopus. Although much is still unknown about the intellectual capacities of these mollusks, what is clear is that they are far from the mindless blobs that we typically think of invertebrates as. Scientists estimate that octopuses might be more intelligent than dogs, and recent reports of octopuses who escape from their cages and taunt their caretakers hint at a mischievous intellect beneath those alien-looking eyes. When I think about a dish of squid or octopus, I no longer imagine the briny sweetness and delicate texture of their flesh, but picture sensitive, intelligent creatures jetting about in the twilight depths, whose mysteries we have barely begun to fathom.
The second reason I’m much more hesitant about purchasing seafood is that fishing is vastly under-regulated, with destructive and inhumane practices still rampant (see this damning report by the Economist). The seas still represent the most devastating tragedy of the commons on the planet, and it breaks my heart to learn of how little respect for life is reflected in our fishing practices. Trawlers bulldoze whole ecosystems before they are even described by science. Many common food fishes can live for decades – orange roughy up to a century or more, and as this Nature paper documents, stocks of large predatory fish have already declined 90% relative to pre-industrial levels. We have but the faintest idea of what kind of awareness and memories that these fish have, yet we thoughtlessly plunder them – along with thousands of tons of “bycatch”, which are dumped back dead into the ocean or used for low-grade fish meal or fertilizer. In general, I try not to be a bleeding heart when it comes to animal rights, but something about our callousness toward sea creatures truly stokes my ire. Perhaps humans, after all, are the most cold-blooded creatures to roam the sea.
Ranting aside, sustainable fishing does exist, but it’s incredibly hard to find trustworthy indicators of such practices when making purchases. The Monterey Bay Aquarium produces an excellent guide to sustainable seafood, but even as a knowledgeable consumer who has spent quite a bit of time doing research and examining labels, I find it nearly impossible to find seafood I can feel good about purchasing. Although I’ve been encouraged by the trend toward consumer awareness of food systems and practices, it seems that labeling and regulation of seafood has fallen far behind that of landfood, and the clean image of seafood among conscientious consumers seems to make it a particularly worrisome blind spot.
References:
The Blue Planet
Economist survey of the oceanshttp://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12798458
The National Geographic Atlas of the Ocean
http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-Illustrated-Atlas-National-Geographic/dp/1426203195/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243289434&sr=8-1
“Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities”, Ransom A. Myers and Boris Worm, Nature, May 15th 2003
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v423/n6937/full/nature01610.html
“Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services”, Boris Worm and others, Science, November 3rd 2006
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5800/787
Ari Daniel Shapiro
http://aridanielshapiro.wordpress.com/
Pagoo
http://www.amazon.com/Pagoo-Holling-C/dp/0395539641
Interview with Sylvia Earle on On Point
http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/02/sylvia-earles-life-aquatic
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