Making sustainable seafood choices

Kerry MacKay navigates the often confusing moral maze of trying to eat fish and crustaceans from environmentally sound sources...

Hands up if seafood featured in your Christmas or New Year feasting? Seared scallops, smoked salmon, mussels in wine, prawn cocktail, lobster or crab… With more of us turning away from the traditional roast turkey on Christmas day, seafood is becoming a more commonplace cuisine for many seasonal feasts. 

I imagine most of you put your hand up to enjoying some seafood over the holidays. Now, keep your hand up if you know where your seafood came from and if it was sustainably caught. Not so many hands up now I’ll bet!

In fact, it is recommended you eat two portions of seafood per week for a healthy balanced diet, year-round. Back in March I mentioned the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) have a Good Fish Guide where you can check how sustainable different types of fish are to eat. It’s well worth using to help you choose your source of fishy food. 

For example, salmon is a popular choice for a festive meal or snack, be that a juicy fillet or smoked slices. Wild-caught Pacific salmon (encompassing chum salmon, pink salmon and red salmon) is a Good Fish Guide Best Choice if certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Whereas Atlantic salmon should be avoided as they are struggling in the wild and numbers are dangerously low.  

Most Atlantic salmon on the market is farmed. However, there are environmental concerns relating to the farming of salmon. Check labels for how and where it was produced and look out for eco-labels. The Good Fish Guide ‘Best Choices’ are organic or Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certified Atlantic salmon. 

Shopping local is also a great idea. Support your local oyster or mussel farmers and creel fishermen. Of course, other fishing methods are available too, but do try to avoid anything caught by dredging. Seafloor dredging is devastating to many habitats. 

You could even catch your own dinner. As divers, we’re privileged to see much of our native seafood living free in the wild. As long as you are responsible in your methods, this is one of the most sustainable ways to get your seafood. 

Only take what you need for yourself. Don’t go crazy filling bags and bags just because you know a good scallop site or a crab hotspot. Hand-diving for scallops is a very low-impact fishing method, with no unwanted bycatch of other animals and very little impact on habitats. 

King scallops should be at least 10cm wide before you harvest them. This is to allow them to breed at least once before you eat them. I recently learned that you can also eat Queen Scallops, but unless you are collecting these yourself, farmed King scallops or blue mussels are the more ocean-friendly shellfish choices. 

Hand-diving for scallops is a very low-impact fishing method

Sadly, most chippie and restaurant staff don’t know where the fish was sourced from. That shouldn’t stop us from asking so retailers get the message that customers want to choose sustainable food. The MCS Good Fish Guide has a section, especially for businesses, so it’s well worth referring any food businesses in your area to this useful resource.

You can have the Good Fish Guide on your phone to check whenever you want. Simply go to goodfishguide.org and save the browser page as a shortcut to your phone home screen (MCS have an online guide for this if you’re struggling). There used to be a special App available through the app stores but that is no longer being updated.  

I hope that whatever fishy delights you tuck into, you enjoy them guilt-free by making sustainable choices so we can continue to enjoy seeing our seas full of life. 

Article ‘Sustainable sea-sonal seafood’ by Kerry MacKay first published in SCUBA magazine, Issue 151 December 2024.