Posts Tagged ‘fishing’

Trace and Trust Southern California at Sea Fare 2011

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

 

We are so excited to debut Trace and Trust™ Southern California at the Aquarium’s 8th annual Sea Fare fundraising event this Saturday, October 15, 2011!

 

Trace and Trust™ is a network of fishermen, distributors, processors, and restaurants committed to providing full seafood supply transparency by telling consumers exactly who caught their seafood, as well as when, where, and how it was caught. The concept was first tested in Rhode Island, where local fishermen and chefs regularly use Trace and Trust.  As Chef Beau Vestal of New Rivers Bistro explained in The Providence Journal,

 

“It has kind of made me wonder, what have I been buying all these years? The advantages as far as quality goes are night and day. Before, I had no sense of when and where it was caught and stored…(Now)…I [am] cutting fish that was in the water eight hours ago. You just kind of pinch yourself. I always tell my young cooks, remember this. There’s no way you’re going to get better quality.”

 

Chef Michael Poompan of Renaissance Long Beach & SIP Lounge

 

Chef Michael Poompan of SIP at the Renaissance in Long Beach will be serving fresh caught Uni, supplied by Santa Barbara Fisherwoman Stephanie Mutz, with Anson Mills grits from organic heirloom grains and fresh herbs. The Trace and Trust site featuring Stephanie’s vessel and landing information will be on display at the SIP booth along with the QR code that is also linked to Stephanie’s information on the site.

 

Trace and Trust was created as a pilot program in 2010 by the Cap Log Group, a small consulting company based in Davis, CA, after many meetings with experienced fishermen and dedicated chefs about how to help the fishermen benefit from the tremendous care and pride they take in landing their products.

 

Seafood for the Future learned about the program and its great success in Rhode Island and wanted to bring that high quality to chefs, transparency to consumers, and success to the fishermen in Southern California. We feel that this program can reward fishermen with a higher price return, chefs with a fresh, higher quality product, and the consumer for choosing local, sustainable seafood by showing them the men and women their choice is directly supporting.  

 

“I am involved in the Trace and Trust project so I can connect directly with my community.  We need to get back to having a relationship with your food harvesters to know where you food comes from and how it is harvested.  It also makes me, as a fisherman, more accountable for my product so I consistently get quality product. Knowing first hand how my seafood was prepared and enjoyed, and knowing none of it went to waste is important to me,” agreed fisherwoman Stephanie Mutz, owner of Sea Stephanie Fish and President of her local fishermen’s association Commerical Fishermen of Santa Barbara.

 

Fisherwoman Stephanie Mutz with her freshly caught Sea Urchin in Santa Barbara

 

Join us at Sea Fare this weekend to share in the debut of this fantastic program and support our local fishermen!

 

 

 

Sea Fare is the Aquarium of the Pacific’s largest annual fundraising event. Guests enjoy live music, silent and live auctions, the ever-popular “Go Fish” opportunity game, and experience the cuisines of more than 30 restaurants including 11 Seafood for the Future partners. Tickets are $100 and all proceeds benefit the Aquarium and its inhabitants. For tickets to Sea Fare 2011 to: aquariumofpacific.org/seafare

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Tangled in lost fishing gear

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010


We recently went on a trip to Hawai’i (my home state) where we were lucky enough to see a number of large marine animals, but some of these beautiful creatures were tangled in discarded fishing gear. Recreational fishing is not thought to have a significant impact on ecosystems in states other than Florida. While that may be true from a statistical point of view, it is hard to stomach seeing a dolphin or a turtle trailing someone’s fishing line from its mouth or flipper. Does this mean that recreational fishing should be more regulated? No, but it emphasizes the fact that all fishermen should be careful and responsible with their gear.

Here you can see a monofilament line wrapped several times around the left front flipper of a green sea turtle. Because the line will not degrade, it may restrict circulation as the turtle grows.

This dolphin we saw off of Kona has a hook in its mouth large enough to have snagged bits of algae. Although there have been attempts to catch the dolphin to remove the hook, the dolphin has so far proved too wily to let itself be caught. Whether or not the hook is causing pain or discomfort to the dolphin is difficult to tell. This low resolution still is taken from the video clip, below.

This spotted eagle ray was trailing a foot of leader with some of the hardware still attached. We can only hope that the stainless clip will not catch on anything.
I also saw a slate pencil urchin tangled up in a line attached to a golf ball. The golf ball had tiny eye hooks screwed into it so that it could be used as a sinker. Not sure what the point of this is… Is there an over abundance of golf balls in Hawaii? Is there a new casting technique involving a five iron? Some of the critters we captured on video can be seen below.

Larry Fukuhara, a local fishing expert at the Cabrillo Aquarium, notes that fishermen don’t usually want to lose their gear, since terminal tackle can be expensive to replace. Furthermore, fishermen have come a long way since the days when they would cut 300 yards of damaged monofilament line by letting it trail off the back of a boat. The key to retaining your gear, says Larry, is experience: knowing when and how to replace damaged line. In fishing for yellowtail, Larry may replace the last 100 yards of his line by splicing with a blood knot. Knowing that a yellowtail is unlikely to spool as much as 100 yards, this is a good technique to keep both the gear and the fish. Larry has also set up an electric drill to help him reel off as much line as he needs to replace without having to do it by hand. Braided Kevlar line is also an option, Larry says. Although it is more expensive, its breaking strength is far higher than monofilament.

On the whole, fishermen tend to be excellent stewards of our oceans. After all, they are the ones who are out there observing changes in populations and habitat, and fishermen generally recognize that there will be no recreational fishing without ocean conservation. It’s just unfortunate that individual animals can suffer as a cost of this increased awareness and involvement. If you decide to become a fisherman, please take Larry’s advice: learn your craft well and replace your line before it breaks off.

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Four Fish Dinner at Ammo – Sustainable Tastes Better

Monday, August 9th, 2010


What does it take to get people interested in eating responsible seafood? Sustainability is confusing. Certainly it doesn’t help when the word is loosely tossed around in social and business settings as if it were the next political movement. Is the answer to blanket people with scientific reports, possibly scaring them towards more responsible seafood? There is biology indicating that we could be harming our oceans by fishing in environmentally unfriendly manners, yet at the same time, there is a significant amount of science showing that we need to eat more seafood. So how is it possible to achieve this balance?

Fortunately for groups like Seafood for the Future, Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish- The future of the last wild food, recently introduced an effective strategy which is already involving people in making more conscious decisions about the food they eat. In one condensed effort he put aside all the calculated seafood talk and told a story. Actually he told many stories, covering four different species of fish and the voices of fisherman and fish farmers all over the globe. At the heart of his story is the relationship between a once abundant food source and the people that live on its survival. To make this story even more relevant, and actually follow through with a call to action such as “eat more sustainable seafood,” Paul Greenberg himself, the man,the myth, and the soon-to-be legend, co-hosted a dinner in Hollywood at AMMO restaurant last night (Sunday, August 8th) featuring only sustainable seafood.

If the goal of AMMO chef Daniel Mattern (formerly of Lucques, AOC and Clarklewis in Portland) was to make the diner think “wow sustainable tastes better!” than he succeeded 100%. Arctic Char, Carlsbad Oysters, Mussels, Clams, and Barramundi were all prepared with both simplicity and perfection. Chef’s skill was seamlessly laced through each dish, not in an arrogant manner, but instead as brief but bold brushstrokes, making each dish that much more flawless and further exemplifying our mission here at SFF that “seafood should be approachable.” Textures were certainly not forgotten either, something that can easily magnify any fish dining experience. The crisp celery in the hot smoked arctic char salad was an unexpected but impeccable addition and certainly a playful crunch. The fennel amongst the clams and mussels added essential tooth, and the innovative use of flat leaf Italian parsley within the grilled Barramundi dish played brilliantly against the richness of the fish. For those people whose number one seafood choice is the “bad boy” Chilean sea bass, chef’s grilled Barramundi should quickly jettison this new fish to the top spot as he has mastered the art of making barramundi as rich as fried rocky road ice cream.

Interestingly, every item on the menu was farmed. And while Greenberg doesn’t explicitly state that he wholeheartedly supports all fish farming in his book, his positive and encouraging statements were certainly a breath of fresh air in the world of Anti-Fish Farming campaigns.

Here are three condensed lessons to be learned:

1. Sustainability is more than numbers, it is about a story and the interrelated nature of the story’s elements. By not eating fish all together, communities reliant on the economies created through this trade will be destroyed. On the same note, however, by overfishing species, many communities are in peril as they no longer have a product to support their profession. Every story about this paradox is a springboard towards awareness and eventually mobilizing people to act through compromise and improvement.

2. Four Fish is a must read and a great gateway novel into the world of sustainability

3. If you haven’t been to AMMO restaurant, go ASAP- you won’t regret it

Ammo’s Sustainable Seafood Menu:

“Four Fish”

Carlsbad oysters on the half-shell with shallot mignonette & fresh horseradish

Hot-smoked Arctic char with marinated beets, chopped egg & celery seed vinaigrette

Pan-roasted mussels & clams with summer shell beans, pickled chili, and fennel pollen

Grilled barramundu with eggplant caponata, basil & aioli

Roasted figs with honey ice cream

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AMMO Restaurant
1155 N. Highland Ave.
Los Angeles, CA

323.467.3293

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So, where’s your wallet card?

Friday, August 14th, 2009

Now that we’re in the final stretch of preparing our national PR launch and new website design, I am getting this question more than ever. Funny in a way, because it usually follows some form of the question, “do we really need another seafood program?” Although, this question is more commonly expressed as, “Oh, you’re like so-and-so’s program.” Man do I hate that. But, people do seem to love wallet cards in spite of the fact that they are loathe to use them.

If you don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, here’s a few of the programs in whose shadow we must grow. But first, let me point out that, being aware of what is already available for consumers, we have created a program that is Nothing Like Any Of Them.

sustainable seafood cards - fold them yourself

sustainable seafood cards - fold them yourself

Environmental Defense Fund’s Pocket Seafood Selector.  Monterey Bay’s Seafood Watch various cards for various regions (Can I get a Hawaiian fish guide in Spanish?).  Marine Stewardship Council’s Fish to Eat.  Audobon society’s Seafood Lover’s Guide, also available as a beautifully illustrated coffee table book (not kidding).  Charting Nature’s Sustainable Seafood Guides.  Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium Right Bite Seafood Wallet Card.  The National Resource Defense Council’s Mercury in Fish Guide.  SeaChoice Canada’s Seafood Guide.  The Audobon/Wildlife Conservation Society Special Edition (!) Seafood Wallet Card.  Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) Pocket Good Fish Guide.  Blue Ocean Institute’s Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood.  This last one is my favorite, not just because of the immense amount of research and work that obviously went into producing the information.  Here is a shot of the eight-fold card that flips open like the Octomom’s wallet photo album. (more…)

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