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Author Topic: You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones  (Read 6529 times)

troutbreath

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You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones
« on: November 04, 2008, 03:50:54 PM »

You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones
 
Chad Skelton
Vancouver Sun


Tuesday, November 04, 2008


The best way to stop the overfishing of endangered species might be for people to switch over to smelly, oily fish such as sardines, anchovies and herring, says a new study from the University of B.C.

Such fish, known as small pelagics, are still plentiful and are easy to catch because they travel in huge schools.

At the moment, about 30 million tonnes of small pelagics are taken from the world's oceans every year, making up about a third of all the fish caught worldwide.

The problem, according to the study, is that only a tiny fraction -- about one per cent -- end up as food on our dinner table.

More than 50 per cent are ground up and fed to farmed fish, such as salmon. Another 40 per cent are used as high-protein feed for chickens and pigs.

Jackie Alder, one of the study's authors, said it would be much more efficient -- and environmentally friendly -- for people to eat such fish directly rather than feeding them to other animals.

Increasing demand for such fish would also reduce the pressure on more endangered species, she said.

The challenge is convincing the public that small pelagics are an attractive alternative.

Such fish are popular in certain regions of the world.

Herring is a key ingredient in many Scandinavian dishes and small pelagics are common in Mediterranean diets.

But in most of the world, they are a tough sell. "They're small, they're bony and they're hard to eat," Alder said.

Part of the solution is finding creative ways to cook them.

"I'd never eat a tin of sardines. The smell almost gets me out the door," Alder said. "But I've eaten [sardines] when they've been really nicely prepared. Chefs can do wonders."

Small pelagics also have some other things going for them.

"These are cheap fish to catch, so rather than paying $20, $30 a kilo for one species of fish, you might be able to get a very healthy meal of fish for half or a third of that price," she said.

Small pelagics are loaded with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which some studies have shown reduce the risk of heart disease.

"If you want a healthy fish to eat, these are the guys to go for."

Alder, until recently a researcher at UBC's Fisheries Centre, recently took a new job as chief of marine and coastal ecosystems at the United Nations in Nairobi, Kenya.

Her study was published in the most recent edition of the journal Annual Review of Environment and Resources.

(Check out The Vancouver Sun's Science in B.C. blog at vancouversun.com/scienceinbc/)

cskelton@vancouversun.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008
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another SLICE of dirty fish perhaps?

fishseeker

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Re: You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones
« Reply #1 on: November 05, 2008, 01:12:05 PM »

Fresh sardines are my favorite - just grilled with a little salt.  Hard to beat.
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Sam Salmon

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This Makes Me SICK!!!!
« Reply #2 on: November 05, 2008, 02:39:45 PM »

The article is little more than a rewrite of the book by that clueless git Taras Grescoe http://www.tarasgrescoe.com/

It's so wrong on so many points I don't know where to start but how about this-how smart is killing off all the baitfish?

Why don't we start with Plankton Burgers and Krill Pizzas instead-that way we'd be fishing even further down the food chain and the collapse will be all the quicker!

Baitfish, predators (including but not limited to Salmonids, Pinnipeds, Cetacea) well they can all get a job in Alberta if they want to eat!

Whaddaya say Folks?!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Incidentally I've eaten Sardines 4 different ways and wouldn't touch them again not even with a gun to my head-they are vile!!!
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troutbreath

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Re: You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones
« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2008, 04:13:42 PM »

I've always liked sardines. They use to come 25 to the can and were excellent. Now it's like 4 to the can. Looking forward to fresh fry of them if I can get some.
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another SLICE of dirty fish perhaps?

fishseeker

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Re: You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones
« Reply #4 on: November 05, 2008, 07:58:42 PM »

Really fresh sardines are the best in my opinion - my wife is Japanese and when we head over to Japan I order them as a sashimi.  First time I tried them like that I was surprised at how little they tasted like grilled sardine - not strong tasting that way at all! Unfortunately  very fresh sardines are hard to come by here and it probably isn't practical to have them as sashimi.

I know they can be picked up in Steveston from time to time but I am not sure it's consistent.  Even the frozen ones are excellent grilled or barbequed - probably my favorite fish overall.

Another really excellent choice are the 'Mackeral pikes' sold at T&T.  The seem to be eaten mostly by Chinese but it's a mystery to me why they haven't caught on more too.  I think a lot of people find the rich oily taste of these fish a bit hard to take.  Really just a matter of culture and what people are used to I think.
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BwiBwi

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Re: You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2008, 08:40:27 PM »

You can catch herring in local water in summer.  It's great as sashimi.
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IronNoggin

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Re: This Makes Me SICK!!!!
« Reply #6 on: November 05, 2008, 08:54:52 PM »

...how about this-how smart is killing off all the baitfish?

Bingo Sam!
The Dino has, in cahoots with the commercial fleet, pretty well cleaned the stocks of herring up all along the West Coast of the Island. Where we used to witness incredibly large biomass's move in each spring to spawn, now coast-wide the past couple of years have been disastrous! Great amounts of energy and coin simply failed to find much, if any active spawners the past 3 seasons. Hard to locate them once you've bagged them into submission! And that of course has serious impacts on the system, as a whole. Nearly everything that swims rely on the herring as the base food-stock, so most populations show immediate response in declining numbers once the "groceries" are removed. Yet DFO continues to hunt them hard, attempting to locate just enough to get the bags back on the water again! Any other organization acting in this manner I would find completely unbelievable. With DFO, nothing any longer surprises me... :(

And, this year, The Dino did pay attention to the many reports that pilchards (sardines) were once again starting to show in decent numbers in our offshore waters. Yup, you guessed it, unleash Pattison's Bags Of War! No less than 6 seiners were targeting them HARD out of Ukee for quite the time period this year. And from the decks nearly awash when they rolled in, obviously doing right well in cleaning out that section of the "grocery store".

Any wonder why we continually bear witness to "poor ocean survivorship"?? ::)

Cheers,
Nog
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Fish Assassin

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Re: You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones
« Reply #7 on: November 05, 2008, 09:05:33 PM »

Do they still have a roe fishery ?
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BwiBwi

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Re: You can save fish stocks: Just eat the oily, smelly ones
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2008, 09:16:59 PM »

Unfortunately they do, and still in huge quota.  DFO should realize there's something VERY wrong when quota wasn't achieved, and it's due to lack of fish!!!
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