Fishing to Extinction
If you’re anything like me you love to eat seafood. Blackened, fried, grilled, baked, raw and many more these can be a tasty meal. Our supermarkets have a wide variety of fish that are ready to be consumed. Seafood restaurants are plentiful throughout many cities including Portland. But have we stopped to think about where this fish comes from and if the supply is waning? When a section of forest is clear cut we can easily see the difference. When a mammal species is on the decline we will easily get a count of how many of that type of animal are left. In the sea this is a bit more difficult. Overfishing, lack of effective management and our own consumption habits are just a few factors contributing to a decline in wild fish. 
In order to continue eating these tasty morsels of fish we need to begin being mindful of what types of fish we are consuming. There are many resources to turn to in order to understand how to protect seafood. When buying seafood at a supermarket we should look to find fish that are well managed and caught or farmed in ways that cause little harm to habitats or other wildlife. In the past this used to be a difficult task to undertake. Now with technology we have the
ability to easily understand what seafood to buy, good alternatives and
what to avoid. The Monterrey Bay Aquarium is one resource that helps
with this. As a consumer you can look up at www.seafoodwatch.com the specific fish you are considering and locate information about the sustainability of this species. They also have an app that makes this even easier. We should make it our responsibility to consider the seafood we consume so that we can continue to have this resource for years to come rather than eat a species to extinction.
Matthew Hamilton
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