grist

I’m not sure what the marine equivalent of a bandwagon is (a love boat?), but there’s one headed our way. I’m talking about the movement called “individual fishing quotas,” as described in a recent LA Times article. The original theory is straight out of the free market school of economics: give people the ownership of something, and they’ll be good stewards. As I’ve written before, this isn’t necessarily so.

Indeed, as the article points out, such programs can’t work unless there are restrictions on overall catches. And they also can’t work unless there are mechanisms to limit and reduce bycatch and discards of other species, including coverage by scientific observers. And they can’t neglect dealing with fishing gear impacts on bottom habitat.

In further noisy ocean news this past week, our nation's highest court heard oral arguments in the dispute over the Navy's use of mid-frequency active sonar off the coast. The sonar has been associated with whale injury and beach strandings; meanwhile, the Navy argues that halting or restricting sonar training exercises in any way harms national security.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the plaintiff in the case, many whales that have been beached as a result of sonar have suffered physical trauma, including bleeding around the brain, ears and other tissues.

In addition, many have shown symptoms akin to a severe case of "the bends" -- the illness that can kill scuba divers who surface quickly from deep water, implying that the whales' dive patterns are altered. Sonar has also been shown to disrupt feeding and other vital behavior and to cause a wide range of species to panic and flee. The NRDC case is specific to training exercises in the Pacific Ocean and whether the Navy has to be environmentally responsible in its routine trainings by reducing their impacts to whales.

Grist's Checkout Line with Lou Bendrick has a handy guide to the confusing world of sustainable seafood today -- here are the basics, check out the post for the full story:

1. Eat as locally as possible.

2. Ask questions when you shop for fish.

3. Read labels.

4. Choose wisely at restaurants.

5. Eat lower on the food chain.

6. Have your go-to sustainable favorites in mind.

7. Be careful with the Big Two -- shrimp and salmon -- which can, as Bendrick punnily points out, be a literally lousy option.