shark fin soup

Oceana's editor Suzannah Evans recently interviewed Taras Grescoe, author of the new book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. In the book, he circles the globe on a twofold mission: to consume exotic seafood and to explore why fish, crustaceans and marine mammals are disappearing. Drawing on the research of renowned fisheries scientist and Oceana board member Dr. Daniel Pauly, Grescoe explains the overexploitation of the seas and how we might restore the abundance of seafood for future generations. To read the full interview, visit http://oceana.org/newsletter.

Was there anything you couldn't bring yourself to eat? Because of the issues or you just didn't want to?

There were so many things I did eat, and my M.O. was to be an adventurous eater, but to have a list of seafood, things I wanted to try, things I hadn't yet tried. And as I became educated, [I would] cross things off the list. I was taking the reader through this process.

In Japan, there are 450 kinds of seafood on the market, I didn't eat gooey duck - not too many issues associated with it. Pufferfish, I ate. I regret eating whale. I'll never do it again, but it was interesting to figure out how to fit into Japanese culture. There are things I'm still interested in trying, particularly when it comes to mollusks and crustaceans. The one thing that was really problematic was live shrimp in Shanghai.

As promised on Monday, a post devoted to Taras Grescoe’s Bottomfeeder, which I just finished reading.

I’ve heard Grescoe called the “Michael Pollan for the oceans,” and I think that designation is pretty accurate. They are both compelling writers -- Pollan deals with the land and how it feeds us (and how we treat it in return), and Grescoe does the same for the oceans.

It's Friday, the weather's beautiful here at Oceana HQ in DC, and we have two positive developments in ocean news to report:

1.) The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced new rules that will require federal shark fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico to land sharks with their fins still naturally attached.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision to throw out penalties against a fishing vessel carrying 64,695 pounds of shark fins in U.S. waters. Shipping a cargo full of shark fins without sharks is illegal in the United States, but the King Diamond II sailed through a loophole that allowed it to carry fins it had gathered from other ships.

Something good has come out of this: The decision has galvanized pressure to end the brutal practice of shark finning, which kills tens of millions of sharks annually, including many species already threatened by extinction.

Late on Wednesday, Del. Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) introduced the Shark Conservation Act of 2008, which will not only require all sharks to be landed with their fins, but allow the U.S. to require any other countries importing sharks to do the same. It’s an intermediate step in ensuring protection for sharks worldwide, but a vital step all the same.

Delta Air Lines meant to inaugurate its first nonstop flight from Atlanta to Shanghai in the finest fashion that would honor traditions at both ends of its journey: Coca-Cola at one end, and shark fin soup at the other.