Sardines, Anchovies, and Climate Change

How to eat from the ocean sustainably

Are fish complicated or is everything else in our diet just incredibly dumbed down? We eat basically four different mammals — cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. We eat basically four different birds — chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese. We eat basically three farmed grains — rice, corn and wheat. All of it farmed.

But fish are different. We eat hundreds upon hundreds of species of fish and shellfish. Often those marine animals are wild. Often we don’t even know their names when we eat them.

I’ll be trying to do some fish demystification in a live streamed event with the PBS News Hour on Wednesday, June 8. In advance of the show, I sat down to answer a few key questions ahead of time. Here they are.

What’s the most dangerous fishing practice most people don’t know enough about right now?

When conservationists hone in on what’s to blame for overfishing and ocean degradation they often point the finger at bottom trawling since it can be indiscriminate in what’s caught and can destroy fish habitat in the process of harvest. But there’s a more under-the-radar bogeyman out there and that’s transshipment. A lot of fish are caught and then transshipped to floating…