Snapshots

Buying seafood is easy. Sourcing seafood responsibly is not. Consumers and retailers alike must wade through growing lists of health and environmental considerations when purchasing responsible seafood.

How can you regulate something you can’t see? That seemingly impossible task is exactly the core mission of fisheries managers.

Piracy pays. Growing seafood demand, combined with fewer fish, poor traceability systems, and a vast ocean impossible to patrol adds up to big returns for illegal fishers.

At one time almost all fishers fished as much as they could, as fast as they could, racing to catch as many fish as possible before the season ended or the total catch landed by all fishers reached its legal, predetermined cap.

Large commercial fishing vessels more closely resemble space ships than boats. Wall-to-wall electronics allow captains to “see” beneath the surface to find ever-scarcer fish.