Saving Seafood

Fishery consultant claims MSC reputation damaged in Australia after roughy certification failure

May 14, 2021 — An Australian fishery consultancy, which has taken a financial hit from the fallout of the failed Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification of the orange roughy fishery, claims the MSC’s reputation may be damaged in the country by the certification’s failure.

“Just as MSC was about to take a step forward in Australia it takes several backwards and will become less relevant,” Simon Boag, a fisheries advisor at Australian-based Atlantis Fisheries Consulting Group – which was engaged by a number of orange roughy east quota owners to seek MSC accreditation – said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Second attempt at orange roughy MSC certification denied

April 13, 2021 — A second attempt by Australia’s orange roughy fishery certified to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard has been thrown out by an independent adjudicator.

The decision puts to rest a fight between WWF and the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) over the certification of the orange roughy fishery, a species considered endangered, threatened, and protected under Australian law.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Invasive Asian carp getting a new name, image makeover to draw more foodies, fishing fans

February 9, 2021 — Care for a plate of slimehead? How about some orange roughy?

It’s the same fish, but one sounds much more palatable than the other. The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service gave the slimehead a rebranding in the late 1970s in an effort to make the underused fish more marketable.

Now, Illinois officials and their partners want to give the invasive Asian carp threatening the Great Lakes a similar makeover. The goal: To grow the fish’s image as a healthy, delicious, organic, sustainable food source — which will, in turn, get more fishermen removing more tons of the fish from Illinois rivers just outside of Lake Michigan.

Markets such as pet food, bait and fertilizer have expanded the use of invasive Asian carp in recent years. But “it’s been hard to get the human consumption part of this because of the four-letter word: carp,” said Kevin Irons, assistant chief of fisheries for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

A full-on media blitz is coming later this year to change that. The proposed new name for the fish is being kept tightly under wraps for a big rollout in June, prior to the Boston Seafood Show in mid-July. But other aspects of the “The Perfect Catch” campaign will point out that the invasive Asian carp species — silver, bighead, grass and black carp — are flaky, tasty, organic, sustainable, low in mercury and rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids.

“To us in America, we think of carp as a bottom-feeding, muddy-tasting fish, which it is sometimes,” said Dirk Fucik, owner of Dirk’s Fish and Gourmet Shop in Chicago, who has had success with occasional serving of Asian carp to customers and is participating in the rebranding effort.

Read the full story at the Chicago Sun Times