Good fish, bad fish for Easter

Easter is one of the most popular times of the year for eating fish. But are you choosing seafood that align with your values?

Some of Australia's most popular seafood choices are linked to overfishing, impacts on threatened species, and habitat damage.

GoodFish - an independent guide to sustainable seafood - is urging Australians to think twice before choosing some seafood staples for their Good Friday menu.

The GoodFish list of popular choices to avoid includes Tasmanian farmed Atlantic salmon, imported squid, some wild-caught prawns and some flake (shark), although most gummy shark is sustainable. 

“Australians love seafood, and most expect what they’re buying over Easter to be sustainable, but that’s not always the case," says sustainable seafood guide program manager Adrian Meder.

“Some of our most popular seafood options are linked to serious impacts like overfishing, bycatch of threatened species including dolphins and sawfish, as well as serious habitat damage. Armed with this information, shoppers have the power to take their dollars elsewhere and reward fisheries doing the right thing.

“In Australia, we are really lucky to have sustainable alternatives readily available. People often feel sustainability is out of their hands, but with seafood, a simple swap at the counter genuinely makes a difference.

“Our free GoodFish app puts that power directly in shoppers’ hands. Sustainable seafood doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ve made it quick, practical and accessible for everyday shoppers, using a clear traffic light system so people can easily choose seafood that has a light touch on our ocean.”

Among the fish to say "no" to are Tasmanian framed Atlantic salmon. 

Goodfish says this industry is linked to serious and ongoing environmental issues, including pollution, killing protected seals, contamination of wild fish, and mass fish kills, and antibiotic use so heavy that fishers have been warned to stay kilometres away from some sites.

"Most critically, salmon farming in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour could drive the extinction of the Maugean skate – a critically endangered species found nowhere else on Earth."

GoodFish says Atlantic salmon just aren’t suited to Australian oceanic conditions. Tasmania is the warmest place in the world where salmon are farmed on an industrial scale, and rising water temperatures place increasing heat stress on the fish. This weakens their immune systems and allows disease to spread rapidly through the crowded pens, hence the widespread use of antibiotics.

Instead, diners are encouraged to look at NZ-farmed king salmon, Australian-farmed barramundi, Murray cod or native Australian salmon.

Others to avoid include wild-caught barramundi from Queensland and the Northern Territory, which are caught using gillnets, which are known to entangle and kill a wide range of threatened marine animals, including dolphins, dugongs, turtles, hammerhead sharks, and critically endangered sawfish.