Sustainable seafood on menu

A new program at the Vancouver Aquarium is helping B.C. restaurants make ethical and environmentally sustainable decisions about what to serve their customers.

So far, only Vancouver's C Restaurant is part of the Ocean Wise initiative, which guides restaurants to serve up only sustainable species.

For C's executive chef, Robert Clark, it means knowing exactly how every item on his menu was caught or raised.

By applying the program, Clark knows his scallop producer, the type of gear used to catch his wild Skeena salmon and the current state of Albacore tuna stocks.

University of British Columbia fisheries researcher Colette Wabnitz said customers are also starting to ask questions in fish shops. She points to the growing popularity of websites that show consumers what to buy, and what to avoid, based on sustainability and ethics.

The red list includes fish such as marlin and orange roughie, as well as shrimp. Ecologists note that for every kilogram of shrimp caught, there can be as much as 10 kilograms of unwanted by-catch.

Wabnitz notes half the world's harvest of Chilean sea bass is caught illegally.

Prof. Tony Pitcher, also at UBC, studies the economics of fishing. He figures if consumer habits don't change, a worldwide disaster awaits.

"It is already a disaster of epic proportion in the South China Sea," said Pitcher. The remaining fish there are only guppy-sized products suited to pet food.

Choosy consumers in B.C. are already influencing the market, as many shops and restaurants now refuse to stock farmed salmon.