Sharks

Princes' tuna policy doesn't do what it says on the tin

Posted by Willie — 15 October 2010 at 10:15am - Comments

Two whole years in the making, Princes' new 'sustainable seafood statement' was supposed to address many issues. Specifically it was supposed to be explaining just what the company intended to do to drag itself from the bottom of our tinned tuna league table by explaining the measures they were implementing to ensure they were sourcing their tinned tuna responsibly.

Article tagged as: fishing, mitsubishi, oceans, princes, sharks, sustainable seafood, tinned tuna, tuna, turtles

100 year old spiny dogfish with your chips, anyone?

Posted by Willie — 17 March 2010 at 3:01pm - Comments

Spiny dogfish - renamed rock salmon for the fish and chip trade. Image © Creative Commons

In the UK fish and chips is an institution. We have other institutions too, of course, like the Royal family, and in Britain if you make it to your 100th birthday, the momentous occasion is marked by getting a telegram from the Queen.

But how would you feel if the fish in your fish and chips was eligible for such a telegram?

Because, it just might be.

Article tagged as: CITES, endangered species, sharks

Looks are everything

Posted by Willie — 25 June 2009 at 1:55pm - Comments

The Great White shark: more threatened than threatening © CC  hermanusbackpackers

A couple of stories in the press today caught my eye. Both are about what we internally refer to as 'charismatic megafauna' (the big animals people tend to be interested in and care about), but they are also both damning indictments of our failure to protect our oceans and the life that depends on them.

Firstly – in the week of the International Whaling Commission meeting in Madeira, Portugal – whilst lots of countries get together to talk lots and try not to upset each other too much,  the BBC reports that a highly-endangered species of porpoise is being pushed ever closer to extinction.

Article tagged as: bycatch, IWC, oceans, porpoises, sharks, tuna

Tesco takes shark-fin of the shelves

Posted by Willie — 8 April 2009 at 10:45am - Comments

This female Caribbean Reef Shark in Roatan apparently survived a finning - most do not. CC copyright yukikokubo
This female Caribbean Reef Shark in Roatan apparently survived a finning - most do not © CC yukikokubo

Tesco have just announced that they're going to stop selling shark fins in their stores in Thailand.

This follows some bad press on the issue and subsequent lobbying by the Shark Trust to clean up their act.

Sharks are a dividing issue with people – some people love them and are fascinated by them, others are terrified of them. Whilst sharks have an ferocious and fearsome reputation, and any shark attack or alleged sightings of man-eating great whites off Cornwall make the news, we rarely hear of the impact we humans are having on sharks. And we are having an enormous impact.

Article tagged as: co-op, EU, sainsburys, sharks, tesco, thailand, tuna

'Green' grocer caught red-handed with redlist fish

Posted by jossc — 7 November 2008 at 12:55pm - Comments

Loblaws: caught red-handed selling unsustainable 'red-list' fish

Greenpeace Canada exposed the country's largest grocery store chain's claims to be a 'green' grocer as false this week, after an investigation into how they source their seafood. Loblaws, whose stores account for nearly a third of all groceries sold in Canada, were found to be selling 14 of the 15 species on Greenpeace's 'Redlist' - made up of those species that are most destructively fished or farmed.

To get 'redlisted' a species must be in serious trouble, usually defined as facing a 90% reduction in numbers. Currently top of the Canadian list are Atlantic bluefin tuna, Atlantic cod, sharks, skate, shrimp and orange roughy - all of which are sold by Loblaws.

Article tagged as: bluefin, canada, cod, destructive fishing, loblaws, sharks, shrimp, skate
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