Florida Aquarium launches effort to encourage sustainable seafood
By Mark Albright, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, June 12, 2009
Classroom on the water: The Florida Aquarium introduced a brand new floating classroom on Thursday, dubbed the Bay Spirit II. was christened by longtime Florida Aquarium benefactor and community leader Jackie Pries. The boat can hold 149 passengers and will be taken on 90-minute tours.
Why is red grouper a better choice than black? What's the rap on farm-raised Atlantic salmon? Is there reason to avoid Chilean sea bass other than its original name: toothfish?
The folks who run the Florida Aquarium think too few Floridians know the answers: Black grouper and Chilean sea bass grounds have been seriously overfished. Farm-raised Atlantic salmon has issues with mercury and other contaminants, according to Seafood Watch.
And despite Florida's role as a major seafood source, too many Tampa Bay restaurant owners, supermarket seafood clerks and wholesalers have no clue what they are serving, either.
"If we don't start talking about this now, too many species are going to be wiped out," says Ilze Berzins, vice president of biological operations at the aquarium, which plans a broad initiative to spread the word on sustainable seafood. "Far more visitors today ask us for advice on what seafoods to eat than a few years ago."
Generally, sustainable seafood practices aim to keep the fish population healthy enough to reproduce itself in larger numbers. In addition to opposing overfishing, proponents prefer responsible fishing practices like catch and release. With conflicting interest groups offering solutions, the aquarium hopes to separate opinion from science.
It's part of a movement that grew out of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, which publishes sustainable seafood brochures, prints cheat sheets for shoppers and compiled a coffee table book of sustainable seafood recipes culled from local restaurants. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago created brochures on how to buy, catch and cook fish from the Great Lakes.
The Tampa effort includes:
• Reaching out with free advice and resources to restaurants and other businesses interested in adding sustainable options. The staff already has a list of 20 restaurants to call.
• Putting a seafood tips exhibit on the aquarium floor. The gift shop now sells several books on the subject, and the restaurants added sustainable seafoods to their menu. That came after staffers discovered Aramark, which also runs food concessions at many Florida prisons and stadiums, offers clients a selection.
• Adding the subject to aquarium presentations delivered to thousands of visiting students and teachers.
"We will invest in research if necessary," added Tom Wagner, an aquarium spokesman.
The aquarium announced the sustainable seafood effort during a three-course environmentally correct lunch served up Thursday at Tampa restaurant Mise en Place. The aquarium also christened its new $1.2 million Bay Spirit II, a 149-passenger catamaran that runs 90-minute eco-tours of Tampa Bay for $19.95 a person.
For the next two weeks Mise en Place will donate 10 percent of the $30 meal — which features calamari, yellow fin tuna carpaccio and spice-rubbed barramundi — to the campaign. Unable to source much sustainable seafood for the meal from the gulf or Caribbean, the restaurant turned to Pacific Coast suppliers to fly in unfrozen seafood.
"The fact is, Florida and too many of its restaurants are way behind in offering sustainable seafood," said Maryann Ferenc, co-owner of Mise en Place, who hopes to someday break away from nonsustainable fish on the menu. "If we can educate consumers to ask more about what they are served, we create demand restaurants will notice."
Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.
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