A painted image by LivInSeas of a school of sardines. The background is a blue-teal gradient, featuring blue squiggles, large white spots, and smaller, colored dots. The sardines have brown fins and greyish bodies. The tops of their bodies are blue, with white dots forming a shine effect. The mid-body is pink, which transitions to a grey belly. The sardines have black dots running down their body above the pink. The bottom of the fish have slightly darker stripes and dots, which resemble scales. The sardines have dark, shiny eyes.

The One Resource You Need to Make Sustainable Seafood Choices

ByLivInSeas

Over the years, I have fielded many questions from friends and family about how to make sustainable choices when buying seafood. These include, “how can I make sure my choices at restaurants are sustainable?” or “is farmed or wild-caught salmon better for the environment?”

In the early stages of my career, I worked in fisheries science. Unfortunately, my experience in fisheries science taught me is that there is no easy rule of thumb to answer these questions.

Determining the sustainability of a specific type of seafood depends on a number of factors. These include location, fishing gear used, relevant regulations and management practices where the seafood was sourced, impact on habitats and the environment, and general traceability of the industry.

Complex, right?

The good news is that there are plenty of scientists working in this field to aggregate this information and assess sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture endeavors. The even better news is that it is now easier than ever to find this information.

Thanks to these scientists, I have one simple method to share with you. It completely demystifies the topic of sustainable seafood and is extremely accurate, easily accessible, and regularly updated with scientifically-sound information.

Let me introduce you to one of the best resources online: Seafood Watch.

Seafood Watch is a program founded by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in 1999. It aims to provide science and management-backed recommendations for seafood choices. They assess the sustainability of both wild-caught fisheries and aquaculture operations. In addition to their digital platform, they have a series of quick, downloadable consumer guides by species, U.S. region, and sushi items.

Within this post, I will cover how to use Seafood Watch at the grocery store, what to do at a restaurant, and where some of the best places to buy seafood actually are. Then, I’ll transition into a deeper dive on what sustainability actually means in fishing and aquaculture.

Example: Grocery Store Salmon

Let’s say in this example that I want to buy salmon at the grocery store. Based on information on the packaging, I only know that it was Atlantic salmon farmed in Canada. I take out my phone, open Seafood Watch, type “salmon,” and select Canada as the location. The website then shows the following result:

A screenshot of the salmon buying guide from the Seafood Watch Website. Text reads as following: Buy: 1) U.S. wild-caught salmon-only a small amount is red-rated. 2) Farmed Atlantic salmon from Maine or the Faroe Islands (Denmark). 3) Farmed Chinook salmon from New Zealand or British Columbia, Canada. 4) Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) or Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified salmon, except from Russia. 5) Salmon farmed in indoor recirculating tanks (also called RAS, land-based and tank-farmed). 6) Salmon listed below, if you confirm it's yellow-rated. Purchasing from businesses that provide fishery source information and have committed to selling sustainable salmon can increase the likelihood of buying yellow-rated salmon. 6a) Farmed Atlantic salmon from Canada is yellow-rated when produced in Nova Scotia and red-rated when produced elsewhere in Canada. 6b) Farmed Atlantic salmon from Chile is yellow-rated when produced in the Magallanes region and red-rated when it is produced elsewhere in Chile. 6c) Farmed Atlantic salmon from Norway is yellow-rated when produced in Areas 1, 12, or 13 and red-rated when produced elsewhere in Norway. 6d) Farmed Atlantic salmon from Scotland is yellow-rated when produced in the Orkney Islands and red-rated when produced elsewhere in Scotland. 6e) Wild-caught Chinook and coho salmons from British Columbia, Canada, are yellow-rated except when caught on British Columbia's South Coast. Pin It
Screenshot taken from Seafood Watch's salmon buying guide. Text reads as follows: Avoid: 1) Farmed coho salmon from Chile. 2) Farmed Atlantic salmon from Canada, Chile, Norway, or Scotland, if you can't confirm it's yellow-rated. Please see the above "Buy" tips for more information. 3) Wild-caught Chinook and coho salmons from British Columbia, Canada, if you can't confirm they're yellow-rated. Chinook and coho salmons are yellow-rated except when caught on British Columbia's south coast. 4) To increase the likelihood you're purchasing green- or yellow-rated seafood, buy from businesses that provide information on where it was caught or farmed, and have committed to selling sustainable seafood. Pin It

Glancing at this information, I see that it mentions that farmed Chinook salmon from British Columbia are recommended. But, farmed Atlantic salmon from Canada might not be the best choice.

Since the salmon I wanted to purchase is Atlantic salmon, I look closer at the packaging. It mentions the fish was farmed in Nova Scotia. When I scroll down on the site, I see the following options:

This screenshot was captured from the Seafood Watch website, and shows several options for salmon selections. Text reads as follows: Option 1: Yellow-rated (Good alternative) Atlantic salmon. Buy if a green-rated option is not available. Also known as sake, salmon. Country/region: Canada (Nova Scotia). Farming method: Marine net pen. Body of water: Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Other details: N/A. Option 2: Red-rated (Avoid) Atlantic salmon. Take a pass on this red-rated seafood for now because it poses a high risk to the environment. Also known as: Sake, salmon. Country/region: Canada (British Columbia). Farming method: Marine net pen. Body of water: Northeast Pacific Ocean. Other details: N/A. Option 3: Red-labelled (Avoid) Atlantic salmon. Take a pass on this red-rated seafood for now because it poses a high risk to the environment. Also known as: sake/salmon. Country or region: Canada (New Brunswick). Farming method: Marine net pen. Body of water: Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Other details: N/A. Pin It

Great, Atlantic salmon farmed in Nova Scotia, Canada is considered a Yellow-Rated or  “Good Alternative” species. Let’s pretend the only salmon in my imaginary store are Atlantic salmon farmed in Canada, so there are no green-rated options available.

And there you have it! Easy enough, right?

Seafood Watch has three categories: Best Choice (Green-Rated), Good Alternative (Yellow-Rated), and Avoid (Red-Rated). Each rating relates to the risk that procuring each species poses to the environment. Species may receive a red rating due to factors like management practices, bycatch likelihood, impacts on the external ecosystem, or if the population is particularly vulnerable to fishing exploitation. 

An additional category, Certified Seafood, includes seafood certified by independent organizations to meet specific standards that align with sustainability goals. One of these organizations is the Marine Stewardship Council. The MSC is a non-profit aimed at recognizing and rewarding sustainable fisheries practices through their certification program.

Example: Canned Tuna

As a child growing up in the 2000’s, I always secretly feared that I was eating dolphin chunks along with my canned tuna. While that probably wasn’t a reasonable concern, tuna fisheries are still a hot topic when it comes to bycatch prevention and environmental protection.

Seafood Watch has an extensive guide on choosing sustainable canned tuna. “Dolphin safe” on its own does not guarantee sustainability. But, many environmentally-friendly brands will include terms indicating the tuna were caught with fishing gear that results in little bycatch, or incidental catch of other species not targeted by the fishery. These terms include “pole and line-caught,” “pole-caught”, “troll-caught”, “FAD-free”, “free school,” or “school-caught”.

They also list several brands in the United States that offer Best Choice (Green-Rated), Good Alternative (Yellow-Rabel), or Certified Seafood canned tuna. These include American Tuna, Fishing Vessel St. Jude, Ocean Naturals, Safe Catch, Wild Planet, and Whole Foods 365.

If there isn’t readily available information about the fishing method on the packaging, it’s a potential indicator that the tuna was not caught sustainably.

Making Sustainable Choices at a Restaurant:

Seafood Watch recently launched a restaurant partner program. They feature partner restaurants who commit to include at least one Best Choice (Green-Rated) seafood item on the menu. You can find nearby member restaurants on the interactive map located on the Seafood Watch website.

But what if you want to eat at one of the many restaurants that is not in the restaurant partner program?

The solution is easy: Just ask questions!

As I demonstrated above, all we needed to determine if supermarket salmon is sustainable was a species, location, and fishing/farming method. Restaurants generally know the basics regarding where their food is sourced from. Even knowing just the species and location could be enough to make informed choices.

Where Else Can I Buy Seafood?

Depending on your location, local seafood markets may be a good, sustainable choice. In the United States and Canada, local seafood markets can be found at localcatch.org.

Local seafood markets are also a good way to support your community and buy fresh, in-season seafood! Consuming locally-sourced seafood can reduce your carbon footprint by lessening or entirely negating emissions associated with packaging, processing, and transport.

Check out what exactly scientists look for when evaluating sustainability in part 2: What Makes Seafood Sustainable?

Three sea otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium laying out of the water on the ground. One has its paws over its mouth and is looking at the camera. One is facing away from the camera, and the other is shaking its head. All three have silver faces and dark bodies, and are splayed out on the ground. They are rolling in ice cubes. Pin It

If you made it this far, here’s a photo of three of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s sea otters hauled out on the rocky ground of their exhibit that I took when I visited in 2019! Visits to the MBA is what sparked my passion for marine biology as a child.

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