As we were gearing up for the next PDXSeafood season (hiring new interns and planning our outreach activities) we came across Oceana’s new by-catch report. It’s pretty alarming and the estimates for US by-catch is sobering to say the least:
United States fisheries discard about 17 percent to 22 percent of everything they catch every year. That amounts to a whopping 2 billion pounds of annual by-catch
They also report that these numbers are likely underestimates of the actual by-catch as most is discarded prior to being reported in port and only included data for 1/3 of US fisheries. We hope that as you read through the report you remember our program and others like it that are trying to effect change immediately through YOU, the consumers of seafood. Help spread the word and get your local restaurant on board with our program!
-Meg
