You Be the Ethicist: Is Kieran Driving Canadian Cod to Extinction?
I have a review coming out on Cooper, Kieran Folliard’s new St. Louis Park pub, in our January issue. One question I didn’t address in the review, however, was this: Is The Local, The Liffey, Cooper, and Kieran’s part of the problem in driving north Atlantic Cod to extinction?
I ask this because about two out of three people at one of Folliard’s incredibly popular pubs seem to order the fish & chips; if you specify traditional cod for your fish (instead of walleye or shrimp), you get north Atlantic cod fished from Canada. This is purely an educated guess, but I’d presume that Kieran’s various pubs combined have to be one of the biggest cod markets in the Twin Cities.
So, let’s talk Canadian cod. Now, as anyone with an iPhone can tell you, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch seriously frowns on Canadian cod, writing in their guide: “Avoid Atlantic cod from North America. Decades of severe overfishing has resulted in massive population declines. Scientists agree that we’re now fishing the last 10% of this population and that the population may never fully recover.”
However! Does the debate end there? I pressed Kieran Folliard about his cod supplier and he explained that while it’s part of his core mission to provide affordable food to people (and that’s why he buys Canadian cod), he never wants to be part of a fish’s extinction, so he has made this clear to his supplier, and thus he only buys environmentally appropriate sustainable cod. (We’ll leave aside the price point here, noting that Cooper’s Canadian cod costs $11.99, versus The Anchor Fish & Chips’ inarguably sustainable Pacific cod, which sells for $8.50.) To prove his point, Kieran even supplied an e-mail he got from his fish supplier, the Canadian company Ocean Choice International LP, vouching for that company’s environmental stewardship. I’ll reprint it in full here:
“Our company participates in the collection of marine data for further scientific and development with our local government and we will move towards MSC certification when it becomes available to us. We currently have MSC certification for Ice Shrimp (we are the largest supplier in Canada of this and product about 16 percent of the world’s supply) and yellowtail flounder (our largest species) is going through the MSC certification process at the moment and within a few months expect to be awarded that. We are also moving ahead with crab and lobster and we expect the be the largest MSC Certified supplier in Canada by the end of 2010. We take sustainability very seriously. If you google MSC and Fishing companies in Canada, you will see reports in there with our name and what we do.
The other thing I can tell you is that we own 18 plants, 9 vessels and place great importance on quality and sustainability and the ability to trace product. We have been doing a high volume of business in Europe and Asia for many years and the European community is very big on this. Each case of product produced has a code date, vessel number, time processed etc to ensure safety and quality standards are at the very best. We do not purchase products from other seafood suppliers without consent of our customers. The cod you are buying is fished and processed by us in Canada only and once frozen only.”
So, Kieran Folliard feels he is doing the right thing.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace spent last summer making trouble up in Canada with their billboard campaign announcing, “There probably is no cod.”
Of course one takes Greenpeace with a grain of salt, but I put it here because the scientifically minded may want to click through to their supporting research, like reports from the Canadian Fisheries arm of the Canadian government. (Anyone wondering why—if cod are so endangered—Canadians don’t simply outlaw catching them is encouraged to read this depressing article from Canadian Geographic.)
As I mentioned a long time ago, you won’t see this debate about Canadian cod in my review of Cooper, because it got too complicated for my pea-sized brain, and I couldn’t make it fit into the review. So, I am turning to you, because over the years I have realized that many of you are better and more complexly educated on these topics than I am. So, please, won’t you be my ethicist? The questions on parade seem to be:
Is it right for Kieran to serve Canadian cod?
Should a restaurant-buyer take a supplier on their word? When and when not?
Is it more ethical to buy from Ocean Choice and pressure them to be sustainable, or is it more ethical to drop them and buy from someone who is?
If Kieran stops being an Ocean Choice customer who puts pressure on them to change, is he then responsible for the destruction that will happen as Ocean Choice serves less discerning customers who will, presumably, pay less, thus forcing Ocean Choice to fish every last fish out of the Atlantic in their effort to make up in volume what they lose in price?
Is it right for you to eat Canadian cod?
Do you care?
Any input will be gratefully received. Thanks!
Posted on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 in Permalink
Comments may be edited for length, clarity, or appropriateness.
Reader Comments:
Is there a responsible way to fish a collapsed population? I understand that the fishery would want to cast their activities in the most flattering of lights, but we're talking about one of the (according to Monterey Bay) "world’s largest and most reliable fisheries" dropping to nearly nothing in a very short span of time.
This is happening with large fish populations all over the world - sea bass, tuna, salmon - and the response has been a big yawn. A few companies will make noise about being sustainable, but every year these fish populations plummet. There is literally no sustainable way to reduce a population headed towards extinction. It's a logical impossibility.
So, here's my take on it: if you sell or eat an endangered animal of any kind, you are contributing to the extinction of that species. Fish are not cute or cuddly, so put it this way - would you eat a delicious tiger or panda steak, even if the guy who sold it to you gave you a line about how 'sustainably' it was harvested? It's an absurd question, right?
And because we're talking about food, which is (for me, at least) an emotional topic, let's talk about the cost in personal terms. Not eating Atlantic cod means you will have to choose something else on the menu. That's it. There may be a brief period of angst, which I completely understand. I'm still anguished when passing over my favorite pieces of sushi. But life is full of these sorts of decisions, where you, as an adult, must make the responsible choice. And in the grand scheme of things, this is not one of the more complicated ones.
Thanks! I really like your point about there being no sustainable way to reduce a population headed towards extinction; good point well put. And appreciated...
Sorry, but the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program is full of generalizations. Take Atlantic Salmon, for instance. There are some very good options out there for "farmed" salmon but they just put out a blanket statement and say it's all bad. That being said, Ocean Choice did not specifically address cod in their email...
@PBrazelton - salmon are not endangered, FYI.
@Pincone
Please read: http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/issues_salmon.shtml
Wild salmon are under tremendous pressure in nearly all habitats. In some, the populations have completely collapsed. Many of the Alaskan runs are collapsing as well, leaving the last bastion of the North American wild salmon at risk.
Increased pressures on Asian populations due to the caviar trade and the worldwide shift away from North American fisheries have been disastrous as well.
Dara, sorry for hijacking your post a bit, but this is an urgent issue I feel passionate about.
Hijack away! It's all very interesting. I didn't realize that about Alaskan salmon, I've been living under the impression that Alaska was well-managed and doing fine....Disturbing.
The link above is regarding the Columbia River, not Alaska. Alaska fisheries are indeed very well-managed (in general). The press release is regarding loss of habitat for spawning - not the endangerment of species. The only one close is Atlantic Salmon, which is no longer commercially fished (which is why it is farmed). But the others - King/Chinook, Sockeye/Red, Coho, Chum/Keta, etc. are doing fine!
@Pincone
You can define 'endangered' however you like, but if it's listed under the ESA as endangered, I would consider it so. If your original assertion was "salmon are not endangered... in Alaska" then you're mostly correct. The Chinook is listed as a species of concern in them parts. For the rest of us:
http://www.nwr.noaa.gov/ESA-Salmon-Listings/upload/snapshot-7-09.pdf
This does not look like a list of species 'doing fine', does it?
@Dara
Alaskan fisheries are well managed. Their losses are collateral damage from the inability of the Western coastal states and British Columbia to manage their stocks. I totally overplayed the Alaska angle with 'many' - conflating the looming threat of the Pebble mine with a current existential threat.
The big picture here is that salmon are not in danger of extinction and neither is cod. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) defines "species" very broadly (http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/glossary.htm#species) and in the anecdotes mentioned by PBrazelton, they are referring to a distinct population segment (DPS) - meaning, for instance, the "Upper Columbia River Spring-run" Chinook salmon. Heck, you can find white-tailed deer listed in the ESA.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up the NOAA listing for Atlantic cod and apparently cod is overfished in Georges Bank but not in the Gulf of Maine. It also mentions the population decline in the North Atlantic may be due to the effects of climate change - so I'm guessing Kieran Folliard can sleep well tonight but might want to consider switching suppliers for the cost savings if nothing else.
Just to clarify one aspect of your post: the Canadian Geographic article is quite old, from 1997. Not that the political pressures will have changed much, but the details have.