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Choosing hook and line-caught fish, also called line-caught or pole-caught, encourages demand for a sustainable, bycatch-free seafood market by avoiding harmful practices like trawling and netting.

Find it! Hook and line-caught fish

How to choose hook and line-caught fish

1. Retailers and restaurants that supply line-caught fish can be found by searching for a species or a particular fishery in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program or the Seafood Choices Alliance. If there aren't any near you, inform local stores/restaurants that you would like to see sustainable, line-caught fish offered.
2. Look for eco-labeling, such as the Marine Stewardship Council certification, which should ensure that your fish, line-caught or otherwise, came from a sustainable and non-destructive fishery.[1] You can also get seafood info while on the go with the Environmental Defense Fund's Seafood Selector To-Go! Also, research eco-labels to ensure that they are from independent sources.
3. Be aware that some types of longline fishing result in high-mortality bycatch for sharks when the lines are not checked regularly.[2] Also, other species of fish, sea turtles, and birds can can be caught with longline fishing.[3] Ask your supplier what their methods of seafood capture entail. For more information on longlines, see below.

Choosing hook and line-caught fish helps you go green because...

• The ecosystem which contains that particular species will remain intact, and biodiversity will not suffer as a result of bycatch from netting and trawling.
• Line-caught fish can easily be returned to the sea if they are too small to harvest, helping to sustain populations.

A problem with commercial fishing is the large amount of accidental bycatch, or incidental catching of fish and sea life not targeted by the fisherman. This occurs with non-selective fishing methods like trawling, purse-seine nets, and longlines, which are miles and miles of fishing line with hundreds of hooks.[4] Some or all of the bycatch may be returned to the sea, but at such a later point that it's often dead or dying.[5]

It's important to note that fish caught using longlines are also often sold under the more desirable term, "line-caught." This is made more confusing by the fact that some methods of fishing with longlines can be appropriate. The harmful method is the use of pelagic longlines, where fisherman hang their hooks near the ocean's surface which attracts a variety of open ocean swimmers, such as sea turtles, sharks and other fish, resulting in bycatch. Also, seabirds dive for the bait near the surface, and are then ensnared on the hooks and drown.[6]

Less harmful is demersal, or bottom, longline, where fisherman send the line and hooks near the bottom of the ocean to catch fish that aggregate there, such as cod or halibut. This method helps fishermen avoid the migratory paths of sea turtles and other species.[6]

Another example of detrimental fishing is the use of bottom trawlers. These large commercial fishing vessels employ weighted nets that destroy undersea habitat by scraping the ocean floor, threatening the biodiversity of ecosystems. In the cases of evolutionary and biodiversity hotspots like seamounts, many species are lost due to trawling before they can be studied or documented, as 40 percent of life on seamount is endemic to each mountain.[7] The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that one-fourth of the worldwide fishery catch is discarded every year as bycatch.[5]

Hook and line fishing is considered a more environmentally responsible method of fishing, as fisherman can quickly release unwanted catch.[6] By allowing a quicker release, this also limits overfishing, where fish are caught faster than they can reproduce, depleting ocean supply and affecting the whole marine ecosystem.[5]

Glossary

• bycatch: Also known as incidental catch, is the name for organisms caught that are not a vessel's "target-species," as well as reproductively immature juveniles of target species. Bycatch is often returned to the sea dead or dying, and can include fish, turtles, seabirds, marine mammals, whales, sharks, and dolphins. It is estimated that between 18 and 40 million tons of bycatch are discarded annually by commercial fishing vessels using non-selective fishing equipment like trawler nets, drift nets, and longlines.[8][9]
• trawlers: Commercial fishing vessels that drag large nets along the ocean floor to harvest bottom-dwelling species like shrimp, flounder, cod, and rockfishes. This practice destroys the ocean floor habitat and irreparably damages sedentary sea life such as corals, clearing miles in a single pass and creating a dead zone that may take centuries to rejuvenate.[10]

External links

• The New York Times - Other Fish to Fry
• Blue Ocean Institute's Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood