Millions of U.S. seafood meals regularly dumped in sea
By Alastair Bland, NPR
Seafood often travels huge distances over many days to reach the people who eat it. And it’s often impossible to know where a fillet of fish or a few frozen shrimp came from — and, perhaps more important, just how they were caught.
Fortunately, activists are doing the homework for us, and what they’re telling us could make your next fish dinner a little less tasty.
According to a report released Thursday by the environmental group Oceana, commercial fishermen in the U.S. annually throw overboard as much as 2 billion pounds of so-called bycatch, much of which is edible fish equivalent at least half a billion seafood meals. Incredibly, much of this waste includes some of the most valuable — and delectable — seafood species in the world, like bluefin tuna, swordfish and Pacific halibut.