Ordering seafood tonight? Think twice about having the grouper.
Twenty of 162 grouper species are potentially threatened with
extinction, according to the first comprehensive assessment of
the fish, released this month. The groupers decline is driven by
a lack of proper fisheries management and by overfishing both
fueled by our appetite for the fish. Overfishing Weakens Job,
Food Security Consumers pay as much as $50 per kilogram for
grouper, but the true cost will be much greater if we harvest
them until there are none left to eat. The declining fish
populations that result from unsustainable fishing can threaten
food security, especially in Southeast Asia, where 1 billion
people rely on fish as their primary protein source. As North
American cod fishermen have already experienced, job security is
also a concern. Overfishing could decimate another major food
and economic resource for humans, similar to the loss of the cod
stocks off New England and Canada that has put thousands of
people out of work, says Ro