No fish for YOU!
Posted on 09/11/2009 9:15:22 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
(McDonald’s buys millions of pounds of hoki each year for Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. Now, conservationists say the New Zealand fish is being depleted.)
Ever wonder what kind of fish end up in a Filet-O-Fish sandwich? The answer is usually hoki, a bug-eyed sea creature found deep in the Pacific waters of New Zealand.
But it turns out that exporting millions of pounds of the fish each year -- McDonald’s alone at one time used 15 million pounds annually -- is depleting the hoki supply and pitting conservationists against commercial interests.
“We have major concerns,” said Peter Trott, the fisheries program manager in Australia for the World Wildlife Fund. In addition to population declines and ecosystem damage, he cited the accidental killing of other species, including skates and sharks. Managers let the fishing industry “get as much as it can from the resource without alarm bells ringing.”
Industrial fishing is no stranger to regulations designed to protect species that have been overfished, such as red snapper, monkfish and tuna. But for years, fishing for hoki was thought to be safe.
In fact, hoki’s commercial popularity coincided with the over-harvesting of another deepwater fish, the orange roughy, in the early 1990s. Hoki, which can grow up to four feet long, became a popular replacement. Its 25-year lifespan and quick pace of reproduction promised sustainable harvests. McDonald’s, Denny’s and Long John Silver’s became repeat customers, SeaFood Business, a trade publication, reported in 2001.
At first, the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries set high fishing quotas of roughly 275,000 tons a year, from 1996 to 2001. And restaurant fish buyers saw the fish with new eyes after 2001, when hoki won certification from the Marine Stewardship Council.
But signs of overfishing and a decline in hoki spawns came quickly.
So far, New Zealand has not formally acknowledged that hoki are being overfished. But it has cut its quotas from 275,000 tons in 2000 and 2001 to 100,000 tons in 2007 and 2008.
In 2007, when the matter came up before the stewardship council, which was deciding whether to recertify hoki fishery as sustainable and well managed, ecological groups spoke out. The World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C., opposed recertification, saying: “The impacts of bottom trawling by the hoki fishery must be reduced.”
The fund was overruled, but as New Zealand cut back its fishing quotas, restaurants cut back, too.
Now, Yum Brands, which owns Long John Silver’s, does not use hoki, a departure from a company report that previously praised the fish as “certified sustainable.” Denny’s only serves hoki in New Zealand.
As for McDonald’s, home of the Filet-O-Fish, hoki use was slashed to 11 million pounds annually from 15 million pounds as the company tried to mind the fish supply. The fast food chain also uses other whitefish for the sandwich.
New Zealand’s Ministry of Fisheries believes hoki are coming back. “If you look at the current state of the fishery, it’s apparent that the string of management actions that we’ve taken, which came at severe economic impact, have been effective,” Aoife Martin, manager of deepwater fishers, recently said.
But not everyone agrees. A New York-based conservation group called Blue Ocean Institute says the fish is less abundant overall and that hoki fishing “takes significant quantities of seabirds and fur seals.”
No fish for YOU!
That was OK, there was probably too much mercury in these fish anyway.
Hou about turning to Tilapia as a source of fish sticks? These are widely used in the southeast part of Asia, and can be raised in aquaculture ponds, reather like catfish, but cleaner.
They can be made into filets. Or maybe we can go back to chickens.
I guess the only way to please these idiots is for people to start eating grass and seeds.
Hoki Smokes Bullwinkle!
How many hoki does it take to make a fillet-O-fish?...They look small...
mmmmm.....bug-eyed sea creatures!
I'm sure there is some group somewhere that protests the enslavement of grass for human's lawns. Eating grass would undoubtedly provoke a "Save the Sod" campaign. :)
“The fast food chain also uses other whitefish for the sandwich.”...
That’s racist!.....
Hoki, which can grow up to four feet long
How about finding a way to use carp?
Old Wendy’s commercial: “How do square fish swim?”
I love a fish sandwich, but McDodo’s is the WORST fish sandwich on the planet!
There’s fish in there? I thought it was just fried crust
LOL...When I was an altar boy we had a priest who used to joke during Lent that McDonald's filets were acceptable fare for days that Catholics weren't supposed to eat fish.
You forgot the processed cheese product and McSauce
Their fish reminds me of what they used to serve us in the dorm in college - a friend would try to peel back the crust to only eat the fish and we used to laugh at her for the wasted effort...
Fish Sandwich:
Who could blame her?
Fillet O Fish is made from Alaskan pollock as well.
There is plenty of pollock and it is well managed.
We have a lake in our subdivision and I often see hoodrats out there fishing, even though it is posted residents only...but with the price of fish lately, I’ve actually considered getting a fishing license. But ick, cleaning them would be gross
They are easy to clean
My Lobster Roll..
I guess it’s just a matter of taste. I like them.
The last one I bought looked just like the pic in #20 and tasted worse.
Do they ever change the oil at McDonald?
Really! If I'm going to consume 500 calories that will magically go straight to my butt, I'm havin' a Lobster Roll!
Those look good - I make a pretty good crab stuffed portabella mushroom...
I like the sauce. Maybe different Mcdonald’s cook theirs different. I remember one time, my son & I were driving through Kentucky and stopped at a Burger King off the interstate. He ordered a chocolate milk shake as did another man ahead of us. The other man told the girl behind the counter that his milkshake tasted funny, like BBQ sauce. Stupidly, I asked my son to take a sip of his milkshake to see how it tasted. He concurred. Turns out, whoever was responsible for putting the containers of BBQ sauce and chocolate syrup in their right places, put a container of BBQ sauce in the milkshake machine. I wondered if the burgers tasted like chocolate that day.
L0L!
Yum!
That’s a pretty funny story!
“How about finding a way to use carp?”
Rearange 2 letters in it’s name and you’ll know why it isn’t fit to eat!
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