Herring, Baltic Sea cod and sprat: “Second choice” or “better not”? The WWF warns against eating certain Baltic Sea fish.
Berlin – The herring roll – with remoulade, lettuce, cucumber, onions and a nice piece of fish – is part of the fair and the lunch break. But the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) warns: Some species of Baltic Sea fish should no longer be consumed. In a fish guide, the nature and animal protection organization examined the state of fish stocks, the environmental impacts and the management of fisheries and aquacultures worldwide and introduced a traffic light system. Overall, the situation in the Baltic Sea is “worrying,” he said NDR reported alongside the fish guide.
“Green” stands for “good choice”, yellow for “second choice”, red for “better not” – im WWF fish guide you can see at a glance which fish can be eaten and which should not end up on the plate. The reasons for the consumption warning are overfishing or the disappearance of species due to changing climate conditions, or fishing methods that harm the ecosystem. The topic is not new: conservationists have been sounding the alarm for a long time because of declining fish stocks.
Baltic Sea herring “better not”: That’s why the WWF warns against consumption
“In the western and central Baltic Sea, the biomass of the spawning stock has been showing a declining trend for a long time,” writes the WWF about the herring that is caught from the southern and western Baltic Sea. In other words: stay away, because herring is of fundamental importance for the food structure in the oceans.
What do the names FAO and ICES mean?
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) divides the world’s oceans into 19 fishing areas, which are numbered consecutively. They extend over huge regions – like FAO 27, which delimits the northeast Atlantic and extends from Greenland to Portuguese waters, divided into sub-regions. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) deals with fisheries issues in the Northeast Atlantic and, among other things, sets fishing quotas in smaller sub-areas. (Source: FAO and Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food)
The good news for herring lovers: Herrings from the following fishing area have received the green light and can therefore continue to be consumed: Northeast Atlantic FAO 27: Skagerrak and Kattegat (ICES 3.a), North Sea (ICES 4), Eastern English Channel (ICES 7.d ), Irish Sea (ICES 7.a North), Gulf of Riga (ICES 28.1), Iceland (ICES 5.a). And there are also already in the Baltic Sea encouraging developments in terms of stocks.
Baltic sea cod and sprat: On the red list and overfished
Red and yellow traffic lights from the WWF for cod or cod: stocks in the western and central Baltic Sea are overfished, the eastern cod is heavily overfished. According to WWF estimates, he will have “difficulty recovering without drastic measures.” In addition, the cod is caught using a bottom trawl net, which can cause serious damage to the ecosystem.
Yellow traffic light also for the sprat from the Baltic Sea, which is very popular with many fish lovers: The fishing methods here are not a danger to other animal species or entire ecosystems, and the sprats are short-lived with many offspring and therefore rather insensitive to fishing pressure. Nevertheless: the catch quota in the Baltic Sea is still too high. A Baltic Sea insider tip: “Never seen such a beautiful beach.” (kat)
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