Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
The request: Write a letter/email to your local Trader Joe's and the national chain urging them to remove Orange Roughy from their freezers. Get everyone you know to write a letter. Avoid eating Orange Roughy yourself. Address, email, and letter for your use or alteration are below the fold. If you don't have a Trader Joe's near you write a letter anyway! Make sure to head over to Seafood Watch and make sure you are in compliance with your seafood consumption. Carry one of their handy lists in your wallet or purse.
The reason:I was totally dismayed to discover that one of my favorite grocery stores for organic goodies is still carrying Orange Roughy. This is sooo 1980's. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch lists Orange Roughy in the avoid list. DSN places it in the Avoid Or Will Put A Hit On Your Life category. Orange Roughy are a slow growing and long lived fish making them extremely vulnerable to overfishing. The filets that arrive at market are likely from fish 50+ years in age. Orange Roughy is caught by bottom trawling, particularly on seamounts where aggregations occur. Bottom trawling destroys the seafloor ecosystem including deep-water corals. Do you want to make Peter cry? Environmental Defense has also issued a health advisory for this fish due to high levels of mercury.
Our combined impact: Don't poison ourselves, help prevent the decimation of a deep-sea fish, and take away one more reason to scour the deep-sea floor with trawls.
Ongoing challenges:
1a. Sign up at this post
1b. Keep reading DSN and participating in the Just One Thing Challenge
2. Use no plastic grocery and shopping bags for the next week. Use, and purchase if necessary, reusable bags. Recycle all plastic bags around the house at a participating location.
People accepting the Just One Thing Challenge: 1. Craig McClain 2. Kevin Zelnio 3. Peter Etnoyer 4. Sheril K. 5. Mike G 6. Farne 7. Jim Lemire 8. Kiki 9. Fish Guy Dave 10. CK 11. Karen James 12. Merisea 13. Keely 14. tonyj 15. Traci 16. Mrs. Hillary Victoria Minor 17. Peter Mc 18. Tony D 19. Mary Aloyse Firestone 20. Miriam Goldstein 21.John 22. Judith in Ottawa 23. tjewell 24. Slim 25. Ashley 26. Silver 27. Steve W. 28. John Hill 29. Rachel 30. You?
The feedback form is here. A store list with addresses is here (pdf).
Dear Trader Joe's,
I am a long standing customer with your company and believe Trader's Joe's can continue to be an environmentally conscious company. I applaud your dedication to provide organic options and eco-friendly alternatives. I write this letter to strongly urge you to consider removing Orange Roughy from your freezer cases.
Orange Roughy is placed on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch avoid list. This species is both slow growing and long lived making them extremely vulnerable to overfishing. The filets that arrive at market often come from fish fifty years of age or older. Additionally, the species is harvested by bottom trawling destroying fragile deep-sea ecosystems including deep-water coral reefs. Currently, international initiatives, including one among members of the European Union, to ban this fishing practice are underway. Orange Roughy may also pose a considerable health risk. Recently, Environmental Defense has issued a health advisory for this fish due to high levels of mercury.
By selling Orange Roughy, I feel that Trader Joe's diminishes its reputation of forward ecological initiatives and global responsibility. We urge our "Neighborhood Grocery Store" to act globally.
Thank you for your consideration.
Best regards,
(insert your name and contact info here).
Environment
Comments
Sadly, very sadly, there is no Trader Joe's in the UK. There are, however, plenty of supermarket chains who claim to be all shiny and green but are still selling some serious no-no's on their seafood shelves (Karen James, personal outraged communication). For a long while there weren't any pocket guides like the exemplary Seafood Watch list but tailored for the European consumer. This is an important difference, since the same species of fish in European markets often comes from different regional fisheries with different sustainability factors. But now, and I think Charlie Clover's book "End of the Line" had something to do with this, there's a new online guide for the northeast Atlantic called Fishonline:
http://www.fishonline.org/
Which produces its own pocket guide called the MCS Good Fish Guide (PDF):
http://www.fishonline.org/information/MCSPocket_Good_Fish_Guide.pdf
We have the Marine Conservation Society (UK) to thank for this development, so click over and have a gander:
http://www.mcsuk.org/
Posted by: Karen James | February 10, 2008 10:29 AM
Check out my blog response:
http://thebeagleproject.blogspot.com/2008/02/deep-sea-news-just-one-thing-challenge.html
By the way, what happened to the comment that I left yesterday? Cyber-gremlins perhaps?
Posted by: Karen James | February 11, 2008 4:33 AM
Thanks for caring about your seafood choices. A number of countries have sustainable seafood guides. Seafood Watch has just posted this listing of seafood guides around the world http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_resources.asp
If anyone knows of any others, we'd love to hear of them!
Posted by: Alison Barrratt | February 11, 2008 8:43 AM
Thanks Karen and Allison for keeping us abreast of this information!
Posted by: kevin z | February 11, 2008 9:13 AM
Hey, no fair, making us actually interact with people! Someone might see what I did and think I'm some kind of wierdo! Oh... Too late for that. Off goes my correspondence.
I wasn't aware of that one, thanks for the pointer. Learn something new every day, eh? I'll be sure to pick on my brother, though, he's one of those novelty carnivores. (as in, the weirder it is, the better it must taste!)
Posted by: John | February 11, 2008 9:57 PM
So i want to ask where does this project stand on the use of Paper bags. I tend to get paper which i then re-use or recycle. I should use more canvas i know but the paper bags are pretty perfect for sorting and carrying my recycling. Which i have to do since I live in one of the non blue bin parts of chicago so i carry it in to a quasi-independent recycling center.
So what's the word?
Posted by: David | February 12, 2008 11:07 AM
To quote
My mind is that plastic is probably worse (marginally?) because the impact is two-fold consumption of fossil fuels/increased carbon emissions and the fact that plastic is not biodegradable. I understand the dilemma completely. Why not try one of the biobags or I just found some biodegradable bags at Wal-Mart (surprisingly).Posted by: CR McClain | February 12, 2008 11:19 AM
#3 done, sir!
Posted by: slim | February 13, 2008 9:37 AM
This is the letter I sent. Anyone can feel free to take from it what they will!
I'm ready for the next challenge!
Posted by: kevin Z | February 13, 2008 1:01 PM
Um. This was the reply I got back. I'm not even sure this is a reply to my letter, actually. (Organizations such as these?? Using symbols? MSC? Wha-huh? I have no idea what she's talking about.)
I hope this helps!
Marci
Trader Joe's Customer Relations
Posted by: Sanguinity | February 14, 2008 10:07 AM
And my reply back, after having spent an hour researching, trying to figure out what she thought she was replying to...
Posted by: Sanguinity | February 14, 2008 11:08 AM
I received the same unsatisfying response as Sanguinity. Any response Sanguinity on your second email. Any body else receive a reply? Well, what to do? Keep sending letters and emails! I just send my second. I also contacted Seafood watch at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see what further we can do with their potential help and weight.
Craig
Posted by: CR McClain | February 18, 2008 12:48 PM
I used Trader Joes web submission form.
Posted by: Kevin Z | February 18, 2008 1:59 PM
I used the TJ's form too. I expect the same initial response, but if we keep this up, maybe they'll "get it" sooner than later.
Thanks for posting this challenge.
Posted by: ~summer~ | February 22, 2008 10:53 AM
Here's the response I got, which is different than the responses above:
Posted by: ~summer~ | February 22, 2008 4:29 PM