Thoughts on Seaspiracy….April 2021

If anyone has been watching Netflix and happened to catch the new movie Seaspiracy, we wanted to assure you that you don’t need to stop eating local seafood if you care about the environment and the ocean. Quite the opposite really.

If you did watch or have just seen the trailer or any of the online buzz, it is probably no surprise that as commercial fishermen, we have a few issues with the film. We understand the film makers are Vegan activists and support their rights to promote their agenda and to explore and expose illegal fishing practices around the world. However, painting all commercial fishing with one brush and suggesting that giving up seafood is the answer to ocean health is unfair, unreasonable and misleading.

Did you notice that the movie did not feature any fisheries taking place in United States waters and certainly not here in California? No surprise there, our domestic fisheries are managed in a way that isn’t dramatic or made for TV. They are managed under a complex and regional Council system that allows regulators, scientists, and stakeholders to work together. Our local Federal fisheries are managed by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, and all of us at Morning Star have been involved in the process for many years.

We understand that factory trawling was one of the big villains of the Seaspiracy movie, and we actually agree that the kind of industrial, indiscriminate and unmanaged factory trawling that was shown is terrible. But that is not us.

We are not factory trawlers, we are serious businesses with serious vessels, but we are small family operations, using light touch gear, short times on the ocean floor, and fishing only in areas that have no risk of damage to ocean habitats. We catch the “groundfish” species like Rockfish and Petrale that we offer, under the West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program which is literally the most regulated fishery in the world!

The Mr Morgan and the Miss Moriah are the only two local vessels fishing for these species with this level of regulation and oversight. Just one example is that we are required to be 200% accountable for every pound of fish we interact with. Yes, 200%. No other fishery, including other local fisheries, have this level of accountability. When we leave the dock, we have a human observer, or a camera system with multiple cameras watching 100% of our fishing activity. When we get into port, we have a human observer on the pier that monitors every pound as it comes off of the boat. This is every fishing trip, 100% of the time.  

In addition, Morning Star owners are founding members of the California Groundfish Collective which takes sustainability and environmental protection to a new level.

We just wanted you to know that you can feel good about eating Morning Star Fish, and if you can’t get ours, eat local if you can, and stick to domestically harvested products when looking for species that aren’t harvested locally like shrimp. Maybe we should thank the makers of Seaspiracy because it prompted us to share a little more about the fishing practices, we are so proud of. You can find more on our website, and we are always here if you have questions.