Ted Danson Hopes Jellyfish Burgers Aren't On 'The End Of The Line'
Ted Danson narrates a new documentary that reveals an inconvenient truth about our love affair with seafood: if unsustainable fishing practices continue, we could see the collapse of the world's fisheries as early as 2048.
'The End of the Line' takes aim at fish wholesalers and restaurant chains, such as celebrity haunt Nobu, that serve the most troubled species, including bluefin tuna and certain types of cod. Some businesses are already responding. A world without sushi-grade tuna sounds grim and is already becoming a reality for some Japanese chefs, who are experimenting with less appetizing terrestrial substitutes.
No need to remodel your diet in the image of Jeremy Piven's: it's still possible to enjoy fish responsibly. Choosing sustainable seafood can be tricky, but Danson urges consumers to avoid buying large, overharvested species and farm-raised carnivorous fish and to look for the Marine Stewardship Council certification label on seafood products at the grocery store.
Danson, who founded the international ocean conservation group Oceana, recently told the Huffington Post over email about his crusade to reform marine policies and rebuild the world's rapidly deteriorating fish populations.
On his own fish-eating veganism:
I make my decisions on eating based on both health and sustainability concerns. Oceana's mission isn't to prevent people from eating fish - quite the opposite. We want to ensure that our grandchildren will inherit a healthy and bountiful ocean.
On help from his Hollywood friends:
January Jones recently signed on to become a spokesperson for Oceana's campaign to save sharks. She went to Bimini and filmed a PSA at a shark research lab. Kate Walsh is going to help our campaign to help protect Sea Turtles (all species in US waters are currently listed as threatened and or endangered with extinction in part because of pressure from commercial fishing). Amber Valletta has helped with our campaign to get grocery stores to post mercury warning signs, and Adrian Grenier has signed on to help us this fall.
On the relationship between overfishing and pirate attacks:
Before the large nations of Europe and Asia started sending industrial fishing ships, western Africa was home to one of the most biodiverse marine environments in the world. Now the fish populations are a shadow of what they once were, and local fishermen are unable to catch fish to sell and feed their families. Overfishing absolutely contributes to hunger and poverty. Recent accounts even reported that the Somali pirates in the news recently may have been out-of-work fishermen.
On what seafood dishes might look like in a few decades:
I'm afraid we'll be reduced to eating jellyfish burgers and plankton stew. Seriously, scientists and even the United Nation all say that the trends are in the wrong direction if we don't change what we're doing. So time is not on our side - but the good news is that fish populations are pretty resilient. If given a chance, they will recover.
'The End of the Line' premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It was released in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and will expand to other markets this summer.
WATCH the trailer:
WATCH Ted Danson talk about the movie.
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Grossly polluted, overfished to the point of near collapse of many fish stocks, and home to giant "dead zones" incapable of sustaining life, the oceans are in a state of dire threat.
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Apart from an unexpected comeback of cod stocks in the Baltic Sea, it's hard to find good news about our oceans this year, and bottom trawlers and population pressures on Earth are not helping.
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2048? Is that when the very last vertebrate in the ocean gets eaten? I think fisheries are collapsing a lot sooner than that.
See Olivia Rosewood's Profile
While I was pregnant, my OBGYN told me that the American Medical Association recommends no seafood for pregnant women due to the unregulated levels of heavy metals found in most fish (which can cause permanent damage to a developing baby). This seems like a huge problem, not only for pregnant women and children who are dealing with developing nervous systems, but all people. Is there a way to clean the sea of heavy metal pollutants?
I'll touch the overpopulation problem. We need close to zero population growth now. We have way too many people to feed and house. There won't be anymore land!
BIRTH CONTROL, people.
What about Capt. Sig and the Hansen boys on the Cornelia Marie? What are THEY gonna do.......s
The fishing shows on TV always talk about harvesting the sea but don't you have to plant something to have a harvest?
Greed in all it's forms is destroying this country and the planet.
The human species as a whole is too stupid to survive itself.
Agreed. I'd love to see the planet shake us off and try something else.
I worked for Whole Foods for a while. There were really good people there and employees were treated very well, however I had to leave. Though their core values are admirable, their philosophy about "abundance" is just plain wrong. The spoilage and wastegenerated at WF is beyond unbelievable and most of it is driven by their "abundance metric". The waste actually made me ill.
Again, WF does a lot of good for their local communities and some third world farmers, but good intentions do not always lead to good results. Their fish departments are not what one thinks they are. They could be a positive force for change, but remove the dressing and you still have a big box food store.
After working at WF , I buy very,very little there. Find local markets and support them. Also, if you know what you're looking for you can find the exact SAME thing alot cheaper at the main stream markets.( ie, org. eggs $.50 cheaper and org milk $.60 cheaper, same olives from the same distributor, cheaper) It takes a little more effort , but it helps keeping good food costs down. The age of abundance is over.
I teach freediving here in Kona and anything that anyone can do to raise awareness about the poor health of our seas and the fish and food in it deserves a lot of support. This is so critical. I swim with all manner of sea critters, from the smallest and cutest to the biggest and spookiest. Since the economic downturn the local people have been taking turtles and other "protected" species and the counts of edible reef fish are decliing noticeably in the bay I train in.
On a larger scale many of the larger game fish are on the decline, they either aren't as numerous or are no longer a viable target for fisherman. Fewer full grown adults are found, more intermediate sizes are being taken... its getting bad.... and on top of it the mercury contamination makes eating large apex predators of any species less acceptable. you can only eat six to twelve ounces of fish per WEEK of many species as it is...
We can argue about global warming but there is no argument about the sea. We should consider full moratoriums on major food species and full bans on drift nets and other indiscriminate methods...
2048. I'll be gone by then. Mmmmm seared ahi tuna marinated in sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, green onion, and lime juice on a bed a fresh baby greens sounds good tonight. Thanks, Ted.
That's really sweet of you.
Do you have kids? Do you plan to have grandkids?
Mmmm grandkids, sounds like about all we'll have to eat in 2048 if we aren't careful.
Go watch this.
http://www
The only thing that could interfere with Danson getting the message out would be if industry lobbyists collaborated with right-wing messagers and a somnambulent media.
Luckily, that could never happen... right?
RIGHT?!?
YAY! I am so pleased to see a major documentary about this. This has been a passion of mine for years, but I am a nobody. And my family still rolls their eyes at me when I talk about responsible fish eating. It's time the American public, or parts of it, learns about over fishing and what it is doing to our planet.
And PLEASE do not eat farmed salmon (tilapia and catfish are two species that you can eat farmed worry free) or shrimp. Shrimp farming in Thailand is ruining their environment and economy. And farmed salmon comes with a whole host of problems. Please visit the Marine Stewardship Council's website: msc.org. It gives you a run down on the good fish and the "evil" (to quote Bill Maher) fish.
2048? i dunno if we have that long, ted. in about 2004, i read of the Pew Commission report for the US navy on the topic of large sea life. the pew commission researched and gathered reportage from navy study worldwide.
i have also recently read that in the world's most fertile and needed fishing regions, that 75% of everything is just plain gone from overfishing and pollutants. at this rate, whether or not gluttonous humans have their dolphin-killing driftnetted tunafish sandwiches is the least of concerns. to hell with an insanely overpopulated and evilly exploitative humanity, albeit grotesquely mismanaged – the 6th great extinction, which catastrophe is now all around us, is the first extinction caused entirely by one errant species. if there were a biological court, our species would now stand convicted of massive crimes against life on earth. truth is that since the european project began the destruction of everything in its continuing imperial colonial resource theft, drastically increased since the industrial revolution
albert grosvenor IV, the 4th generation publisher of the national geographic, wrote in an editorial therein, "with the ascendancy of the corporate state, nature has become a business warehouse in the process of a liquidation sale."
bucky fuller said the earth could handle maybe 10billion people (2035), IF WE HAD GOOD MANAGEMENT. noticed any good management recently?
with the ascendancy of the corporate state, nature has become a business warehouse in the process of a liquidation sale."
great quote
Until we address the population problem nothing we do is going to have a measurable effect.. There are too many people right now for this planet to support and the population is growing by leaps and bounds every single day. It's long past time to get the birth rate under control.
agreed. there's just too many of us for continued sustainability. but for some reason nobody has the balls to touch that topic.
You are so right. I sound like a right wing freak when I go on and on about babies as fashion accessories, entertainment, and power ploys- but the paradigm for reproduction has to be discussed and explored, and sane, secure people have to start being honest about profound subjects, like the meaning of life and the continuation of the human race.
It takes major balls - listen to us?!!! - Maybe that's the crux of the problem right there....
Vegan is the way to go....we really live so selfishly in this country. It's not like all the seafood and meat and general flesh eating is keeping people healthy- the US is the fattest nation in the world.
Agree!!!
Some of my favorite side dishes are vegetarian.
Mmmm, plankton.
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