Who Needs Chinook Anyway?

Normally we’re enjoying wild California and Oregon salmon this time of year, but urban development, dams, and water diversion for agriculture have contributed to the depletion of Coho and Chinook salmon stocks and made some salmon runs extinct. Salmon faithfully return to the rivers where they were born, making them both highly dependent on specific freshwater areas and susceptible to population crashes due to loss of their habitat. The remaining stocks are more vulnerable to fishing pressure and ocean changes such as warmer sea temperatures. Most of these alterations, I have to point out, are a result of human influences.

Researching fine points about fresh versus frozen salmon, I talked to Paul Johnson from Monterey Fish Market this week. Chef, cookbook author, and fishmonger to the finest restaurants in the SF Bay Area, Paul sits on the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Advisory Board (as do I). In his view, the only advantage to the current situation is that consumers may try previously less well-known sockeye and pink salmon. The Vancouver Aquarium's Ocean Wise program is even declaring “Pink is the New Green.” Paul points out that these two species represent 95 percent of the well-managed Alaska fishery and have the added advantage of very low contaminant levels.

The average American adult consumes about 16 pounds of seafood annually: approximately ¼ shrimp, ¼ tuna, and ¼ salmon. Losing otherwise sustainable species to man-made environmental threats is tragic, for fishing communities as well as our food supply, but hopefully we can use “opportunities” like this to question our routinized eating habits and diversify healthy alternatives.

-Helene York, Director of the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation