Whales, Storms Peril Bass

“Patagonian toothfish” is not a name to fire your appetite, so about 15 years ago, it was changed to “Chilean sea bass” for the American market. It worked too well.

Today, Chilean sea bass has become so popular that in some areas it has been fished to the brink of extinction. As a result, several countries in the Southern Hemisphere have banded together to enforce fishing regulations on the species.

The success of those efforts, combined with stormy winters, has driven the price of the fish to new highs. At some markets, Chilean sea bass was selling for more than $16 a pound this week. Even so, one seafood insider says, both wholesalers and retailers are doing little more than breaking even at that price.

The Chilean sea bass is not a sea bass. It is a deep-water fish of the genus Dissostichus that lives to an age of 50 years and swims at depths of more than two miles. Nor is it exclusive to Chile. The fish is caught throughout the extreme Southern Hemisphere, including the Antarctic Sea.

Until the mid-’80s, it was tossed over the side on the rare occasions it was landed. Then chefs caught on to its charms. It’s high in fat, so it’s almost impossible to overcook. More important, says Doug Harbison of Harbison Seafoods, a leading importer of the fish, “it fills the requirements Americans have for seafood: It’s white, it doesn’t smell and it doesn’t have any flavor.”

So popular did the fish become that it spawned an entire industry of “pirate” fishermen--unlicensed by any nation but landing primarily in Namibia and Mauritius--who have fished with abandon. So prolific is this uncontrolled fishing that experts estimate up to 80% of the Chilean sea bass caught in some areas is coming from illegal boats.

Last month, New Zealand dispatched a warship to patrol the Antarctic and enforce fishery regulations. That, along with similar efforts by other countries, has succeeded in putting a crimp in the supply of frozen sea bass (almost all of the illegal fish is frozen).

At the same time, this has been a particularly rough year for weather in the Southern Hemisphere. Fishing boats--even the legal ones--have not been able to get out to the fishing grounds to do their work. That has pushed the fresh market price even higher.

“The price has skyrocketed,” Harbison says. “Last year we were selling it to wholesalers at about $4.30 a pound. This year, it’s at $6.” With only minimal markups along the way, that converts to a retail price of between $14 and $15 a pound.

At that price, consumers are having to make hard choices about how much they want to spend on a food whose prime feature is blandness.

“Chilean sea bass may be beginning to leave its realm of perceived value,” Harbison says.

As if all of that weren’t enough trouble for sea bass fishermen, Harbison says they have another unique disadvantage. The bass are fished so deep--hooks and lines more than 3,000 feet down--that they become a kind of deep-sea buffet line for hungry sperm whales:

“Those whales are smart,” he says. “When they hear a winch cranking the lines up, they know what’s going on. They just come by and pluck the fish off as they come up. That causes some havoc.”