Think, Before You Eat a Toothy Patagonian

This weekend, we will be asked to reflect on our forests and mountains, drinking water and air, growing populations and rising temperatures. Good things to ponder on Earth Day Sunday.

But I’m with the science writer Arthur C. Clarke when it comes to how we regard our globe. “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean,” he said.

This weekend, we owe our neighbor on the other side of the coast highway some attention too. I have spent most of the last two years at The Times exploring this larger part of the world, where we mix our waste with our food and play in it. To me, it’s become personal. Every time I read about the search for life on Mars I wonder why we aren’t equally fascinated by life just offshore.

Did you know, for instance, that some, if not most, of the fish we see sold as “Chilean sea bass” are really “Patagonian toothfish”? That way, I guess, dinner doesn’t sound like something that will bite back. This mislabeling also serves to hide the fact that Patagonian toothfish are fished by outlaws without the bother of permits, and almost surely overfished, in the deep cold waters between South America and Antarctica.

The toothfish has filled a gap in the stomachs of seafood lovers ever since supplies of orange roughy began to dry up on account of overfishing off New Zealand. Both the toothfish and the roughy are mild, white-fleshed fishes that fill in nicely for America’s own rockfish, which have been steadily overfished along the West Coast.

So just what is a seafood lover to do? Blaming fishermen hasn’t solved the problem and probably won’t. The fact is, consumer demand for seafood is destructively indiscriminate. Blame us.

If fish and fish-eaters are to prosper in the next few years, we will have to change our habits. We will have to inquire more deeply than we ever have, en masse, about what we’re eating, and then eat more selectively.

Fish are the last of the planet’s wild animals hunted commercially for food on a large scale. Worldwide demand, according to the United Nations, will outstrip all the oceans’ supply this decade, with China, Japan and the U.S. leading the way.

So what?

* Think of economics. When they’re fishing off Antarctica, you know there aren’t many fishing grounds left. Scientists say that in only four years there won’t be enough toothfish left to bother fishing for. What will replace it next time your doctor tells you to lay off red meat? Bought much abalone lately at $85 a pound?

* Think of values. Not long ago, a rough-eye rockfish caught off the West Coast was found to be 205 years old, born when George Washington was president. Today, rockfish are taken and sold live in Asian restaurants before they are old enough to reproduce. Our friend the toothfish lives to be at least 50. We eat them with the same carefree abandon as salmon, which mature in one-fifth the time.

* Think of other creatures. South American elephant seals require toothfish for 98% of their diet. After we’ve taken their dinner, what will the seals do except go the way of life on Mars?

At last, the Audubon Society, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, SeaWeb and a few other organizations are offering consumers help in choosing which fishes to eat from those offered on menus and in supermarkets.

It won’t be easy. In some cases, distinguishing between fishes that are in trouble and those that are not will be as challenging and ever-changing as determining which phone company will save you the most money at the moment.

How, for instance, can you possibly tell a sea bass from a toothfish when all you see is a steak?

Ask.

True, restaurant servers and supermarket fish mongers are, for now, unlikely to know. But they’ll start getting used to the question. If they don’t have the answer, avoid the fish.

“The more that consumers ask, the more producers will realize the need for such information,” says Mercedes Lee, editor of an ambitious new Audubon guidebook, “Seafood Lover’s Almanac.”

Lee recently spoke at a symposium at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, where CEO Warren Iliff announced that he would join the campaign and begin publishing wallet cards to steer Southern Californians toward wise seafood selections.

Sometimes the challenge is not just which species but also the method of catch.

Spot prawns, for instance, are considered safely abundant. The Audubon guidebook calls trap-caught spot prawns a good dining choice. Trapping accounts for about half of those spot prawns brought to market. But the other half are netted by trawlers. These nets can destroy bottom habitat and kill up to 10 pounds of other, unwanted creatures for every pound of prawns. Audubon says consumers should avoid trawl-caught spot prawns.

As I said, this won’t be easy.

At the least, you can try giving fish a break, for their sake and ours. And when you sit down at a restaurant and talk to your server, don’t whisper. Speak up, and give diners around you something to think about:

I see here, sir, that the menu lists poached Chilean sea bass stuffed with spot prawns. Might the bass really be Patagonian toothfish? They’re a lot alike, you know. And these spot prawns: trawl-caught or trapped? As for poaching, do you mean the method of cooking or catching?