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GWS2004 t1_j4vxmxt wrote

Stop eating lobster and crab.

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Simple_Opossum OP t1_j4w5bnd wrote

I think there just generally needs to be a revolution in the way we utilize our marine resources. It doesn't really come down to a single fishery. As a whole, we're over-exploiting our oceans and creating the foundations of a catastrophe.

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GWS2004 t1_j4wj9pz wrote

For whale entanglements it comes down to a couple of fisheries here on the east coast of the US. Those are lobsters and crabs.

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thedrscaptain t1_j4wg1bl wrote

Good luck getting China to stop overfishing anywhere. They don't even give a shit about territorial waters that aren't their own--or-that-they-call-their-own--.

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GWS2004 t1_j4wjl35 wrote

Correct, but that means WE have to ask where our seafood comes from. We need to be responsible for driving the change we need to see. Corporations are not going to do it if we don't demand it. The next time you order seafood ask where it is sorced from. If they can't answer that question, don't order it and be sure to let the manager know why.

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thedrscaptain t1_j4wrbzp wrote

Agreed. And I do. Yet that practice is depressingly far from mass adoption

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GWS2004 t1_j4ww4we wrote

I know. It's truly unfortunate. But I won't give up!

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Different-Music4367 t1_j4y09xq wrote

An article from this fall, from a professor in Singapore (i.e. not knee-jerk pro-Chinese government), states that China has been implementing a number of policies to change its fishing industry. Pretty interesting stuff if you care about the world's overfishing problem:

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/08/03/chinas-efforts-to-reel-in-overfishing/

The territorial waters discussion is a bit of a red herring (haha), but if countries were to put limits on fishing imports it would certainly have an effect. Three quarters of US seafood is imported, and its biggest import source is China.

https://www.fishwatch.gov/sustainable-seafood/the-global-picture

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fight_your_friends t1_j4wg106 wrote

Why not just farm them?

edit: Do we just downvote questions now?

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Megraptor t1_j4wlvdi wrote

Crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp and other crunchy aquatic "bug") don't take well to farming because they eat anything.

Including each other.

Even keeping a pet crayfish is a major pain in the butt. They dig up all the plants, eat all the fish that they can get their claws on, and then fight each other till death. They will munch on each other when they shed their shells and are soft (seriously, they get weirdly squishy.)

That, combined with slow growth rates just makes it not viable. They take so long to get to marketable size and they just eat each other before that.

And if we were to figure it out somehow, Maine would be very against it. Look at the PNW and salmon farming, they are EXTREMELY against it because they are worried it will impact their wild caught stocks and economy. There are some issues with salmon farming, like how they use Atlantic Salmon in the Pacific mostly while Coho Salmon are perfectly farmable. But you'd see this somehow with lobsters too I bet...

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fight_your_friends t1_j4wv71j wrote

Thanks! Never knew much about crustacean behavior beyond a couple of Disney characters.

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Megraptor t1_j4x0fbv wrote

They are vicious! Disney characters make them seem so dopey, but they basically are on omnivorous and aquatic gremlins with claws. from having crayfish as pets, I think they are smarter than a lot of people think too, and often will rove about their tank looking for trouble.

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GWS2004 t1_j4wjme2 wrote

I personally don't know if you can.

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mattmillze t1_j4wl7b4 wrote

They kill and eat each other in tanks pretty often and take a long time to grow to maturity. It's possible, but still not as profitable at scale as hoisting them from the depths where they aren't kept together for long.

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[deleted] t1_j4wj0p4 wrote

I just got back from a crabbing trip where we couldn't put pots in the water because whales were in the area (I just used poles and snare traps). It's not like it's impossible to fish in ways that don't impact whales, it just takes a little extra effort. I wonder if states in the gulf are being as proactive as we are being here in California.

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Fishtails t1_j4ymzra wrote

But I go crabbing and catch my own crab. I haven't caught a whale in my crab pots...yet. Plenty of starfish and sunflower stars, which we throw back in the water. No mammals whatsoever caught so far in my 30 years of crabbing...not yet at least.

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hillsons t1_j4wu628 wrote

At the rate we're destroying the entire ecosystem, there won't be any lobster and crab either, so... there's that.

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Proof_Eggplant_6213 t1_j4ybhq0 wrote

Those should be fairly easy lab grown meats, I’d think, since their muscles are a bit different. I hope that becomes a thing soon so it will no longer be necessary to fish them at all.

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astroturfskirt t1_j4w1v0n wrote

stop eating all beings

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__secter_ t1_j4wjaxq wrote

Blows my mind that - no matter how upset a whole thread is over an animal's death - the suggestion to simply stop killing animals for food will still get downvoted into the negatives.

You are right and they are wrong.

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JcbAzPx t1_j4wrngl wrote

Plants are living beings too. That would amount to not eating ever.

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Vault-Born t1_j50nzcl wrote

crabs are cannibals, i'll stop eating them when they do the same. we're nothing but animals ourselves, except without a penchant for cannibalism

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[deleted] t1_j4w9j7n wrote

[deleted]

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__secter_ t1_j4wizvj wrote

That is jaw-droppingly untrue. Water usage in meat production is orders of magnitude higher than plant-based food.

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lamby284 t1_j4wmz4g wrote

What do the meat animals eat? Air? They get calories from nothing? More water is used to water the crops that had to be fed to those animals.

Edited: I replied to the wrong user but I'm keeping it :P

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__secter_ t1_j4wrqxf wrote

The thing you're describing is the exact reason *[the user you meant to reply to] wrong

If you fed all those crops directly to people instead of livestock, there'd be no loss of energy/nutrition/calories to the middle steps(the livestock digesting the crops and turning it into meat, the livestock needing to drink gallons of water of its own, the massive industrial water requirements of the slaughter industry in general).

Imagine you have the option of giving someone a thousand bucks cash, or using it to buy them gift cards(with many fees and surcharges along the way) and jewelry to hawk.

In this analogy, the plants are the cash. The meat is the inefficient luxury goods it would be absurd and unsustainable to base an economy around.

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lamby284 t1_j4wsxkf wrote

My dude, we are in agreement. It's way more efficient to feed ourselves directly rather than eat animals.

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rjkardo t1_j4xs8xl wrote

This is so mind bogglingly stupid it is difficult to believe someone could suggest it.

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Megraptor t1_j4wppve wrote

Nah, blanket statements like this aren't helpful when there's good alternatives out there.

There's some crabs and lobster that are sustainable. Florida/Caribbean Spiny Lobsters from the US warm waters are fine and so are Californian ones from birth the US and Mexico. Squat Lobsters/Langostinos are fine.

Chesapeake Blue Crabs are fine, but in the Atlantic there's some fishery issues with Diamondback Terrapins bycatch. Asian Green Crabs are invasive in the US and probably should be eaten anyways. Alaskan crabs in general are sustainable and have no problems too- but the fisheries are currently closed for their Snow Crabs ans both Red, Golden and Blue King Crabs. Dungess Crabs on the Pacific Coast are fine too.

European Lobsters are fine too, and are the same genus as American ones too. There's also an accidentally introduced and invasive population of American Lobsters in Norway that you can sometimes find on the market.

Confusingly, Norway Lobster are a prawn, and are a mixed bag. Oh and Rock Lobsters are fine too. Yes it's an actual animal, not just a song. They are a type of Spiny Lobster.

Tldr- just don't buy crab/lobster from New England and Canada if you're concerned about the North Atlantic Right Whales. If you want more info on overall seafood sustainability, just look at Monterey Bay Seafood Watch

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JcbAzPx t1_j4ws8go wrote

I think it's interesting that at one point in the past this type of seafood was considered trash and mainly fed to prisoners. Now it's luxury food that we're ruining the ecosystem to try to get enough of.

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