Learn more about the impacts of the types of seafood you eat — and the guides that can help you make better seafood choices.
Published: 10/08/18, Last updated: 2/28/24
Learning about sustainable seafood options can be daunting: many popular wild fish species have been depleted; much fish farming is done in an unsustainable manner; and more than 80 percent of seafood in the US is imported from other countries, often with questionable health, safety, labor and environmental standards. However, by doing a little research on your own using consumer sustainable seafood guides, perusing he FoodPrint seafood label guide and by directly asking restaurants and markets about where their fish comes from and how it was caught or farmed, you can find healthy and sustainable seafood.
Fishing has a long history in the US, from Native American traditions to the fishing cultures of many immigrant populations in the US. Today, intricate new fishing technologies exist, like bottom cameras, that serve as fish finders. Some of the newer methods of catching fish are more ecologically friendly than others. For example, fishermen can choose and modify gear that can specifically target certain fish types rather than catching (and potentially harming or killing) a variety of marine life unnecessarily. 2 Despite many successful fishery recovery stories — like the Atlantic swordfish, which was once on the brink of extinction but is now thriving thanks to interventions like fishing quotas — overfishing remains a serious problem. 3 Other less popular edible species, called “trash fish” by some, have healthy populations and could help relieve pressure on the top five seafood species. 4
Despite efforts to maintain sustainable wild fishing, past practices have left certain species vulnerable to overfishing. Overfished stocks need to be allowed to recover; in other words, some fishing should be allowed, but at reduced levels to help maximize the number of fish, which can help to rebuild a population on the whole. Stocks of fish are managed by using catch limits to reduce the chance of overfishing and increase biological and economic sustainability of wild fishing. Since 2000, 41 stocks of fish have been rebuilt. However, since 2016, the 30 stocks of fish on the overfishing list and the 38 stocks on the overfished list are at all-time lows.
Because fish and other seafood are a globally shared resource, there have been major declines in popular species due to overfishing, habitat loss and pollution. In an effort to address depleted wild fish populations while meeting the public demand for seafood, various other methods of fishing and other seafood production have become popular — collectively dubbed “fish farming.” Today, farmed fish make up about 50 percent of the seafood consumed globally. 13
Salmon production can also increase fishing pressure on wild stocks of other fish species, because it takes between one-and-a-third to five pounds of fish (which are turned into feed) to raise one pound of farmed salmon.
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