Oregon's Fisheries - a leader in sustainability

Recent media attention on global and large-scale fisheries is spurring a growing interest in knowing where your fish came from. There are serious problems with some of the world’s fisheries and major changes, particularly in illegal and unjust high seas catch, must be made. Thankfully, in Oregon and the US, we have some of the best managed fisheries in the world. I can’t tell you how many times I have been overseas at a fisheries or seafood conference and had someone say to me “Oregon?- you all do your fisheries right!”

We know you care about the health of the ocean. So our next series of posts will be dedicated to the sustainability of Oregon’s five major fisheries including Dungeness crab, pink shrimp, Albacore tuna, and Chinook salmon. Next week we’ll dive into groundfish, which is a diversity of mostly white fish that live on or around the ocean floor- things like halibut, black cod, rockfish, and lingcod. We will talk about how they are caught, who catches them and why they are a good choice. And most importantly, you will be able to experience the goodness of these species when shopping our fish market, cooking your DockBox or dinging with us on Newport's bayfront.

We believe, and many conservation organizations agree, that eating sustainably harvested seafood is an excellent choice for planetary and human health. The ocean is a massive bio-generator, relying entirely on solar energy to produce healthy food. Compared to other forms of food production, sustainable fishing requires the least amount of fresh water, land, chemicals, and is the lowest producer of CO2. We are basically harvesting the “interest” off of natural and healthy stocks of fish. That is sustainability. And that is what we do here in Oregon- we do it right. We may be a small part of global fisheries production (just .15%), but we are very special.

Want to know more? The Oregon Fisheries: 150 Years of Innovation exhibit will be reopening at Newport’s Maritime Museum in the summer of 2021.