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As demand for seafood rises, chefs have their seafood supplier on speed dial. And while species like tuna, cod, and halibut are popular, these days, the daily catch on the blackboard might be something unfamiliar — squirrel fish or the banded rudderfish. Don't be scared off. Most likely it's bycatch or trash fish. While perfectly edible and quite tasty, these fish are so named because they might otherwise be thrown overboard or ground into fishmeal because they aren't the intended catch on commercial fishing boats.
If they had a choice, fisherman would rather not have to deal with bycatch, but fishing nets aren't particular about what they scoop up. Bottom trawlers have little discretion when they drag along the seafloor. Longlines with baited hooks extend for 50 miles or more, which attracts anything that swims by — including unwanted edible fish as well as sea turtles, sharks, and other sea mammals. Opportunistic seabirds flock to longlines in hopes of an easy meal, often getting snagged.
All in all, it's an inefficient way catch fish, and even the fisherman dislike it. The most recent tally from Johns Hopkins University estimates that in United States-controlled waters, 573 million pounds of fish are lost due to fisherman bycatch every year. This pales in comparison to the even-more striking fact that 51-63 percent of seafood is wasted at the consumer level.
Terms like "bycatch" and "discarded catch" have different meanings for different organizations. (Some use "bycatch" to refer to what others would call "discard catch.") That’s why it’s important to check the definition before diving into claims and reports. Here is a guide to commonly using fishing catch terms:
‣ Target Catch: Fish fishermen intended to catch and bring to land. ‣ Discarded Catch: Non-targeted fish caught and then returned to the sea, often dead or injured. ‣ Incidental Catch: Non-targeted fish caught, kept and brought to land. ‣ Bycatch: Non-targeted fish either discarded or retained and brought to land. Alternatively, bycatch can be used synonymously with discarded or incidental catch.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Oceana use "bycatch" to refer to incidental catch and discarded catch combined. John Hopkins University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use "bycatch" to refer to discarded catch — non-targeted fish returned to sea.
To combat that waste, in the past decade, chefs have taken up the charge to give some culinary love to these lesser-known species and raise consumer awareness. Chefs say they've fallen for these sea-born rarities like jolthead porgy and Spanish mackerel. In an ideal world, this effort would become so successful that jilted fish like the jolthead porgy would be as widely desired as salmon. But while chefs like the challenge of preparing lesser-known fish, since they're incidental catches, only in rare cases will these fish become regular menu items. And experts say that smaller fish need to stay in the sea as food for other fish, keeping the underwater ecosystems healthy.
No one works harder to put the lid on the undesirable aura around trash fish than chef Kelly Whitaker, who lives the landlocked state of Colorado. The chef/owner of Boulder's Basta and Denver's Cart-Driver travels the country hosting trash fish dinners on behalf of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch sustainability program and Chef's Collaborative, a non-profit professional organization that educates chefs about sustainable food choices.
Whitaker says the "trash fish" dinners have become immensely helpful to transition some fish from a throwaway to a restaurant-friendly menu item, keeping in line with trends over the past four decades.
Most famously, in the late-1970s, "Chilean sea bass" began appearing on restaurant menus thanks to a re-branding of the toothfish — which is actually more like cod than bass. In the ‘90s, the goosefish — a gruesome-looking fish with a beautiful lobster-like taste — became known as "monkfish," and is now fished for commercial use. "Fifteen years ago, it was considered bycatch, and it's now a very sought-after fish," says Whitaker. "There are a lot of fish in transition now, but chefs are beginning to use these previous ‘trash' species, and consumers are beginning to accept them," he says.
In recent years, more fish have been moving from the trash heap to culinary celebrity status. One example is the boneless porgy (also known as sea bream or scup), popularized among diners thanks in part to Momofuku Ssäm Bar in New York. Chef David Chang wraps the boneless sweet fish in lettuce and seasons it with sharp ginger, bitter turnip, soft brown hon shimeji funghi, and a delicate broth. For a few years now, diners regularly post social media love notes about the fish. Elsewhere, chefs have been experimenting with delacata catfish, lionfish, and scorpionfish — efforts that are high-profile enough to elicit a movement to move away from the phrase "trash fish" altogether.
But could every unwanted fish shed its "trash fish" label? It might not matter — according to experts, chefs' efforts to highlight bycatch on menus is more of a stop-gap measure than a long-term solution. Sustainable fishery experts, fishermen, and federal regulatory agencies would like to get bycatch in general down to a bare minimum, starting at the fisheries themselves.
For commercial fisheries, bycatch is not only wasteful, it's a nuisance. Jim Gossen, chairman of Sysco Louisiana Seafood, says there is only so much space and ice on fishing vessels to keep the desired catch fresh. Decaying bycatch is a problem that no one wants — particularly if that bycatch happens to be valuable, such as the case of red snapper. Double-rig shrimp trawlers in the Gulf of Mexico are prone to snaring the young red fish when trawling along rock ridges and snapper breeding banks. Red snapper live for as long as 40 years, which means they are slow to reach maturity. Gossen says when the deep-dredging shrimp trawlers capture immature fish, those fish don't have the opportunity to reproduce. As a result, red snapper fish stocks were at dangerously low levels in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, red snapper has been strictly controlled by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council to help rebuild red snapper fish stocks.
