Whole Foods to Stop Selling Unsustainable Fish – a PR move?

Here is the original piece:

A Ban on Some Seafood Has Fishermen Fuming – NYTimes.com

And here is what really happened.

Someone at Whole Foods decided that the company was lagging behind the other retailers who had banned certain providers of unsustainable fish. “Why don’t we do the same?”, said this somebody. “It would be a nice PR move, plus, we’ll be doing a good deed as well”.

But is it really as good of a deed?

Fishers use gillnets, because gillnets let them catch more fish faster. However,  there are govenment-set quotas and other regulations in place that limit the amount of fish fishers are allowed to catch. Just because Whole Foods is not going to buy that fish, it does not mean other stores won’t do it either. Wouldn’t altering government regulations be more effecitve?

Another point to consider: fishing by hook is a much more inhumane than fishing by net. For example, think about the difference between electrocuting a living being and piercing a living being with a spear. And, fishing by hook is what Whole Foods is effectively pushing for.

We also wonder if the shortage of the species concerned is that imminent.

Related articles

• Whole Foods No Longer To Sell Unsustainable Fish, 9 Types No Longer Available (inquisitr.com)
• As Whole Foods Gets Greener, New England Fishermen Aren’t Happy (bostinno.com)