Summer flounder, Bering sea snow crab and Washington State coho salmon (Images: courtesy NOAA)
Most reports about ocean fish stocks tend to be pretty ominous, but at last there’s some good news about fish populations. The New York Times’s Green blog points to new numbers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that suggest six species are on the rebound and have already reached healthy population levels. The Bering Sea snow crab, the summer flounder on the mid-Atlantic coast, the haddock in the Gulf of Maine, the chinook salmon along the northern California coast, the coho salmon off Washington State and the Pacific widow rockfish are all back in a big way, thanks in part to not-so-popular government catch limits. The agency also found that 27 fish stocks have been returned to health in the past 11 years (NOAA also runs a neat consumer-oriented site with sustainable seafood information). Maybe now we can feel a little less guilty about how we get our omega-3 fix. But only a little less. [New York Times]
