Sustainable seafood casts a wider net

The scale of companies like Wal-Mart demands the certification of large fisheries, rather than the small and closely managed ones the Marine Stewardship Council has certified up to this point.

Consumers are also increasingly concerned about the origins of the food they eat, Peters says. Vacationers aren't known to flock to Las Vegas to eat sustainably harvested fish, but chef and owner Rick Moonen says the menu at his 385-seat restaurant, RM Seafood, attracts attention because it offers only fish caught using sustainable practices.

"It's been better for my bottom line," Mr. Moonen says. "People are seeking me out."

Others have yet to see "sustainable seafood" boost their business. "I haven't seen any effect of 'sustainable' anything," says Rod Taylor. He owns an oyster and bay scallop farming business in Fairhaven, Mass., that supplies wholesalers nationwide. "All the chefs care about is, 'What does this plate cost?' "

Gary Wood, a shrimp farmer in Gila Bend, Ariz., says competition from imported shrimp makes it difficult for shrimp farmers here who use sustainable practices.

"The supply chain is not set up for sustainable seafood," says Mr. Wood, who sells his shrimp on the Internet. "We have to do it ourselves." (Story below.)

Trout farmer Eason says she has to find consumers more interested in quality than price. Her family produces a caviar, something her dad began 60 years ago. Eason hopes this year they'll make money. "My dad's 82 and I would love for him to say, 'By Jove, they did it.' "

If you love shrimp but can't stomach the problems that come with some ways of farm-raising and wild-catching them, you might look inland.

The Seafood Watch project at Monterey Bay Aquarium in California advises against eating farm-raised shrimp because coastal shrimp farms can destroy mangrove forests, pollute water, and threaten wild fish populations with antibiotics and disease.

Seafood Watch also says shrimp caught with bottom trawl nets are undesirable because of the five pounds of "bycatch," or inadvertently caught sealife, that often accompanies one pound of shrimp.

But in the Arizona desert, where the mercury pushes 115 degrees F. in the summer, farmed shrimp are thriving at Desert Sweet Shrimp. "The shrimp love the heat; they do extremely well here," says Gary Wood, whose family has been farming shrimp in Gila Bend, Ariz., since 1997.

The shrimp grow in ponds supplied by well water. Wood doesn't use preservatives or chemicals to make the shrimp gain weight, a common practice in the industry. Because of the heat and the fact that they're far from the ocean, they don't have to contend with diseases the way coastal shrimp farmers do, Wood says, so they don't use antibiotics, either. Recirculated pond water is used to irrigate their alfalfa crop and olive trees.

How do the shrimp thrive in fresh water? "We discovered you can take the shrimp and acclimate them to the water," Wood says. In nature, when it rains heavily, shrimp living in saltwater mangrove swamps and estuaries adjust to the fresh water, he says.

The result, he says, is a distinctive-tasting shrimp, which Wood ships to customers around the United States through his Internet-based business.

Loyal customers include otters at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. As part of a sustainable practices initiative, the aquarium decided last September to ask Desert Sweet Shrimp to supply the six tons of shrimp their otters eat each year. "Our otters are incredibly finicky," says Michelle Jost, who manages the aquarium's conservation programs. But the otters immediately took to the cultivated crustaceans. "No training needed," she says. "The otters absolutely love it."

• The Monterey Bay Aquarium's guide to sustainable seafood is available at: www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp

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