Skip navigation

Seafood Watch Updates Sustainability Pocket Guides

MONTEREY BAY, Calif. — Seafood Watch, the sustainable seafood advisory list sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, has added U.S.-farmed Coho salmon, Alaskan wild-caught pollock and U.S.-farmed freshwater prawns to its list of sustainable seafood choices, effective this month.

MONTEREY BAY, Calif. — Seafood Watch, the sustainable seafood advisory list sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, has added U.S.-farmed Coho salmon, Alaskan wild-caught pollock and U.S.-farmed freshwater prawns to its list of sustainable seafood choices, effective this month.

The updated Pocket Guide to sustainable seafood choices includes domestically farmed shrimp for the first time. Many U.S. farmed shrimp are raised in inland ponds or closed tanks with no saltwater access, and are able to eat the plants and insects that naturally occur where they're raised, with very little feed required.

Separately, Seafood Watch adds that freshwater prawns are naturally resilient to disease, and "their inability to tolerate winter temperatures reduces the risk of escape and establishment in the wild."

U.S. farmed freshwater prawns were given a "best choice" ranking, while U.S. farmed shrimp received mostly "good alternative" rankings with a small percentage of "best choice" rankings. Imported and foreign-farmed shrimp are still on Seafood Watch¹s "Avoid" list. U.S. farmed freshwater Coho salmon is listed as a "Best Choice," while traditional farmed salmon is ranked as "Avoid," because closed systems, such as the tanks used to raise Coho salmon, have less of an impact on the environment than open net pens, Seafood Watch said.

Read More of Today's Headlines