Too Many Fish Tales

[Flattieman]

Too Many Fish Tales

St. Petersburg Times editorial

Published August 8, 2006

With overfishing and declining supplies of grouper, restaurants have substituted cheaper fish. Consumers deserve to get what they pay for.

A main ingredient in the beloved grouper sandwich turns out to be baloney. In a test by the St. Petersburg Times, more than half of the grouper sampled in Tampa Bay area restaurants was actually a different kind of fish. One restaurant sold a "champagne-braised black grouper" dinner for $23 that was really tilapia, an inexpensive, farm-raised fish.

As part of an investigative series by staff writers Stephen Nohlgren and Terry Tomalin, the Times bought grouper meals at 11 restaurants and submitted them for DNA analysis. Six restaurants were serving some low-cost substitute in place of grouper, including catfish, hake and Alaskan pollack. Managers at each of those restaurants claimed that either their suppliers mislead them or that a cook or waiter made a mistake.

Maybe so, but as the two-part series pointed out, more is wrong with the grouper industry than mistaken identity. Florida's Gulf Coast supplies the bulk of the grouper catch, and much of that comes to Pinellas County docks. Every aspect of the business is under siege.

The popular species of grouper are overfished. Since 1980, when the first long-line boat showed up with its hold full of grouper, the outcome was inevitable. A traditional "bandit boat" might have a dozen hooks in the water, but a long-line boat spools out miles of line with hundreds of hooks. Do the math. Now there is a catch limit on grouper, and the fishery had to be shut down for several months in 2004 and 2005.

A current proposal under debate in Congress - buying out the smaller grouper fishermen - would be counterproductive. Not only would it be expensive, but some of the fishermen paid to give up their boats would just take their skills to the larger fleets and the overfishing would continue.

Then there is the pressure exerted on commercial docks by rising waterfront property values. Three of four large fish houses in Pinellas County closed in the past seven years because of development, and the remaining operator, Spaeth's Madeira Beach Seafood, is on leased land that is for sale. Not only would it be an economic hit for the county if a historically significant industry disappeared, it would also make the availability of fresh fish in the Tampa Bay area less certain.

As grouper supplies declined, the price rose, and that has led to fraud. Imported grouper may be cheaper, but it's not as fresh as the local product and it may not even be grouper, as the Times investigation showed. State and federal officials need to enforce trade and advertising laws so that consumers are protected.

If something smells fishy about that $5 grouper sandwich, better pay $10 and get the real thing.

Edited August 13, 2006 by Flattieman