Retailers pull lobster from menus after ‘red list’ warning

Some retailers are taking lobster off the menu after an assessment from an influential conservation group that the seafood poses too much of a risk to rare whales and should be avoided.

Whales can suffer injuries and fatalities when they become entangled in the gear that connects to lobster traps on the ocean floor. Seafood Watch, which rates the sustainability of different seafoods, said this week it has added the American and Canadian lobster fisheries to its“red list”of species to avoid.

The organization, based at Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, said in a report that the fishing industry is a danger to North Atlantic right whales because“current management measures do not go far enough to mitigate entanglement risks and promote recovery of the species.”

Thousands of businesses use Seafood Watch’s recommendations to inform seafood buying decisions, and many have pledged to avoid any items that appear on the red list.

Seafood Watch assigns ratings of“best choice,”“good alternative” and “avoid” to more than 2,000 seafood items based on how sustainably they are managed.

The lobster fishing industry has come under scrutiny from Seafood Watch because of the threat of entanglement in fishing gear. The North Atlantic right whales number less than 340 and entanglement is one of the two biggest threats they face, along with collisions with ships, scientists have said. The population of the giant animals, which were decimated during the commercial whaling era generations ago, has fallen in recent years.