I enjoy kingklip very much. This delicious fish goes by a completely different name in the rest of the world. The creature I refer to is known to scientists as Xiphiurus capensis, and I have been told that it is mildly endangered.
An organisation called SASSI has produced a card that lists the fish species that are OK to eat in green, those that you should approach with caution in orange, and those which it is illegal to buy or sell in red. Cryptically, SASSI doesn’t explain their name in any obvious place on their Web site but they do make their card available for download here.
There are apparently “reasons for concern” about the fish on the orange list, where the kingklip makes its appearance. They are “rare from overfishing and cannot sustain current fishing pressure.”
When I go to restaurants, however, I frequently order kingklip. Sociopathic as this may seem, I figure that it wouldn’t be legal to sell them if things were really that bad. After all, there is clearly a mechnism to protect the 31 species on the red list, so someone, somwhere with a degree in marine biology must be certain that it is OK to eat this one. Besides, not ordering this fish isn’t going to save the dead specimen in the freezer of the restaurant. In fact, not eating it will be the equivalent of spitting on its memory, for it would have lived and died in vain.
The sad truth is that orange list fish are still served because they are still caught. Whether or not retaurant patrons actually eat them will have no effect on the fishing companies until it is actually made illegal to have a kingklip anywhere near your boat. Perhaps this should happen and, when it does, I will stop eating them.
Thus we have a shrill piece of conservation theatre that, no matter how serious the situation of this poor creature, actually doesn’t do very much to protect it. People feel good about ordering less delicious meals, and I get to offend them by pointing out that being tasty and delicious worked very well as a survival mechanism for cows.
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Ah yes – its like getting a traditional english cod and chips in London. Still on sale despite the collapse of the North Sea cod stocks. Now it comes from halfway across the world instead of the local waters. Nothing like decimating another countries fish stocks in the search for a tasty mouthful of instant heart disease!
dawgM