Give Swordfish a Break campaign nets victory

Salt shakers
September 2000

Give Swordfish a Break campaign nets victory for recovery efforts
After a two-and-a-half-year campaign led by National Resources Defense Council and SeaWeb to restore swordfish populations in the north Atlantic, the federal government on August 1 announced measures to protect juvenile north Atlantic swordfish from fishing.

The government's decision will close 132,670 square miles of Atlantic ocean to pelagic longline fishing on a seasonal basis. Pelagic fish, including swordfish and tuna, live at or near the water's surface. Longlines are fishing lines that can stretch for dozens of miles and are baited with hundreds of hooks; they indiscriminately catch and kill marine life including sea turtles, sharks, and juvenile swordfish.

In 1960, most swordfish caught in the North Atlantic weighed over 250 pounds. Today, three decades after the emergence of longlining, the average North Atlantic swordfish caught weighs just 90 pounds. And with over half the North Atlantic swordfish caught too young to breed, the population is seriously overfished.

The closures are expected to result in a significant reduction—between 31 and 42 percent—in the number of juvenile Atlantic swordfish caught and killed by longliners. The U.S. action, coupled with an international swordfish recovery plan adopted in November 1999, is a major step toward replenishing badly depleted north Atlantic swordfish stocks and returning the population to a sustainable level.

In the wake of this major victory, NRDC and SeaWeb will end the Give Swordfish a Break campaign, launched in early 1998 to convince consumers and chefs to avoid north Atlantic swordfish until the government had developed and implemented a plan for rebuilding their numbers.

The Give Swordfish a Break campaign was the first large-scale effort to mobilize consumers in support of fish conservation. The campaign began with the endorsement of 27 prominent chefs, and over its two-and-a-half-year course enlisted the support of more than 700 chefs as well as the Peabody Hotel chain, cruise lines, grocery stores, airlines, and other businesses.

Though the official Give Swordfish a Break campaign has ended, consumers may still want to consider, in deciding whether to eat swordfish, that while recovery measures are now in place, the north Atlantic swordfish population is not yet recovered. Full recovery will depend on speedy and effective implementation, monitoring and enforcement of both the international recovery plan for swordfish and the nursery area closures.

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