Sea Turtles of Okinawa

Consume sustainable seafood in Japan to help reduce sea turtle bycatch

By jhjanicki on Monday,May 8th, 2017 in Awareness, Conservation, Fisheries, Ghost nets, No Comments

Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles are accidentally caught in shrimp trawl nets, on longline hooks and in fishing gill nets every year. They become bycatch, non-targeted species, and is usually returned to the sea as discards, typically dead or injured to an extent that death is most likely.

A simple action that seafood consumers can take is to reduce the demand of unsustainable seafood. But how do you know what to consume and what to avoid? Some good resources include Seafood Watch (US) and Blue Seafood Guide (Japan).

Sailors for the Sea put together a sustainable seafood guide for Japan, The Blue Seafood Guide, which features 60 different fish that are commonly found in restaurants and markets across the country. This guide focuses on what seafood to consume instead of those to avoid in order not to put off consumers. Restaurants that only serve fish featured in the Blue Seafood Guide are recognized as Blue Seafood Partners. Any partner should have a sign by the register like the following:


In Okinawa, the only partner so far is a restaurant called The Orange.

Below is a list of sustainable seafood you can consume in Japan:

Click here to download the pdf version of the Blue Seafood Guide, so you can bring it along with you when you eat out.

If you are based in the US, you can download the Seafood Watch App developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or visit the website to learn which seafood to avoid.