What's Fish Free February and why could it be catching on?

Regular meat eaters who completed Veganuary could find it easier to put on a fresh diet this month. Fish Free of charge February is sizzling hot on its predecessor’s heels, and marketing campaign founder Simon Hilbourne is usually keen for its communication to catch on: that's, to hit the pause button on seafood usage this month in a bid to curb the overfishing that threatens selected species and the world’s oceans at large.

“There’s so much talk of sustainable meal plans, and cutting down beef and things such as that, but I think fish is seen differently to terrestrial family pets,” says Hilbourne, the person behind Fish Free of charge February. A marine biologist, sea conservationist and underwater photographer, Hilbourne functions for Manta Trust, the group top rated the Maldives Oceanic Manta Ray Task. He launched the Seafood Free February charity last year to raise knowing of environmental concerns surrounding global fisheries.

“For a lot of people, it's harder to hook up with seafood. They're a slimy pet from under the sea and that you hardly ever really see, whereas cattle and various other livestock, you see all around. Also, baby farm animals are very cute and cuddly,” he says.

“The biggest current threat to the oceans isn't plastic pollution or ocean acidification or warming sea temperatures. It’s angling,” says the Fish No cost February campaign website.

Hilbourne says, “The premise of the marketing campaign is to raise awareness of the impression that fishing has on certain populations of seafood and on the pollution to the oceans that occurs because of this of fishing.” Citing for example, he says there is usually far more plastic material pollution in the oceans from discarded or lost angling nets than there are from, say, plastic straws.

“All of the responses I've acquired so far have already been incredibly supportive, specifically from the diving, underwater photography and marine biology communities. People are acknowledging that people need more interest in this spot,” he says.

With regard to seafood populations, Hilbourne claims 90 per cent of fish stocks are exploited to their maximum, meaning those populations are in exponential decline and vulnerable to going extinct. “Bluefin tuna is in decline just about all over the world, and there are many species in the Atlantic that basically aren’t doing great,” says Hilbourne. He advises that pole and line-caught tuna is the better option as net fishing effects in far more by-catch, seafood that happen to be killed unnecessarily and that finally go to waste.

Salmon is another contentious choice.

The Emirates Wildlife World, in colaboration with the WWF, has found that the hammour fish, popular in the UAE, is overfished seven times beyond sustainable amounts. This has led to declines of 90 per cent since the 1970s.

Hilbourne warns that if the oceans continue to visit a decline in these species, biodiversity will be hugely infected. “In the Indian Ocean, there's lots of net fishing that catches everything,” he says, explaining that shark is often scooped up as a by-catch product and its own fins are after that illegally sold on for profit.

If the ocean’s big predators become extinct, the underwater food ecosystem threatens to be disturbed, says Hilbourne, not forgetting the communities all over the world that depend on fishing because of their livelihood.

“Fish and seafood is going to be a staple of thus many people's diets. They can not survive without it. We don't like to demonise poorer countries or angling villages,” says Hilbourne. “Those rural communities are the ones hit hardest by overfishing because big industrial fishing vessels can fish further faraway from the coastline and take almost all of the catch.”