Bad News! Your shrimp cocktail is killing the environment

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Shrimp farmers clear large areas of coastal lands to create breeding ponds. Once the ponds are dead from pollution and chemicals, they move on. In doing so, they are destroying large fish breeding areas.
Fishing 'wild' shrimp also creates problems, in that the by-catch also scoops up sharks, jelly fish and other sea life, which is discarded back into the oceans. As the article notes: "but the problem is the by-catch- it used to be up to ten pounds of unwanted sharks, sea turtles, flounder and other fish for every pound of shrimp were caught. However the diversity and density of the fish stocks have deteriorated so much that good fishermen have reduced the bycatch to about two pounds, mostly jellyfish".



Here's a thought, "Imagine the outrage if a hunter searching for a deer killed nearly every bird, mammal, reptile and insect in his path. And simply left them lying dead on the ground. You get the picture."

I like shrimp, but I value the environment more. I'm swearing off shrimp. And you?