They usually taste good – but this year rockfish roe gives the aftertaste in the mouth that an endangered animal population gives to many.
So don’t buy and eat Danish-caught sturgeon roe this spring. Then you can help save the stock in Danish waters – instead of helping to eradicate it.
The population of stone bites has fallen significantly over the past four years, and now it has effectively collapsed in Danish waters. The landing figures from January and February 2024 show that the catch is below 3% of normal in these two most important months for the rockfish fishery. 3%!
But despite the acute situation, Food Minister Jakob Jensen does not want to stop the fishing for the stone bites that come to the Danish coasts in the winter months and early spring to lay the eggs that will ensure that new small stone bites come into our seas.
It’s a shame, because the problem for the rockfisher is that in fishing, you target the roe of the females. The roe, which could have secured the stock in the years to come, is now instead being sold at a price of up to DKK 300 for 100 grams.
With that price, it can be attractive to catch even the few stone bites that are left – even if it may cost the existence of the population in Danish waters.
The Stenbiteren has been fished very intensively, i.a. along the east coast of North Jutland, where a few years ago the nets were dense. Also along the west coast and into the Limfjord there were many stone bite nets. That is not the case this year – because there are almost no stone-biters to catch.
The rockfish usually live in deeper water – and research has shown that they usually return to the coastal waters where they were once spawned as eggs and hatched as small rockfish. Among other things. The Kattegat coast, the West coast or the Limfjord. So when the rockfish are soon fished completely away from North Jutland, there is a risk that they will never come back.
Even the government’s own advisers at DTU Aqua therefore clearly recommend that fishing for stone bites must stop now.
So the stock can have peace to perhaps rise again.
This is the last chance we get – and now that the responsible minister Jakob Jensen does not want to take responsibility for the future of the stone biter in Danish waters – then the rest of us will have to do it. By saying no to rockfish roe. And that regardless of whether they come from the supermarket, the fishmonger – or from other places.
Ask if the rockfish roe is caught in Danish waters, and if you can’t get a clear answer, stay away from the small orange eggs. And show respect to your fishmonger if he takes responsibility by not selling Danish-caught stone bite roe this year – with the possible financial loss it causes.
If we all take responsibility for the stone bite and the Danish sea it swims in – then maybe one day we can eat stone bite roe again.
Without unpleasant aftertaste.
2024-03-25 14:28:10
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