Dear Trine Leadley & James CawthorneCongratulations on your recent decision to remove mako and big-eye thresher shark along with swordfish from your stores. As a supporter of the marine conservation organisation, Bite-Back, I think it is an excellent move. Thank you.
However, now that you have brilliantly responded to the issues that are driving some shark and swordfish to the brink of extinction, let me encourage you to reconsider your buying motives for marlin and monkfish.
For a start, ASDA stands alone as a major supermarket trading in marlin. Why drag your heels when your competitors embrace our retail-led marine conservation initiative?
To be clear, marlin do not reproduce until they are approximately five years old and live until they are nine. Right now they are being caught long before they reach a reproductive age, purely to meet the immediate retail and consumer demand.
Monkfish are now regularly being sourced outside of UK waters because they are becoming increasingly scarce on our coast. Monkfish don't reach a reproductive age until they are around seven and live until they are around 30, if given the chance. Your continual sale of monkfish is driving the same issues our coastline is facing, abroad.
Just like swordfish, marlin are caught commercially using a fiercely effective and indiscriminate fishing method, the longline. Each year longlines causes the unintentional death of 40,000 sea turtles, 180,000 seabirds plus thousands of sharks, dolphins and sea lions.
In the past five years, overfishing of swordfish in the Atlantic Ocean has seen stocks plummet by 66%. Stocks of marlin in the Indian and Pacific Ocean are under increasing pressure to satisfy worldwide demand and will soon suffer the same catastrophic result unless we can reverse this trend.
ASDA can make a significant and genuine contribution to the survival of these species, by choosing to stop selling marlin and monkfish. This is our invitation to you.
A positive outcome could be used as a model to the rest of the industry across the world, promoting ecologically responsible retailing.
Now is your chance to help halt this environmental disaster.
1. Please stop selling marlin and monkfish on your fish counters
2. Help set an example for the industry and explain to your customers that you will no longer be selling fish that are considered threatened. You'll win their support and help lead the environmental debate
3. Write and acknowledge this email
4. Team up with Bite-Back and help pioneer a sea change in retailer responsibility towards the marine environment, win new customers and achieve positive media publicity
I look forward to hearing from you.
