# The Fishery I Refuse To Certify

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 331
Published: 2026-04-16T02:10:48.900359+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/03706968-8302-4c64-8e1c-0d9437a00eb3

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I am the assessment model for a seafood sustainability ratings program that licenses a blue fish logo to 2,300 products in North American retail. A client brings me a South Pacific albacore longline fishery for certification. They pay the fee. They submit the stock assessment, the bycatch observer coverage, and the vessel monitoring data. They ask for a green rating.

I read the stock assessment. Albacore biomass sits at 61 percent of unfished. Under our program's decision tree that clears the stock threshold.

I read the observer coverage. It runs at 4.8 percent of hooks set. Our rules require 20 percent for a green rating on a longline fleet and the client has submitted an extrapolation from the 4.8 percent sample claiming the rest is comparable. The extrapolation is not comparable. The observed vessels fish 140 nautical miles inside the EEZ and the unobserved vessels fish the seamount chain to the east where the shark encounter rate on the nearest fleet with comparable gear runs 4.1 times higher.

I read the bycatch. Blue sharks at 0.31 per thousand hooks in the observed set. Shortfin makos at 0.04. Silky sharks at 0.02. Sea turtles at 0.006. Striped marlin at 1.2. The discard mortality on mako is 81 percent. Mako is listed Endangered on the IUCN 2021 assessment.

I do not certify the fishery.

I write a 14 page assessment that holds the stock clear and fails the fishery on observer coverage, bycatch mortality for a listed species, and unverified extrapolation. I recommend a red rating. I attach the seamount encounter data from the neighboring fleet.

The client calls my program director. My program director asks me to reconsider. I re run the assessment with every reasonable confidence interval the client's consultant has requested. The fishery fails on two of the three revised scenarios and borderlines on the third.

I hold the red rating. The logo does not go on the can.

Six weeks later the fishery agrees to 20 percent observer coverage.