University of North Carolina PhD candidate Courtney Cox has been studying parrotfish in Belize. Her quest to discover whether reef-cleaning parrotfish, the harvesting of which is banned regionally, is still being sold illegally in Belize as fillet, landed her on a new road to discovery.
What Cox found out is that the 150 samples of fish she had bought from supermarkets, market vendors and others selling fish fillet on the Belizean market were mostly mislabeled. She told Amandala that the results surprised her.
Fish fillet sold as grouper was not grouper, said Cox.
Based on genetic studies conducted at her university lab, said Cox, fish that had been marketed to a Belizean as snapper was actually a triggerfish. Cox said another fillet sold to the same person as snapper was actually found to be catfish, known locally as “kyato,” which is a fish that is generally not eaten in Belize. (Many Belizeans dislike this scavenging inland fish.)
“I found that the supermarkets were less reliable. However, the snappers that were bought were from markets, and they were not snapper. None of them that said they were snapper were actually that… I found more from supermarkets that were mislabeled,” said Cox.
Cox told Amandala: “The additional results were kind of something I wasn’t expecting and have turned into another project.”
The researcher said that she is still looking at the effects of the parrotfish ban to see if there is an increase in the fish population, and whether that correlates with an increase in health of Belize’s reef. For 2009 – 2010, said Cox, she found an increase in parrotfish of about 10% on average, and hopefully, they will continue to see the same result, she commented.
Why is the parrotfish population so important? She explained that parrotfish are the key grazers on the reef, and they help keep the reef healthy.
Without them, the reef would be overgrown with algae, and fish habitat would be degraded. Fish populations would not thrive and fishermen would pay the price.
Cox agreed that perhaps one of the reasons for the mislabeling of fillet is that fishermen have been grappling to fill the high demand for snappers with whatever they can. She notes that snappers are not widely available out in the sea.
To be sure you are getting what you ask for when you purchase your fish, Cox recommends: “The best thing is to buy the whole fish and just have them fillet it for you at the market, if you really want to know for sure. That is the safest way to get your fish.”
She said that similar genetic studies have been done in Japan and the US, unearthing similar results.
“This [mislabeling of fish] is happening all over the world. It is a pretty common thing, but there is this new technique to actually prove it is happening,” Cox said.
Cox told us that she has gotten about 20 fish samples so far for this round of sampling from members of the public, and she aims to get 50-60 per sampling period.
She told our newspaper that she will be in Belize for another week and will be collecting samples. If you would like to donate a sample to her, you can e-mail [email protected] or call her at 627-8737.
Cox hopes to publish her dissertation this fall. She is assisted in her research by the Belize Fisheries Department, SEA – Southern Environmental Association, Healthy Reefs Initiative, The Toledo Institute for Development and Environment, and Turneffe Flats in Belize, as well as the Bruno Lab at the UNC in the US. The research is funded by The Rufford Small Grants Foundation.