Next time you’re at the supermarket shopping for seafood, you ought to shrimp on the Danish prawns and a number of other fish, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

WWF’s new fish guide (here in Danish) lists 35 different fish species in three different categories (Green: okay, Yellow: be critical and Red: find an alternative) depending on whether they are caught or reared sustainably.

And here, the Danish prawns (shrimps in the US) from the North Sea and Skagerrak, as well as a number of other fish species, don’t live up to their standards and are in the red category.

“They’ve actually always been in the red category, but because they are a small part of the Danish market, they have been classified together with cold-water prawns, which is yellow,” Iben Wiene Rathje, a WWF fishery spokesperson, told Metroxpress newspaper.

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Aware consumers
Rathje said that it’s fine to buy the west-Greenland MSC-certified prawns, which are in the green category.

Aside from the prawns, the other fish species in the red category are the shark, the Atlantic wolffish, the monkfish, halibut, Norwegian lobster, ling (trawled), pangasius,  redfish,  lemon sole, cod (trawled in the North Sea, Skagerrak and Kattegat), tuna (steak), warm-water prawn and eel.

Rathje said that the new fish guide will help apply political pressure, and that people will be more aware of the seafood they purchase at supermarkets.

According to the WWF, 57 percent of the world’s fish population is fully exploited, 30 percent is overfished and 23 percent of the fish caught in the EU are tossed back into the ocean dead.