Sting uncovers black market in Washington

It’s a story straight out of a spy novel: it begins in a sleepy town, where government agents assume local names and cautiously enter a thriving black market.  Several million dollars change hands.  With the some helpful advice from a coroner, it ends in an upscale Georgetown neighborhood and winds up covered in the Washington Post.  

But instead of foreign intelligence agencies and military secrets, the case revolves around a delicious bass.  

As reported in the Washington Post, Maryland fishers have been charged with illegally harvesting rockfish, or striped bass, from the Chesapeake Bay.  While there’s a legitimate market for these fish, the case revolved around the size of the fish caught and the methods by which they were caught.

As with many species of fish, the oldest and largest striped bass are the most important for reproducing.  To protect these fish and ensure robust future generations, there’s an open slot length for striped bass: fish that are too small cannot be caught, and neither can the large, older fish so valuable for maintaining a healthy population.  The fishers charged are accused of knowingly taking the protected breeders.  The fish were also likely to have been caught with nets, which are banned, instead of hook and line.

These illegally harvested fish were then passed on to markets and unknowing consumers, highlighting one of the great difficulties of protecting fish: by the time a consumer is staring at a restaurant menu or looking at a cut of fish at the market, it’s virtually impossible for them to know how the fish was caught.  So in the nexus of policy-makers and wonkishly-informed consumers that is Washington, even the most conscientious shoppers would have no idea they were contributing to unsustainable fishing practices by eating striped bass.

The engaging story can be read in full at the Washington Post’s website.