Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program gives a sustainability nod to all rainbow trout and steelhead farmed in freshwater net-pens, raceways, tanks and ponds in Canada.

Seafood Watch helps retailers, distributors and consumers make informed decisions about fish and seafood. The program uses a traffic light system with green being the ‘Best Choice’ for protecting underwater ecosystems.

This ‘Best Choice’ recommendation for Canadian rainbow trout and steelhead comes after a year’s-long evaluation of the ecological sustainability of the sector.

“Many of Canada’s freshwater trout farms are concentrated in Ontario. After learning about this national review, our farmers took a transparent approach to share as much data as we could,” said RJ Taylor, managing director for the Ontario Aquaculture Association.

“We shared many years of water quality monitoring, habitat studies, sediment sampling, feed and chemical usage, escapes and wildlife interactions — which Seafood Watch vetted through additional interviews with industry regulators, researchers and veterinarians.”

The evaluation highlights that data availability and quality was good, most environmental impacts are low concerns, effluent has no cumulative impacts on water bodies, antimicrobial use is low, and concerns with escapes are low.

You can find all the recommendations on the Seafood Watch website, or read the full 148-page evaluation published this week.