#EarthDayWithDNA: Love seafood? Follow this calendar

Does the thought of seafood make you crave surmai (kingfish)? Love bangda (mackerel) fry just as much as you relish bombil (Bombay duck) masala? Want to see them on your plate for the rest of your life? We'd suggest you download the fish- and ocean-friendly calendar from KnowYourFish (KYF) or sign up for their monthly, mobile-phone fish recommendation service. For while most fish species are available in our markets and dished out heartily at restaurants througout the year, given declining fish stocks, the day isn't far when the only fish that'll survive are the ones in our aquariums.

A chance conversation with a college senior in 2014 about the possibility of hotels adopting a fish- and ocean-friendly menu, prompted three youngsters – Pooja Rathod (27), Mayuresh Gangal (31) and Chetana Purushottam (27), alumni of the post-graduate programme in wildlife biology and conservation, WCS-India and National Centre for Biological Sciences – to start an initiative to prompt hotel and restaurant owners as well as lay pescetarians to be responsible about their choice of fish.

Having referred to 100 publications from three decades and referring to online databases about biological information of fish species on India's western coast for nearly two years, the trio launched the www.knowyourfish.org.in website earlier this week, on April 19. The site features a calendar that suggests which species to consume in different months so as to spare "them during their breeding season and early stages of life" as well as avoid "collateral damage".

So if you thought that the only time you are supposed to stay off seafood is during the monsoon, then allow yourself to emerge from that myth. "There is no single breeding season for all the species of fish; different fish breed at different times of the year," says Rathod, now a research affiliate on Nature Conservation Foundation's Oceans and Coast Programme, on behalf of the KYF team. "Fish consumers are the ultimate stakeholders for fishing businesses. People would consider modifying their seafood choices if there's awareness and availability of information. Platforms like Know Your Fish provide access to this information."

While the calendar currently charts 25 species from the West coast, the team hopes to update and add more information about new species on an ongoing basis. It'll also review the entire calendar in June 2018. Given that the website is barely a week old, KnowYourFish's early success is evident in the fact that eight restaurants — four in Mumbai and four in Goa — have already committed to display the calendar on their premises to enable patrons to make responsible ecological choices. "Seeing the calendar being displayed in as many seafood restaurants as possible is a bigger goal," says Rathod.

All the same, the trio acknowledge that the environmental problems associated with the food industry are "incredibly complex" and that the success of any such initiative to tackle problems finally rests with the consumer. "We believe it's difficult to be 'environment friendly' all the time when making food choices," they admit. "However by knowing about the food source, we can certainly be responsible, and at least minimise our impact on the environment."

Prawns - for that special day in the year!

The bottom trawling method employed to catch prawns and tiger prawns, points out Pooja Rathod, is harmful for marine ecology. "Along with prawns, the nets catch large proportion of non target fish, including already threatened ones like certain sepcies of sharks and rays," explains Rathod. Tonnes of the non-targetted catch die in the process and simply thrown back into the sea as waste. Another side effect is that the ocean floor also get 'ploughed' in the process, causing habitat destruction for many fish. This is why the KYF team recommends that seafood lovers to consider these facts before choosing to get prawns for their next meal.