Seafood Watch

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program helps consumers and businesses make choices for a healthy ocean.

Seafood Watch® is a registered service mark of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation.

At the Zoo

The Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium partners with the Monterey Bay Aquarium to educate visitors about the importance of maintaining healthy ecosystems. Through the use of a wallet-sized card, visitors determine which seafood choices are best, which require caution, and which should be avoided. We encourage visitors to make the best choices – ones that are well managed or caught and farmed in environmentally friendly ways.

The Water’s Edge exhibit contains the Sound Seafood building where visitors can view a seafood counter and directly note the differences between good and poor choices in regards to fish populations’ health, the ocean’s health, and human health. Visitors can bring a Seafood Watch card with them to actual seafood markets or restaurants to help them make healthy choices for the fish populations and for themselves.

The Zoo also partners with local restaurants and seafood retailers to get them to offer alternatives to seafood that is being overfished or is dangerous for human consumption. Through the Zoo’s partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Seafood Watch Program, the Zoo hosts training sessions for local restaurateurs, including the Zoo’s own food service company, Service System Associates.

How does it work?

Use the Seafood Watch Consumer Guide to make ocean-friendly choices wherever you are!

Seafood options are rated as:
Best Choices – Buy first. They’re well managed and caught or farmed in ways that cause little harm to habitats or other wildlife.
Good Alternatives – Buy, but be aware that there are concerns with how they’re caught or farmed.
Avoid – Don’t buy, they’re overfished or caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment.

Download the Seafood Watch App or pick up a Seafood Watch Consumer Guide at your next visit to the Zoo!