No, and they never were. Despite a three-year, $7 million "Give Swordfish a Break" PR stunt run by the environmental group SeaWeb, swordfish from the North Atlantic Ocean were not in any serious danger. In fact, U.S. swordfish imports tripled during SeaWeb's boycott, suggesting that U.S. fishermen were the real victims of this ill-advised campaign.
So why did Seaweb claim swordfish needed "rescuing"?
Vicki Spruill, then SeaWeb's executive director, told The St. Petersburg Times in 1998 that swordfish was chosen because she thought it would capture the public's imagination. "We wanted something majestic," said Spruill. Earlier that year, she told O'Dwyer's PR Services Report that the swordfish episode was "really a fabulous opportunity for me to design what is really just a big communications campaign."
What do outside authorities have to say about the state of swordfish stocks?
In 1998 Rebecca Lent, then director of the Highly Migratory Species Division of the National Marine Fisheries Service (which regulates commercial fishing) told The Dallas Observer: "Swordfish are not considered endangered. Current international quotas are set at levels that should allow the stocks to stabilize and even begin to rebuild." SeaWeb's campaign started later that same year.
In 2002 the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas reported that swordfish populations were at 94 percent of what conservationists consider to be "healthy" levels. And since swordfish are a highly migratory species, it's likely that their numbers were always robust, but difficult to track.
Linda Greenlaw, likely the only American woman to captain her own swordfishing boat, was described in Sebastian Junger's bestseller The Perfect Storm as "one of the best captains, period, on the entire East Coast." In Greenlaw's book The Happy Ocean, she writes:
"I have always been happy to comply with regulations set forth by our country's finest scientists and bureaucrats, and to observe boundaries, believing that laws will insure the future of swordfish and swordfishing. What annoys me are the actions taken by groups such as the head chefs of a number of fine restaurants who boycotted swordfish, taking it off their menus in their Give Swordfish a Break campaign. Give me a break! I wonder how these chefs keep themselves abreast of the state of the fishery and how they can be so conceited to presume they might know better than the fishermen and scientists who have been working together for years to keep the stocks healthy. In my opinion, little Chef Fancy Pants should work at perfecting his creme brulee and leave fisheries management to those who know more about swordfish than how best to prepare it."
The whole swordfish campaign sounds pretty silly. Was it?
Absolutely. In 1999 The Washington Post surveyed all 78 restaurants that SeaWeb claimed were on board with its swordfish boycott. The Post found that many "were put on the list without their official approvals … About a quarter of the restaurateurs said they do indeed serve swordfish. Some said they had participated in the campaign for a short while, but then reneged after customers asked for swordfish or because they thought the ban was over. A couple of restaurateurs didn't remember signing a pledge."