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When you buy seafood at the grocery store,
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the label might say something simple.
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But those labels often hide more information than they reveal.
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In many cases, consumers have almost no idea
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what species they are actually eating or where it came from.
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And that lack of transparency has become a major issue
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in global seafood markets.
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This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast,
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your weekday ocean news update.
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So the key question today is,
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what information do seafood labels actually provide?
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And what information is missing?
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That's really the question here.
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So seafood labeling rules very widely in the world.
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In major markets, labels include only a few pieces
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of basic information.
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May have like a common market name,
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so what you'd know, cod, salmon, tuna, that kind of stuff.
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The country of origin,
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and whether the seafood was farmed or wild caught.
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But in many cases, the labels don't include
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the exact scientific species name,
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which is really, really important.
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We'll talk about that in a second.
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The catch location or the fishing area,
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the fishing method use and the vessel
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or the fleet that it was caught in.
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So even just like the registration flag
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where this vessel was registered.
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Without this information, it becomes difficult
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for consumers to understand what they are actually buying.
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And the issue becomes even more complicated
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because many market names represent
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multiple different species.
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For example, the label snapper can represent
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more than 60 different species worldwide, 60.
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The label tuna can refer to several species
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with very different population statuses.
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The term rockfish includes dozens of species
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of the genus sebatis.
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Some of these species are abundant.
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Others are heavily overfished or under strict management.
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But when they're grouped under one simple in the market name,
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consumers cannot easily tell the difference.
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It's really difficult.
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Knowing the scientific species name,
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you can actually get what the common names are.
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So you'll have one species name, which is like a Latin name.
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And once you have that Latin name,
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it'll list all the different.
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Like if I search up Latin names and chat GPT
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or even on Google or Gemini, whatever that might be,
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I don't know what we're searching in these days.
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If I search a scientific name,
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you'll get all the common names that they're common referred to
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and you'll see that there are multiple common names.
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And that just could mean the different parts
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of the world, different countries are found.
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They might have like a Spanish name,
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they might have an English name.
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Even within an English name,
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they'll be called different things
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or known for different things.
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So just having a common name doesn't necessarily mean
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that you're eating the species you think you're eating.
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But having that scientific name really brings it to that area.
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Also, the vessel or fleet that caught the fish,
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making sure that you know what country
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that vessel or fleet were registered to
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is really important because that will tell you
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whether that country is known for good fisheries practices
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or not so good fisheries practices.
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Some countries are known for not regulating
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or not managing the illegal, unregulated
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and unreported fisheries, so IUU fishing,
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which is a big problem when we look at overfishing.
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And so some countries have a really bad reputation for that.
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Others have a really good reputation.
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So a lot of the vessels will register
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under the countries that do not have a good reputation for it
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because it's easier to get away with IUU fishing.
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So that's how it really works.
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So what is the science saying?
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Researchers studying seafood supply chains
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have repeatedly found that the lack of species level labeling
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creates major transparency gaps.
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A global analysis of seafood labeling and traceability
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found that the seafood products often pass
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through multiple intermediates.
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So including processors, distributors,
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and wholesalers before reaching consumers.
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In some cases, after the fishers catch the fish,
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they give it to somebody, like give it to a company
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and they actually don't know where their product is sold.
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That's been documented a number of times,
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especially there was one place in North Carolina
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where it was documented where the fishers
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didn't know where it went.
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It got handed off a number of different times
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and it would end up in New York, or end up in Seattle,
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But they had no idea who was buying their fisheries.
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That's why a lot of fishers that are local
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have gone to local catch shares
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where people pay into a program
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and they will get certain fish out of that.
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They'll get certain amount of fish out of that
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depending on how much they pay.
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So like if they have a catch share and you pay like $200,
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you may get $200 worth of fish.
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The fisher knows who it's going to locally
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which is really great for the fisher.
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And the consumer knows who caught it.
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They know their families, they know everything
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and it's kind of nice to have that relationship.
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It kind of brings it back home.
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It kind of brings pride back into the fishers.
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I'm not a fisher, but I know fishermen
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and fishing communities have a lot of pride in their work
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and I'm sure they would want to see it go to people
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that they know and that they can know
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will enjoy their fish.
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So at each step of the supply chain,
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information about species identity or catch origin
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can be lost or simplified into these broad categories.
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So another study examined seafood labeling
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in North America and found that
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market names frequently grouped multiple species together
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making it difficult for buyers to know exactly
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where they were purchasing.
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This is not necessarily illegal.
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In many cases, it is simply how seafood regulations
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were designated decades ago.
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But the result is a marketplace
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where species level transparency is often missing.
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A solution to that is to update these regulations,
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update the marketplace, making sure that transparency
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is for thinking in the policy, in the regulations, in the law.
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So why does this matter?
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Why do we care from a consumer's point of view,
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from my point of view, like why am I telling you
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why labeling is important and the lack
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of information labeling is not a good thing?
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When seafood is sold under broad market names
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instead of specific species, several problems emerge.
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First, it becomes harder to detect seafood fraud.
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If you have the transparency and know the species,
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you know where it's gone, throughout the entire supply chain,
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it's really hard to sell fraudulent seafood
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or even pass on fraudulent seafood.
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Second, fisheries managers have more difficulty tracking,
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which species are actually being sold and consumed.
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And third, consumers who want to make sustainable seafood choices
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often do not have the information they need.
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A great example is anytime I go to the supermarket
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and I ask the person behind the counter
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and usually it's like, you know, something like a teenager
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or someone who's just trying to get their job,
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trying to get their pay, whether it's minimum wage
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as a student or a student wage
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or somebody else has been there forever.
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If they don't know much about the fish,
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they don't know where it came from, how it was caught,
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where it was caught, it makes the process really difficult.
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And to be honest, it shouldn't be up
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to the person behind the counter.
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It should be up to the labels that are on the actual packaging.
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So for example, two fish labeled as tuna
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may come from completely different fisheries
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and completely different geographies
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with very different environmental impacts.
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But the label does not always reveal the difference.
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This lack of transparency creates blind spots
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across the entire seafood supply chain.
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Tomorrow, we're gonna look at how scientists discovered
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the seafood labels are sometimes not just vague.
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They're just sometimes wrong.
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DNA testing has revealed widespread seafood mislabeling
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in markets around the world.
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We're gonna really dive deep into fraud.
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And the results, it may surprise you.
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But if you like this information
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and you wanna know more, please hit that follow button
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And if you know someone who may benefit from this,
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whether it's another marine biologist
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and they wanna have more sustainable choices
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or better pick the choices,
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send this to them right now.
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That's how we get this community larger.
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because this is the beginning of a conversation.
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I would love for you to continue it.
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You can give me feedback
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or you can have questions, comments or anything like that.
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If you go to speakupforblue.com,
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forward slash feedback.
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That's speakupforblue.com, forward slash feedback.
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The link is in the show notes.
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If you wanna just click on that.
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I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this.
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I would love to hear your experiences
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when you buy seafood and do you find it confusing?
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Do you look for labels, all that kind of stuff.
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Love to hear your thought.
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But until next time, I wanna thank you
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for joining me on today's episode
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of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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I am your host, Andrew Lewin.
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We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.