Share a fish, save a fish

Do you enjoy popping a snapper eyeball into your mouth, or sucking the juicy bits from a fish’s face?

Even if that sounds disgusting to you, there are plenty of people in New Zealand – especially in Maori, Pacific Island and Asian communities – who love eating fish heads and think throwing away frames after they’ve been filleted is a massive waste.

Sadly, many people who catch a feed of fish only take the fillets, leaving the frames to rot at the beach, or at best bury them in the garden. That’s because, even if they’re aware that other people like eating the frames, they might not personally know anyone who’d take them.

That’s where Matt Watson wades in. Matt’s the presenter of the popular ITM Fishing Show and hates to see good food go to waste – and precious resources being used unsustainably.

“I want there to be a healthy green environment,” he told Green Ideas. “Something that my children’s children can enjoy.”

Matt set up the Free Fish Heads website a year ago, and is keen to remind fishos heading out this season to do their bit for conservation by using the service.

It’s free and incredibly easy to use – fishermen simply visit www.freefishheads.co.nz and jot down the phone numbers of a few people who have registered (again, for free) as being in their area, and keen to receive fish frames. If their day’s fishing is a success, the fishermen then keep the filleted frames on ice, put in a quick call to arrange a meeting on shore, and the happy recipients go home with a free meal.

“Utilisation is conservation,” says Matt. “If we can use the whole fish, it means we take less.” After all, a family that gets a bin of fish heads through the site might be fed for a whole week. That means they don’t have to catch fish themselves, or buy fish that have been caught by wasteful commercial trawlers.