You Are the Entire Ocean

The Orange Roughy is a predatory fish species that lives on undersea mountains (deep seamounts) in most ocean basins around the world. This species, also known as the Atlantic Roughy, is one of the longest living marine fish species, with individuals living for more than 150 years. In New Zealand, the average breeding age for the Orange Roughy is 73 years, making them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. Throughout much of its range, the Orange Roughy is overfished; with its extremely long lifespan and late age at maturity, it could take half a century or longer before populations can recover.

Many Orange Roughy stocks have already crashed, namely in New Zealand and Australia where they were first exploited in the late 1970s, and recently discovered stocks are decreasing rapidly. The Orange Roughy is the first commercially sought fish to be added to Australia's list of endangered species because of overfishing. Also, the method by which these deep sea dwellers are caught, deep-sea trawling, puts fish and other species, including deep-sea corals, at risk.

The United States continues to import up to 19 million pounds of Orange Roughy per year.