SEATTLE -- It quietly lurked there in the ice at the Pike Place Fish Market for decades.
With fish flying and mongers shouting all around it, the monkfish sat quietly, patiently waiting for its next victim. Sooner or later someone would spy the gaping mouth, the bugged-out eyes and teeth irresistible. They were lured closer and closer until WHAM! The monkfish suddenly jerked up and scared the living daylights out of the curious victim. A shriek followed by a hearty laugh, that was the monkfish's function, it's only function -- to make tourists laugh.
For years, workers would tug on the hidden string and the monkfish would do its thing, scaring the person who dared to get inches away from it for a closer look.
Click here to watch a KING 5 Emmy-nominated story about the Pike Place monkfish
But it turns out, the monkfish was the real victim. Managers and workers at Pike Place Market are committed to sell only fish caught by sustainable methods. And monkfish doesn't fit that bill.
"The only way they can be caught is by having a huge net dragged across the ocean floor," explained fish monger Taho Kakutani, "they just sort of scoop up everything in their path."
Monkfish are considered important to the ecology on the bottom of the sea. They are usually caught by accident along with tons of the target fish.
It's because Market workers loved the monkfish that they had to let it go, along with several other fish caught by methods deemed unacceptable. They claim to be, from their clams to their salmon, 100 percent sustainable.
Even though the monkfish was just a gag and never sold for food, it was, they felt, a victim of bad fishing practices. So it is gone, replaced by an equally ugly, but much less scary and much more sustainable rockfish.
The same shrieks and laughs ensue, but this time the fish at the end of the string wasn't dragged off the bottom by accident.
To add a comment, please register or login.