Gourmet's Barry Estabrook investigates VP candidate Governor Sarah Palin's dealings with Alaska's salmon industry. The following is an excerpt of his findings published on Gourmet.com.

At the very least, there was something fishy about Alaska Governor (and Vice Presidential hopeful) Sarah Palin's decision to speak out publicly against the state's Clean Water Initiative late last month. There may also be something blatantly illegal about her advocacy for defeating the ballot initiative, which ultimately failed to pass when 57 percent of Alaskans voted against it.

The law in Alaska forbids a governor from officially lobbying for or against a ballot initiative such as Ballot Measure 4. To get around the law, Palin exercised what she called "personal privilege" when she said to reporters, "Let me take my governor's hat off for just a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop 4-I vote no on that."

The story continues at Gourmet.com: Politics of the Plate: Salmongate

At the moment, there is no federal standard for labeling fish as "organic." While cows, pigs, chickens and all sorts of other animals can easily meet existing standards by being fed specific types of food and not getting any hormones or antibiotics added to them, fish are much harder to pin down. Part of the problem lies in the fact that many fish are carnivorous and because there are currently no organic fish, they cannot eat organic feed. Additionally, to ensure that fish are only eating organically, which is not a problem for herbivorous fish, they must be supervised and receive specific feed. If fish have to be supervised to get the "organic" designation, that means that wild fish will not qualify, which is a sticking point for those who actually fish wild fish.

Scientists and environmentalists, however, agree that the organic label should not be applied to wild fish, reminding people that "organic" refers to a type of agriculture and the catching of wild fish is not agriculture.

The debate on both sides has been ongoing for years now and, even when a consensus is reached, it will probably take a couple more years for fisheries to meet the chosen USDA standards and get their products in the market.

The average American eats nearly 17 pounds of seafood each year, and the amount has been steadily increasing over the past half-century, so it's worrying to hear that a new study reveals we might only have the same kind of access to the sea for less than half that time before we run into some serious problems. In an article published this week in Science, a group of international researchers said "90% of the fish and shellfish species that are hauled from the ocean to feed people worldwide may be gone by 2048." They cite overfishing and poor fishery management as major contributors to the problem. Fish are not replenished, or given enough time to rebuild their populations before they are fished to the brink of existence, as has been happening with 29% of the fish species that are commercially fished, according to the researchers.

Of course, it's important to keep in mind that this is not the first time that there have been doomsday predictions about food supplies and other natural resources, but that doesn't mean there is no truth to it. The team said in their report that implementing more widespread sustainable fishing practices will alleviate or even avoid the problem entirely. They also call for increasing the efforts for conservation of coastal areas and water pollution

It's not a health warning this time, at least not for people.

It's a report from the WWF that is concerned about the population of fish, everything from cod to swordfish. According to BBC, the WWF says that "much of the fish sold in Europe is the product of illegal, destructive or wasteful fishing," and that the conservation organization has warned that "continuing to buy it will bring many fish stocks to the brink of extinction."

In order to mitigate the problem, the WWF recommends that consumers only buy fish that comes from sustainable and well-managed fisheries. This is marked on fish with a Marine Stewardship Council label.

A restaurant cooking your catch is nothing new, but a recent CBS report points out a Japanese restaurant called Zauo where patrons must nab their fish from a large pool before it is sent to the kitchen. The lobster tank debate aside, I have to wonder how tender a fish caught this way (stressed after being chased by a novice angler) would be. I've also heard that sushi-grade fish should be rested after being caught, so that the muscles can relax. I could be wrong about that, though. The Fark page where I found this article also has some discussion about freezing fish before serving it raw, which some states require. Also, one poster said that since most fish in the tank are hard to land, diners are often forced to settle on a more expensive but easier to catch lobster. Bear in mind that the text of the article is transcribed from a television segment, so it reads a strangely.