New name for dolphinfish

[Nugget]

Everytime I have to write the word dolphinfish I cringe - we need to stop using that word as it implies we're catching Flipper.

It looks like the seafood industry has adopted the name mahi mahi as the marketing name.
It doesn't roll off the tounge too well!
They are also called dorado in other countries - which I like better.
Pompano is another name I've heard them called.

So which will we use? - Stick with the Seafood industry - mahi mahi?
Make up our own name - dollies..., mahifish...?
Let's start the trend here and make a pact never again use the word dolphinfish.

Dave ><>

[Heath]

In my articles I usually refer to them as Mahi Mahi, when talking about them I just call them Dollies.

[Jeremy]

Totally agree that we should not be using 'dolphinfish'. I like the term 'mahi mahi' myself, but you are right, it is a bit of a mouthful.

Jeremy

[ken4159]

I like "dolphinfish"

[juicyfruit]

Coryphaena hippurus

Cory Hip
Cory
Hip

ETC

DPI call them Mahi Mahi

I call them 'My wish fish'.
When I actually get one on my line I will call it "Arrrrrh, holly crap".
When its getting its pic taken it will be called "Hell, about bloody time".
When its released I will call it "It's done".

[jeffo]

mahi mahi or dorado. #easy.

mahi mahi translates as "strong strong" in hawaiian for those who dont know.

in central and southern america they are called dorado meaning "gold" in spanish.

So why how did they get the name of dolphin fish here? rumour has it that under water mahi mahi make squeaking noises very much like the noises dolphins use to communicate.

[DaneCross]

Interesting Jeffo.
Nugget, I'd be inclined to go with Mahi Mahi, otherwise, Dollies.
DC

[dasher]

Stick with the seafood industry, they do some intensive research to find the most popular (albiet, mainly consumers) common name for a fish.
Leave at Mahi mahi and just abbreviate to Mahi in general conversation.

[thumps]

i remember reading a similar thing a few years ago


with the GOODOO debate

good luck trying to change names

for me...its Mahi Mahi

[finding_time]

Mahi Mahi for me!!

I dont want to confuse the two.

I like to know when i'm eating reel dolphin!! ;)

Ian

[martini]

Hi Nugget
I have never caught a mahi but am keen to do so
Firstly what is the best bait or spinner or slug?
Second i have heard you catch them around bouys and beacons is this so?

Cheers
Noel

[fish2eat]

So if we stick with the seafood industry, we will be catching "Pacific Dory" in the Brisbane River????

The seafood industry uses exotic names to enhance marketing.......but I'll go along with the rest

When I catch one, I'll call it "dinner"

[mackmauler]

dolfin is the best imo, no need to call them fish either, ill never catch a mahi ever lol. if there is any confusion over flipper you spell that dolphin.

[roz]

Down here we are so used to calling them dollies. So dollies it is!

[raefpud]

well, i think the name is fine, let them stop marketing this fish then - at least its not as ridiculous as the new marketing name for Kangaroo............, almost choked when i heard that and the other names it could have been called.

[Argle]

Dollies for me....that or yummy ;D ;D ;D

Cheers & Beers

[Gazza]

On the boat & in the pub.....dollies
in the fish markets..... (Australian) Mahi Mahi
in the fishshops.....shark :)

[Owen]

How about
"The performer formally known as Dolphin Fish" ;D

cheers,
Owen

[sf17fisherman]

dolphinfish for me but i'm too lasy so dollies it is for us too

[madman1]

My thought Mahi Mahi. Sounds exotic!

[Nugget]

Noel they like anything floating in the water including buoys and beacons.
A lure, moving pillie or live bait will catch them.

Kangaroo meat is a good example - now called Australis... - other names regected include kangarly, maroo and kangasaurus!

Ok it looks like Mahi Mahi it is - and dollies around the BBQ - let's hope they don't think we're referring to Barbie!

All the writers that frequent this site - let's now drop the name dolphinfish - for Flipper's sake!

Dave ><>

[DICER]

dolphinfish ;D ;D

[Lone_Wolf]

"the jumpin' bajesus!!"

[SeaSaw]

mahi mahi it is from now on :)

[onerabbit]

dollies is the go, easy to say, dorAdo a but to american. muzz

[strongy]

:-? so if mahi is strong in hawaiian maybe i should be called dolphin :o then i wont be confused , ,,, i think i`m already confused ::) Hey how about mahiy ;D

[baldyhead]

I like Barbie better ;D ;D ;D

[Dug]

I cannot believe how people react to a name There was a full bull mahi Mahi in a fish shop and some people were looking at it they asked what it was so I said Dolphin fish It was obviously not a dolphin but they would not eat it because of the name.

SO I suggest we call them Flipper the cute golden dolphin fish.

Commercial fishers will never be able to sell them and there will be more for us to catch!


;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Dug]

PS I don't eat fish so throw another skippy steak on the barbi for me OK :o

[Dug]

How about
"The performer formally known as Dolphin Fish"


This gets my vote ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[DICER]

How about we call it flipper....

[chanquetas]

Well, I hate to be controversial....but.....I dont know why we dont eat Dolphins????

Whats so special about flipper that he is exempt? OK, Whales I understand, there's only about 12 of them left, although some of them are increasing in numbers. (Actually they are becoming a bit of a navigation hazard in some parts).

But what has the dolphin done thats so bloody special? Sure, they are cute, shiny, they jump and squeal and stuff, but there are LOTS of them. They are far too smart to be taken by recreational fishers, you cant just go out and catch one if you wanted to, but with the sheer numbers of them I would have thought they would be fair game.

Now, I will pre empt the obvious reply that is sure to come...."Because they are so smart".
Yes, they always figure in the top 10 smartest animals list, but so do pigs, usually right behind dolphins. Do you reckon we would eat pigs if they could amuse us with their cute antics. Im not saying dont eat pigs, Im not a hippy, Im just curious about the Dolphin thing.

As for the name Nugget? I reckon Dolphin Fish. I told a Veggo friend once that I had just eaten some great Dolphin Fish and she freaked out. "You ate a Dolphin!!!!!". Naturally I had to explain but it was worth it to see the look on her face.
Cheers,
Jake

[dorado]

dorado dorado dorado :)
works for me :D

[johnnytheone]

I reckon you stick with the three accepted, standardised names. Dolphin Fish, Dorado, or Mahi Mahi. Trying to get away from Dolphin Fish because some people think you are killing "Flipper" is just another form of political correctness. We've had this crap over in the west regarding one of our prize demersals, West Australian JEWFISH (Glaucosoma Hebraicum), which is now officially called a Dhufish. For Gods sake don't even consider letting the marketing people dream up an acceptable name for any fish!

Cheers, John

[Franco]

Nugget good topic.....

My heart lies in 2 minds

1. #For the sake of preserving our fisheries rights and attracting less negative attention to our hobby, and in order to appease the opposing forces that be ...... then changing the common term for this species to something other than Dolphinfish sounds reasonable ...... HOWEVER;

2. #I'm sick to death of the past decades ridiculous obsession with political correctness. #The perception that a simple change in name for something will have any effect on the larger issues at hand is ludicrous. #In reality there are always going to be negative attitudes to us by a minority of members of the community regardless of what we call this fish or other fish. #If anything, a simple explanation of the difference between "A Dolphin" and "A Dolphinfish" is all that should be required. # Stuff the Fun Police; if it was up to them then most piss-funny jokes wouldn't exist, and hilarious people we have amongst us woud be in exile!! #We should be outlining the simple truth that conservation attitudes, ecological ethics, and humane treatment of caught fish has no relationship whatsoever to the jokes one cracks or to the name we use for the fish itself. #

PC'ness can be taken to excess; #These days It is occasionaly suggested that I should be referring to my Patients as "Clients". # What a load of crap!!: #I can tell you that in an Emergency, or in Intensive care there are NO clients ..... people don't CHOOSE to come and see me ..... they're there coz they are injured / desperately ill, suffering and are in dire need of urgent medical care..... and I love helping them. #They are not clients, they are patients. #Regardless of what the PC crowd call them, they receive the same respect, treatment and dignity. #

So too the Dolphinfish, Mahi Mahi, and Dorado. #Who cares what they are called .... just respect them as they deserve.

I guess you can tell which point of view I've decided on!!

[Richo1]

Dolphinfish for me, otherwise Mahi Mahi,

Cheers Richo

[dasher]

Nugget good topic.....

My heart lies in 2 minds

1. #For the sake of preserving our fisheries rights and attracting less negative attention to our hobby, and in order to appease the opposing forces that be ...... then changing the common term for this species to something other than Dolphinfish sounds reasonable ...... HOWEVER;

2. #I'm sick to death of the past decades ridiculous obsession with political correctness. #The perception that a simple change in name for something will have any effect on the larger issues at hand is ludicrous. #In reality there are always going to be negative attitudes to us by a minority of members of the community regardless of what we call this fish or other fish. #If anything, a simple explanation of the difference between "A Dolphin" and "A Dolphinfish" is all that should be required. # Stuff the Fun Police; if it was up to them then most piss-funny jokes wouldn't exist, and hilarious people we have amongst us woud be in exile!! #We should be outlining the simple truth that conservation attitudes, ecological ethics, and humane treatment of caught fish has no relationship whatsoever to the jokes one cracks or to the name we use for the fish itself. #

PC'ness can be taken to excess; #These days It is occasionaly suggested that I should be referring to my Patients as "Clients". # What a load of crap!!: #I can tell you that in an Emergency, or in Intensive care there are NO clients ..... people don't CHOOSE to come and see me ..... they're there coz they are injured / desperately ill, suffering and are in dire need of urgent medical care..... and I love helping them. #They are not clients, they are patients. #Regardless of what the PC crowd call them, they receive the same respect, treatment and dignity. #

So too the Dolphinfish, Mahi Mahi, and Dorado. #Who cares what they are called .... just respect them as they deserve.

I guess you can tell which point of view I've decided on!!

Great reply Franco, have to agree all the way. I can remember "a little" while ago Hey Hey Its Saturday having a Bidelonian joke segment. Everyone knew they were Irish jokes but because of the name change they were acceptable. Hmmm double standards, sleight of hand or are we just stupid????

Come to think of it, I'd much rather catch stonker niggers than big luderick or is that just me. :-? ::)

[DICER]

As pigs are bred to be slaughtered, Dolphinfish can be fished

Get some Dolphinfish on your fork!

(I hope this removes the edge for those who cringe calling it dolphinfish). I think Dolphinfish goes down well.

[DaneCross]

I noticed you used 'Mahi Mahi' in your report last week Nugget - sounded alright to me ;)

[flickflack]

Dollies just as good

[Toppy]

I personally dont give a rats what they are called, there awsome to catch & spectacular to look at. If people need to change the name so that they dont feel guilty when its on the menu, then choose something else to eat! In the end what does it really matter its not going to change how many fish are eaten Aust wide. PC's as Franco put it are a minority, thank GOD! So if we bow to there every whim then more fool us.
Toppy ;)

[RAGINGBULL]

Dorado

So simple and accepted all over the world.

Mark

[Billo]

Yep , Dollies from my ball park

[Derek_Bullock]

Who forced the change from Pacicic Dory to Basa? anyone know.


so thats what that is


gawd struth

Not True ! ! ! ! !

Basa is a freshwater catfish that is farmed in Vietnam.


Derek

[Nugget]

I noticed you used 'Mahi Mahi' in your report last week Nugget - sounded alright to me ;)

I agree Dasher - #political correctness has gone way too far.
Yes DC - in the interest of not generating any negative publicity, I've decided like Heath to call them mahi mahi in print TV and radio.

No scales off my back and if it prevents one negative comment it is worth it.

Dave ><>

[RobSee]

So Derek - what was Pacific Dory then, if it is not freshwater catfish from SE Asia?

[Derek_Bullock]

Rob

Pacific Dory was the same thing, a catfish. #This came out in a Today Tonight Show where they did DNA tests an a number of fish. #Below is an extract from that show.

Cheers


Derek


REPORTER: Graeme Butler

BROADCAST DATE: October 25, 2004

Are you getting the fish you paid for? Several fish ordered in a restaurant and DNA tested turned out not to be what was on the menu. The fishing industry wants a crackdown on fish fakes.

Australia has some of the best seafood in the world, but even if you order it at your favourite restaurant, it seems you might not be eating it. The menu says one thing, but in some cases something completely different ends up on your plate.

At a seafood restaurant in Perth, we ordered four meals of fish: Red Throated Emperor, Pearl Snapper, Beer Battered Snapper and Atlantic Salmon.

We sent samples of all the fish we received for DNA testing #to find out exactly what we'd paid for. Dr Pieter Scheelings of Queensland's health department conducted the tests for Today Tonight.

"We get a sample of the fish," Dr Scheelings said. "We extract the DNA, we purify it, we then amplify it. We look at a particular segment of the DNA and then we do a DNA sequence on that and compare that with a reference fish."

Confusion over fish names has dogged the industry for years, as they vary from state to state. Richard Stevens from the Fishing industry council says it's been difficult for customers and restaurateurs alike.

"We had the case of Pacific Dory," Mr Stevens said. "It seems to have gone away now – it's not from the Pacific, it's not a Dory, it's a catfish from Vietnam – #now it's called Basa which is its local name overseas."

A recent health department study across Australia found 35 per cent of restaurants tested were not serving the fish they promised.

Kim Leighton from the WA health department was involved in the national fish study, which found that just 106 of 138 samples were the fish described in marketing claims.

Here is another story on it


WHAT FISH IS THAT?

"Things that batter"

23/11/2005
By Anthony Hoy


Australia's appetite for fish and chips is being fed by Pacific dory, aka Mekong River catfish, which is set to dwarf our local fishing industry.
Anthony Hoy reports:

Fish and chips, a wedge of lemon, lashings of batter and salt - a splash of vinegar to dilute the grease, perhaps - and all washed down with a soft drink, a frosty ale or a glass of vino. December, the start of the long, hot summer. Bring on the lazy weekends and coastal holidays. Forget slaving over a hot stove or a barbecue: dinner is served, at the beach, in cardboard cartons, or parceled up in newsprint lined with greaseproof paper.

But something is missing, and it's not the seagulls or the flies.

The good, fresh, local catch that Australians have for generations associated with their fish and chips - the flathead, snapper, silver and john dory, red fish, bream and whiting - are in increasingly short supply and, as a result, are becoming prohibitively expensive.

In their place in the fish-and-chips pack, like it or not, is "Pacific dory", the so-called "catch of the day" - an innocuous skinless, boneless and bland-flavored fillet.

Pacific dory is now Australia's biggest-selling fish, according to the Master Fish Merchants Association (MFMA). With sales approaching a staggering 7000 tonnes this year, it is driving a fish shop revolution. Says MFMA chief executive, Michael Kitchener: "Because it is relatively cheap, retailing at around $10 per kilogram, the public love it."

The problem, according to the chairman of the Australian Fish Names Committee, Roy Palmer, is that Pacific dory has never seen the Pacific - or any other ocean, for that matter. And it is nothing like a dory.

Here's food for thought: the fish you will probably sink your teeth into the next time you are beachside and hungry has been raised in cages suspended under houseboats and barges in the crowded and polluted waters of Vietnam's Mekong River.

The same snap-frozen and imported fish, says Palmer, is being sold as a popular line in Australian supermarkets under the deceptive marketing label, "freshwater fillet".

It is Pangasius bocourti, one of 21 species of freshwater catfish found in the Mekong basin, and - in a move designed to curb deceptive naming practices by fishmongers and supermarkets - last year christened "basa" under Seafood Services Australia's uniform fish names process.

"Basa's success in the marketplace has been a key factor in fish imports from Vietnam doubling in 2002-03 and then doubling again last year," says managing director of the Sydney Fish Market, Grahame Turk.

An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese are involved in the government-owned basa fishery.

It produces more basa than Australia's total seafood production of 550,000 tonnes a year, according to Turk, who is also deputy chairman of the Australian Seafood Industry Council. Vietnam's basa production, Turk says, is expected to reach 1 million tonnes a year within five years.

Vietnam's catfish exports have already decimated the local catfish industry in the US where producers are fighting back.

There is no basa-farming standard among Vietnamese processors, according to the American domestic fishing lobby, thus there is no distinction in the marketplace between professionally farmed product and caged fish from Mekong houseboats and barges.

Sewage systems along the Mekong struggle to keep pace with rapid development, and run-off from the river's hinterland is polluted by fertilisers and pesticides.

American industry sources claim large stocks of basa are fed through holes cut in the floors of houseboats, the human waste from which also goes straight into the river. Food for the fish includes vegetable and crop waste, rice bran and animal waste.

The Mekong and associated aquaculture ponds have a high silt concentration, say the Americans, and it is common Vietnamese practice to soak the basa fillets in sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP), a chemical used as a preservative and seafood "texturiser".

This means that consumers who purchase basa by weight from Australian supermarkets need to be wary, because fish treated with STPP retain more water.

In August, the American states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana suspended the sale of all Vietnamese aquatic products, following the discovery of the antibiotics ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin in basa imports.
Ciprofoxacin and enrofloxacin - prohibited in western countries because of the risk of their transferring resistant micro-organisms to humans - were being used by some Mekong River basa producers to combat salmonella and other disease in fish.

The antibiotics can also lead to the development of the infectious disease campylobacter, which can cause diarrhoea, abdominal pain, fever, nausea and vomiting. Vietnam's Ministry of Fisheries has foreshadowed restrictions on the use of 11 antibiotics in its aquatic products sector.

The use of the name basa in place of Pacific dory is not yet mandatory in Australia, says Roy Palmer, "even though there are a lot of reasons why it should be".

An Australian standard for fish names is expected to be launched early in the new year, as a preliminary step towards legislative controls.

"One of the problems is that every state has different arrangements," Palmer says. "Until there is uniformity, people can drive holes through these issues.
"And the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service [charged with responsibility for making sure imports meet Australian food standards] does not check fish names.

This remains a big problem."

[DICER]

yum yum... mekong catfish

dorado is actually given to a very close relative of bream when sold here in europe and the netherlands. I also saw squire which were also labelled dorado today.

tonight I was considering tilapifilets for dinner - now I'm wondering how they are bred, filleted and treated! probably from your nearest aquarium.....

anyway that leaves dolphinfish, mahi mahi or flipperfish for alterive names..... ;D

[Nugget]

I had an interesting discussion with an Asian man this week.
He tells me that sewage is a major problem ‘back home’ and one way they are combating it is to use fish.
They are adding small aquarium size carp to their septic systems - the carp live in the cesspool, keep the effluent down and grow at enormous rates.
After some time the carp are then sold at market.
Not sure under what name they are marketed but I don't think I'll be eating any!!

Dave ><>

[PMC]

Nothing wrong with a bit of recycling, eh , Nugget?
Niiiiiiiiiiiice,,,,,, ;D

[Franco]

Nugget the PC crowd are gonna love it when they start seeing those sewer-carp marketed in our fish markets as, "Ha-Poo-Ka"

[smiley=end.gif] [smiley=end.gif] [smiley=help.gif] [smiley=behead.gif]

Now that's WRONG Dude!!
I'm gonna be ill.

[DICER]

yes I have also heard about farms where the poochutes are little huts that hang out over the fish and duck pond.

[1810B]

Go with seafood industry Mahi Mahi.
Who forced the change from Pacicic Dory to Basa? anyone know.

[thumps]

Who forced the change from Pacicic Dory to Basa? anyone know.


so thats what that is


gawd struth