Where Can You Catch Orange Roughy?

Orange roughy live in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans. In the eastern Atlantic, they range from Iceland to South Africa. In the Indo-Pacific, they are distributed around New Zealand and off Chile. Orange roughy sold in U.S. markets are primarily from New Zealand, China, Namibia and Australia.

Can you still get orange roughy?

Orange Roughy live 1000 metres below the surface off the east coast of Canterbury, New Zealand, it's dark and cold, and still. So still that trails carved by drifting icebergs in the sediment of the ocean floor 18,000 years ago can still be made out.

Why is fishing the orange roughy a bad idea?

It is important to commercial deep-trawl fisheries. The fish is a bright, brick-red color, fading to a yellowish-orange after death. Like other slimeheads, orange roughy is slow-growing and late to mature, resulting in a very low resilience, making them extremely susceptible to overfishing.