The Greenpeace action team was led by Executive Director Bruce Cox who provided store customers with information on the failure of Costco to protect seafood.

Inside the store, activists set up a banner reading “Don’t Buy, Don’t Sell Redlist Fish” and prevented the sale of Redlist species by chaining a shopping cart loaded with seafood to freezer doors.

Outside, Cox and more activists distributed information leaflets to customers and raised another banner reading “Costco: Wholesale ocean destruction.”

“Costco and Canada’s other large supermarket chains are major accomplices in species and ocean destruction,” said Cox. “Greenpeace is at this Costco store to let consumers know that it must stop selling Redlist fish and begin implementing policies that promote the sale of sustainable seafood.”

Today is day four of the Greenpeace confrontation campaign against major supermarket chains. There were also activities in two other cities today. During the campaign, activists will challenge store management at grocery outlets in 19 cities in five provinces. So far, seven Greenpeace activists have been arrested. Successful activities have been conducted at stores in Victoria and Kelowna, B.C.; North Bay, and Peterborough, Ontario; and Trois-Rivières and Victoriaville in Quebec.

The confrontation campaign follows the release of a new Greenpeace report entitled Out of Stock, Out of Excuses: Ranking retailers on seafood sustainability that ranks Canada’s major grocery chains on their sustainability efforts under seven criteria, including the quality of their seafood policies and the number of Redlist species sold.

The Costco chain received a failing grade in part because it doesn’t have a sustainable seafood policy. Greenpeace delivered a copy of the ranking report to the store’s manager.

“Costco refuses to take action to protect our fish stocks from commercial extinction,” said Cox. “We want their customers to help us stop Costco from fishing our oceans to death.”

- 30 -

Editor’s Note:

Photos of the action are available upon request.

A backgrounder and the full Out of Stock, Out of Excuses report are available at the end of the news release “Ranking fails all Canadian supermarkets on supporting sustainable seafood” on the Greenpeace press centre: www.greenpeace.ca/press

The 15 Redlist species are: Arctic surf clams, Atlantic cod, Atlantic haddock, Atlantic halibut, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sea scallops, Chilean seabass, Greenland halibut, New Zealand hoki, orange roughy, sharks, skates and rays, swordfish, tropical shrimp and prawns, and tuna.

For more information, please contact:
Alex Paterson, Media & Public Relations Officer, (416) 524-8496 (on location in Kingston)
Bruce Cox, Executive Director of Greenpeace Canada, (416) 419 7341 (on location in Kingston)