Whole Foods Market, the nation's leading natural and organic supermarket chain, has announced effective Earth Day (April 22), the retailer will be the first national grocer to no longer offer its customers any seafood carrying a "red rating," which the Blue Ocean Institute and the Monterey Bay Aquarium use to identify species that are either being overfished or employ methods used in catch that put ecosystems and other marine life at risk.

The BP oil spill that plagued the Gulf of Mexico last year brought many area fishing operations to a screeching halt. Aside from massive fish and wildlife deaths as a result of the spill, concerns over contamination and ocean sustainability have consumers, as well as fishers, unsure about the health of any post-spill catches.