Ocean Sentry
(From theaustralian.news.com.au) – The bluefin tuna is facing extinction through overfishing by French and Spanish fleets, scientists have warned. The species is renowned for its ability to accelerate faster than a Porsche, but it has proved unable to escape the giant nets and lines deployed by Southern Europe”s tuna fleets.
They have spent the past 10 years hunting down the remnants of what was once one of the Atlantic’s most common marine predators, repeatedly flouting quotas and disregarding scientific warnings, say the researchers.
In a review, they have described the management of the Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery as an “international disgrace” and warn that the species is facing a population crash from which it may never recover.
Bluefins can reach nearly 700kg and are renowned for their fighting ability when caught on rod and line. They are so large that the killer whale is the only marine predator to hunt them.
However, research by the Madrid-based International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas has found that European fishermen, mostly from southern countries such as France, Spain and Italy, are landing about 60,000 tonnes of bluefin tuna a year, more than double the EU quota of 28,000 tonnes set in 2006. They also warn that the quota was set twice as high as it should have been.
The findings will provoke a diplomatic row because the Mediterranean, where most of the fish are caught, is the main spawning ground for bluefin tuna throughout the Atlantic. Overfishing there has caused a catastrophic drop in populations off the US, where there is also a fishery.
The booming global demand for sushi means that a single bluefin can be worth more than pound stg. 20,000 ($50,000). The biggest markets are in Spain and Japan.
Such high prices have spurred Southern Europe’s fishermen to employ extraordinary techniques, including using spotter planes to find fish.
Rebecca Lent, the US official who will lead the American delegation to next month’s ICCAT meeting, which will set new quotas, said she wanted the fishery to be shut down so that stocks could recover. “This fishery is facing a complete collapse and it needs to be protected,” she said.
It is unclear whether science-backed measures will succeed in the face of opposition from southern Europe’s pro-fishing nations, whose obstinacy has prompted conservationists to dub ICCAT the International Conspiracy to Catch All the Tuna.
The decline of the bluefin is just one aspect of a population crash affecting many large marine species. A study in the journal Science last year warned that many of the great sharks were on the edge of extinction. Since 1972 the number of blacktip sharks has fallen by 93per cent, tiger sharks by 97 per cent and bull sharks, dusky sharks and smooth hammerheads by 99per cent.
(By Jonathan Leake)
