- Bluefin tuna could be commercially extinct in as little
as five years, due to unregulated fishing which exploits a loophole in
international conservation quotas, The Scotsman has learned.
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- Japan's insatiable appetite for the largest of the tuna
species to satisfy the sushi and sashimi restaurant trade is driving a
new trend for intensive fishing of the bluefin.
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- Despite increasing awareness of the impact of modern
fisheries, numerous organisations dedicated to preserving fishing stocks,
and apparent consumer interest in environmentally sustainable food, the
practice is threatening to destroy the bluefin.
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- Unlike aquaculture, where the fish are bred from eggs
and reared to maturity in captivity, tuna fish-farming involves catching
fish in the wild, transferring them into huge floating cages, and then
towing these pens with up to 100 tonnes of live fish back to shore.
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- Depending on their size, they are then fattened up for
anything between four months to four years before they are slaughtered.
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- The method is officially considered as a post-harvesting
practice, rather than one based on direct capture, and so avoids every
regional and international rule set up to manage thew Mediterranean and
east Atlantic fisheries.
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- Dr Paolo Guglielmi, of the conservation group WWF's Mediterranean
marine programme, said: "We are in a very dangerous situation and
the threat of commercial extinction on the stock has never been so real.
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- "Recent scientific assessments indicate that unless
something is done for the bluefin's recovery, then in the next few years,
possibly as few as five, it will be destroyed completely. The spawning
biomass, which represents the number of bluefin which have reached sexual
maturity, has been estimated to be less than 20 per cent of what it was
in the 1970s, and this is exacerbated by the fact that many are caught
at a weight of between five and 20kg, well before they have reached reproductive
age."
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- Bluefin tuna (thunnus thynnus) is the largest of the
three tuna species and one of the largest of all fish, reaching a length
of three metres and a weight of 650kg. It can live for 20 years, reaching
sexual maturity at about eight, and is one of the fastest fish in the sea,
with a highest recorded speed of 70.4kph over a 20-second dash, and reported
bursts approaching 100kph.
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- Post-harvesting has drastically increased in the east
Atlantic and Mediterranean and, with more than 11,000 tonnes produced in
2002, the area accounts for more than half of the world's total production,
compared with almost nothing five years ago.
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- This is in addition to the average of 25,000 tonnes caught
legitimately under quota in the area each year. More than 90 per cent of
this post-harvested tuna then goes to Japan. In 1994, the International
Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) recommended a
25 per cent reduction in bluefin catches in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
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- But recent catches are higher than in 1994, without consideration
of the post-harvesting industry, and the Atlantic bluefin population is
considered one of the most severely over-fished in the world.
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- The fatty part of a tuna's stomach is called toro in
Japanese, with O-toro, similar to a fillet of tenderloin beef, considered
the most prized cut. Within the O-toro, there is also a small part called
the sunazuri, the texture of which is marbled with faint streaks of fat.
This whole process symbolises the Japanese concept of kata, or the notion
of the ideal form, and when they believe they have found this, consumers
are willing to pay. In 2001, a 4,44llb bluefin sold for a record $173,600
(£102,352) at Tokyo's main fish market to be used in the preparation
of this most esteemed component of sushi.
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- Jose Luis Garcia, who oversees WWF's Mediterranean programme,
said: "[Post-harvesting] is a new practice which has grown faster
than any laws or controlling measures which it needs. This fattened tuna
is being sold as an aquaculture product, and that means there is absolutely
no control over it when it leaves the cages, and it totally avoids the
quota set by the European Union and ICCAT.
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- "This is absurd because it is patently not aquaculture,
as they are not rearing from eggs, and there is no acknowledgement that
the tuna is caught in the wild."
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- WWF will this month present a petition to the EU at an
international conference in Venice, calling for stringent measures to be
imposed to reduce the pressure on the bluefin before it is too late.
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- ©2003 Scotsman.com
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- http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1214612003
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