2 June 2006
The plight of the tuna
by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza
Trapped tuna in tow
© Greenpeace/Gavin Newman
Northern bluefin tuna have (as you would expect) yellow fins and are known in Spain and France as "red tuna" due to the rich colour of their meat. They are slow growing, live to around 30 years and only start spawning at the very earliest aged five. The bluefin of the Mediterranean are in serious trouble - they are being overfished and monopolised by big business.
The captivity of the bluefin begins after the initial capture by purse seiner net . They are transferred to towing cages where they can wait for several days for a tug to arrive. Once hooked up to the tug, these giant cages are dragged slowly sometimes for over a month before they reach the fattening farm. The tuna don't receive any food during the tow and some die in the process.
Video footage from above and below tuna cages in tow
© Greenpeace
Once transferred into the farm cages, tuna are kept usually for six to seven months (sometimes longer). They are fed six days a week, with small fish often sourced from areas outside the Mediterranean including West Africa. It can take up to 25 kilos (44 pounds) of other fish to make one kilo (2.2 pounds) of tuna. It's estimated that 225,000 tonnes of "bait" was thrown into the mediterranean sea in 2004 alone.
From the Esperanza we spotted a tugboat moving at the swift pace of one knot. It was towing two massive nets slowly but surely towards their final destination - a tuna fattening farm in Scicily.
Once in these giant towing nets, tuna become disorientated and if released back into the wild, they would most likely hang around the net waiting to be caught again. These magnificent creatures, many of them well below the official catchable size are well and truly destined for sushi in far off places.
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Comments
They're beautiful fish indeed :)
Posted by: Jerome at June 2, 2006 1:50 PM
Tuna is one of my favorite fish to eat.
Nuts this is making me NOT eat Tuna.
Here in Asia we wouldnt know if the process in which the tuna was caught and processed. None of the labeling mechanisms letting consumers know in europe and the US has is in place here.
TSK! Poor fish, in the end what we do to mother nature we do to ourselves.
Posted by: Mary Ann at June 2, 2006 4:40 PM
Tuna is one of my favorite fish to eat.
Nuts this is making me NOT eat Tuna.
Here in Asia we wouldnt know if the process in which the tuna was caught and processed. None of the labeling mechanisms letting consumers know in europe and the US has is in place here.
TSK! Poor fish, in the end what we do to mother nature we do to ourselves.
Posted by: Mary Ann at June 2, 2006 4:56 PM
The printing in the weblog seems to have shrunk quite a lot, is there any chance of doing it slightly larger so we can read it properly?
Posted by: soos at June 2, 2006 5:19 PM
Hello to all of you.I am an old saylor,and i love so much the sea tath i need to tanks all of you for the employment to defend our oceans.
Posted by: Gaetano Lischer at June 2, 2006 9:23 PM
Ahi tuna is great! Eat it raw.
Posted by: Majormike at June 3, 2006 1:23 AM
Thank you for the informative article on the Bluefin Tuna. I had no idea that this sort of thing was happening. Wonderful video letting us see the sheer size of the operation. Thank you Elaine for your work.
Posted by: Pepita at June 3, 2006 4:46 AM
hello elaine. So wonderful to read your blogs i just discovered today while looking for the paradise forest ones - which seem to have disappeared!? keep up the great work. Love the webcam!! hope to see you back on land one day soon x
Posted by: sarah at June 4, 2006 4:10 PM
This is a video, to show us, how important the sea is - it is nature like that, what we see around us. Because many people don`t know something about that. Let us give that information(hte tuna video) to ereryone. Is the a way to giv that video as download?
Thank you and save tuna - don´t eat it.
Heimo
Posted by: Heimo at June 4, 2006 6:03 PM
Hi Heimo - You can download the mp4 mp4 podcasts the footgage on this page should be part of the next video blog. :)
Posted by: Elaine at June 4, 2006 7:02 PM
Majormike, what's it like being a muppet?
Posted by: Jodie at June 8, 2006 11:07 AM
i love tuna, i can't give up eating that one too.
some crazy people think we should only eat plants and fruit that falls spontaneously off trees.... yeah right. I'll just sit, open my mouth and wait for flies to fly in by mistake.... that way I'll be sure I won't hurt the environment.
Reply: Thanks for the counter point, but I think you are exaggerating our position. One of the reasons we need to take better care of our fisheries is so there will be fish to eat in the future.
-- Andrew
Greenpeace web editor
Posted by: mr at July 9, 2006 7:49 PM
I love Tuna... They taste good. Get a life
Posted by: mikey at July 30, 2006 8:33 PM
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