The plight of the tuna | Home | Fluffy story

can't we gently open those cages and release the poo' tuna ?

So is fishing like this actually legal? If it is then how on earth can it be? Obviously it is damaging to the tuna population! And cruel to the fish!

And if it is illegal can't you just cut the nets or something and let the poor fish out!

Great story Gavin. Did you guys contact the tuna ranching crew first and ask them if you could get close to their net? Were they fine about it or did they think you might destroy their equipment at first (mistaking you for the more radical Sea Shepherds perhaps)?

L.

This is waaaay cool. I had no idea about those floating nets.

Although I'm lost on the 'cruel' aspect. This way, the fish is a lot better quality when it arrives--rather than slicin' & dicin' out at sea. And fish that are treated poorly aren't going to good quality. Either way...these are going to farms---meaning that current population levels are already being given consideration..

Ya know, there are things I agree with about GreenPeace--like most of the forest issues (not all though)--but on this, I sometimes think GP would force the world into a regressed low-tech place where people are forced to be vegans.

Gavin, good descriptions and writing, BTW. hehe, I had though you were pro on this till that last sentence

" I cant help thinking that not many others will get to see a bluefin tuna let alone eat them for much longer if fishing on this scale is allowed to continue."

ummm..Gavin?..hate to be the one to break it to you...but most people in the history of the planet have never been funded enough to see a bluefin tuna like yourself. And for scale--the idea is to farm them with these batches--not continually net them.

Personally..I think this concept would fit in with GP's ideas.

no we didnt contact the tug crew. why should we? we have just as much right to be in that water as they do...
difference is that we didn't suddenly enclose that piece of water with a big net and claim that everything in it belongs to us...

Hi TBAS,

thanks for your comments to our weblog on tuna farming.
I can let you into little secret... I do do this professionally!! When I'm not out here doing this stuff with Greenpeace I work as an underwater filmmaker and photographer for clients that include the BBC natural history unit and many of the worlds top diving magazines.

I realise that I'm very lucky to have had such a close encounter with these amazing animals, albeit under somewhat unusual circumstances and hope that through my images I can convey some of the sense of such an encounter to others.

However I'm not alone in this luck as until relatively recently large shoals of Tuna were often seen by divers around the islands of the Balearics and Malta, some of the worlds cheapest and most accessible diving destinations. Tuna ranching though has decimated these populations and even the fishermen themselves have now abandoned these areas moving further east in search of the last of the meds tuna stocks.

If these fish were truly farmed it would not have this impact on the fishery but the reality of tuna ranching is that the fish are taken to the farm purely for fattening up before being sold to the market. It takes some 20kg of smaller fish that the tuna are fed to produce 1kg of quality tuna so the process not only damages the Tuna stocks but also has a huge impact on the smaller often imature fish that are caught in large numbers just to feed them.

There is no breeding programme at these farms. No new fish are produced so yes the fishermen are continually netting to keep the ranches stocked and that means it's a totally unsustainable process. Surely this can't make sense in anyones books apart from those making huge amounts of money from the remaining stocks whilst they last.

To clarify the Greenpeace position on Tuna Ranching our onboard campaigner Sebastian has put together a handy ten point guide to why we oppose them.

Hope this answers your questions and please keep reading as we always welcome the feedback.

Gavin.

First time I heard about tuna ranching was from a French chef, who actually was a chef for former president Gerald Ford (don't know if this is true but I have heard rumours), who told me about the awful damage this farming caused to the environment and now he ever, never serves his guests tuna.

Gavin,

HERRO!!

I wasn't implying that I thought you should have asked them first...

It's just that when we were doing the Grand Banks stuff we did usually get in contact with the bottom trawler's crew and chat to them - if they let us... so I was just wondering if you guys have had any interesting conversations with the ranchers.

L.

BFT fishing in the Med has so far been a complete disaster. The Balearic Fleet hasn't caught a single fish. The Italian and French fleets working for Ras El-Hilal and Nour Al-Hayat in Libya have only caught some 1.000 MT whereas last year on the same date they had caught over 9.000MT.
Some 50 to 60 tuna cages are currently being towed empty inside Libya's 60m zone. Tuna airspotting Cessna 337 and Partenavia P68 are illegally flying from Mitiga and Misratah airports in Libya.
The entire Mediterranean Sea BFT PS fleet is now waiting for the next full-moon though prospects are that indeed this year the fish isn't going to surface. On the other hand the Basque and French Atlantic BFT fishing fleets have started catching juvenile BFTs (Over 100MT in less than a week so far!!!!)
I would sugest you triple check the tuna ranches in Antalia (Turkey) and Limassol (Cyprus
If you could take very high resolution pictures from your helicopter, cage by cage, I will be able to tell you exactly (+/- 5%) the exact amount of BFT having been caged in that area.

Best regards,
Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi
CEO
ATRT, SL.

this is NOT! cool many other animals are killed by the towing and How can people still eat fish that is not wild anymore! The people that once 1 a time catch a tuna to feed the whole family and use every peace of of the tuna for to make whatever they need can´t catch nothing for years. I´m am NOT EATING It is just not real anymore only phycological for example people that dont live at the seacoast shouldn´t eat fish. Not only the fish disapear also the people that once had the right.

This is cruel on the parts of the governments to allow fishing at this scale. It imbalances the ocean ecology and damages the surrounding environment. No matter how delicious the dish made up of Tuna but one has to agree that coming generations has to look the pictures saved by us only and not the actual image of the beautiful tuna in coming years if the mass distruction continues at this scale.
thanks
ravikanth

When it's gone it's gone. Remember that as you sit on your spherical watery rock that floats in nowhere. What next for a buck you have to ask? I just hope it taste's as good as I would WANT it to. If it dose'nt I may be have to eat your children, skined and peeled, roled in cracked pepper & a little olive oil (to taste), cooked slowly over white hot coles. Turn them once or twice while they brown. (not as brown as someone that car'nt afford it I might add) GOD FORBID!!!!!!! Like I said, when it's gone it's gone. And it will be.

i think a lot of global warming comes from my friends smell because he does not shower. his name is J.D.

This is the first time I heard about this activity, but we all know nothing is endless, our planet's life depends on our lifestyle and if we continue killing the earth, the beatiful of our planet will be only a memory of our grandparents