Bluefin Tuna Overfishing

About a month ago I stated watching a new show on the National Geographic Channel called “Wicked Tuna”. It’s a reality show that follows different tuna fishermen out of the fishing town of Glouster, Massachusetts. These men tuna fish for a living only using rod and reel. Most days some of them catch one a day and others can go days without catching any at all. Their livelihood can depend on a single fish. I love seeing huge fish, so I thought this was right up my alley. While watching the show I learned that the Bluefin tuna they catch in that area have to be at least 73 inches long in order for them to keep and sell them. This gives the fish a chance to grow up and spawn. I learned that this regulation is in place because the Bluefin tuna is on the brink of extinction due to overfishing. Even though this show focuses on the trill of the hunt, it made me want to dig deeper into the plight of this amazing fish.

The Bluefin tuna can reach a weight up to 1,500 pounds and can be up to 13 feet long, making it a giant among fishes. The Bluefin is among the fastest of all fishes, capable of speeds up to 55 miles per hour and able to migrate across entire oceans. While most of the 20,000 fish species are cold-blooded, possessing a body temperature that is the same as the water they swim in, the Bluefin tuna is one of the few warm-blooded fish. It is the premier choice for sushi and has become the most desirable food fish in the world. That is why it is probably the most endangered of all large fish species. Heedless overfishing is steadily pushing the Bluefin toward extinction, and the species may soon disappear unless entrepreneurial fish farmers can learn how to breed the tuna in captivity (Ellis, 2008).

The Japanese sushi and sashimi markets have intensified Bluefin tuna fishing around the world. Bluefin tuna are known as the “cocaine of the seas” because of the astronomical prices it fetches as a luxury sushi. At one time, researchers believed that there were two separate populations of North Atlantic Bluefin, one that bred in the Gulf of Mexico and stayed in the Western Atlantic and another that spawned in the Mediterranean and foraged in the eastern part of the ocean (Ellis, 2008). The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, which is a regulatory body established in 1960, based its catch quotas for the Bluefin on this two-population concept(Ellis, 2008) . They set strict limits in the western Atlantic (where Bluefin were becoming scarce as early as the 1070s) while allowing much larger catches in the eastern Atlantic. But what they failed to realize at the time is that individual Bluefin can migrate across the ocean, and the foraging grounds of the two populations overlap. So because the ICCAT has failed to stop overfishing in the eastern Atlantic, Bluefin tuna stocks have collapsed throughout the ocean.



Things are worst in the Mediterranean. Employing ideas and technology developed in South Australia, fishers corral schools of half-grown tuna and tow them in floating pens to marine ranches where they are fed and fattened until they can be killed and shipped to Japan. There are rules banning fleets from taking undersize tuna out of the Mediterranean, but none that prevent catching immature tuna and fattening them in floating pens. Every country on the Mediterranean, except Israel, takes advantage of this loophole and maintains tuna ranches offshore (Ellis, 2008). They are catching half-grown tuna by the hundreds of thousands. If you had to design a way to guarantee the decimation of a breeding population, this would be it: catch the fish before they are old enough to breed and keep them penned up until they are killed. The tuna ranches, once seen as a solution to the problem are only making it worse.

But even if lower fishing quotas were in place, the Bluefin would still be endangered. The tuna fishery is rife with illegal, unregulated fleets that ignore quotas, restrictions, boundaries, and any other rules and regulations that might threaten their catch (Ellis, 2008). The Japanese market which devours about 60,000 tons of Bluefin every year, or more than three quarters of the global catch, is only too eager to buy the tuna, regardless of where or how it is caught(Ellis, 2008). They bring in thousands of illegal tuna every year and falsify their records.

As the tuna populations continue to fall, the Japanese demand is increasing; fewer tuna will mean higher prices, and higher prices will mean intensified fishing. Intensified fishing will, of course result in fewer tuna. It seems like an inevitable lose-lose situation for the Bluefin tuna. It appears that the only hope for the Bluefin is captive breeding. Captive breeding of the Bluefin could save the species, but the effort will be challenging. Research groups in Japan and Europe have bred the tuna in laboratories, and now an Australian company is attempting to perform the feat on a commercial scale (Ellis, 2008).

It would be good for the Bluefin tuna, and in the end, good for the consumer if tuna fishing was not practiced in such a remorseful manner, but such change would entail nothing less than a modification of the fundamentals of human nature. But there is a little light at the end of the tunnel. Some organizations have begun boycotted the sale of Bluefin tuna in some restaurants and stores, hopefully this type of progress will bring more awareness to this type of situation and keep it from happening to another species as well.

Works Cited

Ellis, R. (2008). The bluefin in peril. Scientific American, pp. 70-77. Retrieved April 27, 2012 from the Complete Academic Database.