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INTERNATIONAL

Bluefin Tuna: A Devastating Delicacy


Fact Sheet May 2011

luefin tuna is a top-level predator of the seas that has been part of the human diet for centuries. Thousands of years ago this fish was so revered throughout the Mediterranean that it was painted on cave walls and minted onto coins. These massive creatures can grow to be 12 feet (about 3.5 meters) long and up to 1,500 pounds (680 kg).1 But today, several bluefin tuna populations are teetering on the brink of collapse and suffering from unsustainable industrial fishing practices. Ineffective international management has exacerbated their dire situation. What must be done to address the bluefin tuna crisis?
Today many types of tuna are popular table fare at seafood and sushi restaurants around the world. Bluefin tuna in particular is prized for its belly fat, called toro or hon maguro.2 The fish is so valuable that a single large tuna may sell for tens of thousands of dollars, occasionally exceeding $100,000 (about 77,000) for the sale of a single fish.3 Sales of this fish have reached these exorbitant prices at least in part because the bluefin tuna is being fished to the brink of extinction. Modern industrial fishing techniques as well as a high market value have contributed to the overfishing of this species.4 Methods to catch bluefin may include the use of spotter planes to detect congregations of tuna or surface-floating fish aggregation devices (FADs) that attract tuna (and frequently smaller or immature fish), coupled with the use of a type of net called a mechanized purse seine. Once this net has encircled a school of fish, fishing boats can ensnare many fish at once by pulling the edges of the net together like the drawstrings of a purse (hence its name). Some of the largest nets can be more than a mile in length (up to 2,000 meters) and require the use of small, speedy boats to surround the school and close the net. The FADs may also attract a variety of fish besides tuna, which can result in unintended catch of other marine creatures that may include sharks, dolphins or endangered sea turtles.5 There are three known stocks of bluefin tuna throughout the world. All bluefin are highly migratory species, which means that they live and travel in a very wide range of ocean habitat. The Atlantic bluefin (Thunnus thynnus)6 can be found from the eastern coasts of North and South America over to the Mediterranean Sea and as far north as

Norway and south to western Africa. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species ranks the eastern and western stocks as endangered and critically endangered, respectively.7 (Its western Atlantic stocks may be further harmed by the oil and chemicals released during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which occurred during prime spawning season.8) The Southern bluefin (Thunnus maccoyii)9 lives throughout the entire southern hemisphere from South America to southern Africa, along the coast of Australia and in all oceans in between; it has critically endangered status in the IUCN Red List.10 The Pacific bluefin (Thunnus orientalis)11 is a smaller, coastal-oriented tuna that lives mostly in the northern hemisphere, ranging from the western coast of North and Central America across the ocean to the eastern coast of Asia, including Japan down to the northern Philippines. Its stocks appear to be at intermediate levels, and it is in need of restrictive management.12 This management may become more important as the fishery experiences increased pressure as a result of diminished numbers in other tuna populations. Because all bluefin tuna migrate thousands of miles over the course of their lifetimes, management of the stocks can be extremely difficult to regulate and enforce, especially in areas of open sea beyond the 200-mile jurisdictional line that extends from each countrys coastal border. There are several different regional fishing management organizations that govern the catch of bluefin tuna internationally. In 1966, an international governmental body known as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or ICCAT, was formed to manage Atlantic tuna, including the Atlantic bluefin, among Atlantic fishing nations.13 Since 1994, the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna, or CCSBT, has managed the Southern bluefin.14 The Pacific bluefin, meanwhile, is jointly managed by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission.15 However, the story of bluefin tuna management in the past several years and management by ICCAT of Atlantic bluefin in particular has been a story of inaction and missed opportunities.

as November 2010, ICCAT deferred on making a serious effort to protect bluefin tuna stocks from collapse, opting for a nominal cut of only 4 percent in the catch limits, which prominent conservation groups condemned as laughable.19 Despite such criticism, efforts to influence the voting members of ICCAT have had little effect, so some attention has shifted to other international organizations, like the United Nations. However, the U.N. has had limited success in establishing limits on the bluefin tuna catch, at least in part because certain industrial fishing nations have expressed strong objections to any such limits. For example, in 2009, Monaco proposed listing the critically endangered eastern Atlantic stock of bluefin tuna in CITES. This was supported from the outset by the United States, Kenya, Norway and the United Kingdom, among several other European nations.20 This would have considerably restricted trade and capture of Atlantic bluefin tuna, but it failed at the March 2010 CITES meeting, lacking political support from industrial fishing nations that appear to be prioritizing the economic value of the fish over the long-term survival of the species.21 Japan led the opposition to the CITES campaign.22

International Efforts to Protect the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna


In September of 2009, the European Union voted on a potential ban on the harvesting of Atlantic bluefin tuna, but failed to come to a consensus. Countries with big fishing fleets including Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Spain, France and Italy all rejected any such restrictions.16 Meanwhile, international efforts to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna have mostly toggled between attempts to persuade ICCAT to set lower quotas and efforts to list the species under the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but neither of these strategies has yet resulted in meaningful protection. ICCAT has frequently set catch limits far higher than scientific advice,17 and the organization has been strongly criticized for not doing more to protect the Atlantic bluefin stocks under its jurisdiction.18 As recently

What Can We Do?


What must be done to protect the bluefin tuna? First, the IUCN evaluations of bluefin tuna populations dated only to 199623 must be updated to provide policymakers with the most recent science to facilitate good decision making. Second, the United Nations and other international governmental bodies like ICCAT must take definitive action to protect bluefin tuna stocks. International catch must be restricted to artisanal fishing (at small-scale and subsistence levels only) and industrial capture of these fish must be eliminated until stocks improve. A listing in CITES or an altogether new international treaty would facilitate this. Penalties for non-compliance must be built into such an agreement and be strict enough to pose a real deterrent to breaching the rules. Furthermore, stricter monitoring requirements should be paired with any such treaty to reduce the risk of illegal fishing.

You can help support this campaign by: Going to www.foodandwaterwatch.org/europe/fish/ bluefin-tuna/ to learn more and take action! Choosing local alternatives to Atlantic bluefin tuna. In the European Union, try European line-caught sea bream and sea bass, Atlantic skipjack tuna or lemon sole. In the United States, try Pacific albacore tuna, Atlantic skipjack, U.S. Pacific black cod or polecaught mahi-mahi. For sushi, try U.S. Pacific albacore tuna (shiro maguro) or smoked black cod (gindara). These fish are currently at sustainable levels and generally have lower levels of contaminants than bluefin tuna. Endnotes
1 2 Montaigne, Fen. The Global Fish Crisis: Still Waters. National Geographic Society. April 2007. Marsh, Jesse and Stephanie Danner. Monterey Bay Aquarium. Seafood Watch Wild Bluefin Tuna Report. July 14, 2009; and Bruce Einhorn and Stuart Biggs. Gulf oil spill ticking time bomb for sushi staple bluefin tuna. Bloomberg News, June 25, 2010. Associated Press. Premium tuna fetches $100,000 at auction. MSNBC, January 5, 2009. Calculations performed by Food & Water Watch staff using a conversion ratio of 1.0 USD to 0.77 EUR in 2010 nominal dollars. Richardson, Jill. Bluefin Tunas High Price Tag. AlterNet, November 22, 2010. Majkowski, J. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. [Fact sheet]. Fishing Techniques: Tuna purse seining. Rome. Updated 19 September 2003. FishBase. [Database]. Thunnus thynnus (Atlantic bluefin tuna). Page modified October 6, 2010. Available at www. fishbase.org/ and accessed December 2010. Safina, C. 1996. [Database]. Thunnus thynnus (Eastern Atlantic stock). In: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. Available at http://www. iucnredlist.org/ and accessed December 2010; and Safina, C. 1996. [Database]. Thunnus thynnus (Western Atlantic stock). In: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. Available at http://www.iucnredlist. org/ and accessed December 2010. Einhorn, Bruce and Stuart Biggs. Gulf oil spill ticking time bomb for sushi staple bluefin tuna. Bloomberg News, June 25, 2010. FishBase. [Database]. Thunnus maccoyii (Southern bluefin tuna). Page modified October 6, 2010; available at http:// www.fishbase.org/ and accessed December 2010. Punt, A. 1996. [Database]. Thunnus maccoyii. In: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. Available at http://www.iucnredlist.org/ and accessed December 2010. FishBase. [Database]. Thunnus orientalis (Pacific bluefin tuna). Page modified October 6, 2010; available at http:// www.fishbase.org/ and accessed December 2010. FAO. [Fact sheet]. Marine Resource Fact Sheet: Pacific bluefin tuna: Eastern Pacific Ocean. 2009; and Natalia Real. WCPFC meeting leads to cuts in bluefin tuna fishing for 2011-12. Fish Information Services, December 14, 2010. International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Basic Texts. 5th revision. Madrid, September 2007 at 3-4. Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT). Text of the Convention for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. May 20 1994. Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). Conservation and Management Measures for Pacific Bluefin Tuna, December 7-11, 2009; and Memorandum of Understanding between the Commission for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory

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Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. August 27, 2009. Casert, Raf. Bluefin Tuna Ban: EU will continue to fish the threatened species. The Huffington Post, September 22, 2009. Safina, Carl and Dane H. Klinger. Collapse of Bluefin Tuna in the Western Atlantic. Conservation Biology 22.2. 2008. Hance, Jeremy. Critically endangered bluefin tuna receives no reprieve from CITES. MongaBay, March 18, 2010. Moses, Kara. Bluefin tuna condemned to extinction by laughable ICCAT summit claim activists. The Ecologist, November 30, 2010. Agence France-Presse. Monaco seeks global bluefin tuna trade ban. July 28, 2009; Webster, Ben. Britain to support a ban on international trade in blue-fin tuna. The Times (U.K.), July 17, 2009; and Adam, David. Bluefin tuna fails to make UNs list of protected fish. The Guardian (U.K.). March 18, 2010. Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. 15th Conference of the Parties. Summary Record of the Eighth Session of Committee. Rec. 8, Rev. 1. Doha (Qatar), March 13 to 25, 2010. Adam, David. Bluefin tuna fails to make UNs list of protected fish. The Guardian (U.K.). March 18, 2010. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Ban on international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna rejected at CITES. March 19, 2010.

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For more information: web: www.foodandwatereurope.org email: europe@fwwatch.org Copyright May 2011 Food & Water Watch

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