Scientists Call for Fishing Limits to Protect Tuna

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Scientists Call for Fishing Limits to Protect Tuna

 

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2 hours, 32 minutes ago

 

Add to My Science - Reuters

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists called Wednesday for

tighter commercial fishing restrictions to protect

dwindling stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna.

 

An electronic tagging study of the ocean predators by

researchers at Stanford University in California and

the Monterey Bay Aquarium identified two populations

of Atlantic tuna and the need for an overhaul of how

they are managed.

 

" In my lifetime we've bought this majestic species to

the doorstep of ecological extinction in the western

Atlantic Ocean, " said Barbara Block of Stanford

University.

 

" Electronic tagging provides the best scientific

information we've ever had to properly manage these

tuna and we must, as an international community, start

to act responsibly to ensure the future of this

species, " she added.

 

Bluefin tuna are among the biggest bony fish in the

sea. They can live up to 30 years old, grow to 10 feet

long and weigh 1,500 pounds (680 kg).

 

They are a popular fish in restaurants around the

globe but a particular delicacy in Japan where the

price of a single giant tuna exceeded $100,000 at a

Tokyo fish market.

 

The International Commission for the Conservation of

Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which has managed the bluefin

stocks since 1969, estimates that the western

population of bluefin tuna which spawn in the Gulf of

Mexico, has declined by more than 80 percent since the

1970s.

 

The eastern stock has also dwindled.

 

The research, reported in the science journal Nature,

showed that the two populations of tuna have a complex

migratory life cycle.

 

" There are two ways to save the Atlantic bluefin tuna

stock -- protect them in their breeding grounds and in

their feeding grounds, " said Block.

 

" This will require immediate action in both the

central Atlantic, to reduce mortality of giant bluefin

while foraging, and in the Gulf of Mexico and

Mediterranean Seas, where bluefin breed as discrete

populations, " she added.