The Issue
Nearly one bluefin tuna in three is caught illegally in the Mediterranean.
WWF Report: Fish Dish – exposing the unacceptable face of seafood (pdf 1.2MB)
© WWF
© WWF
Since 2003, the main body responsible for regulating Atlantic bluefin tuna catches, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), has set an annual quota of 32,000 tonnes for the eastern stock.
This quota is already 23% higher than the maximum level determined to avoid further depletion of the stock. But actual catch estimates are more than 40% higher than the quota — reaching at least 45,547 tonnes in 2005 and possibly being well over 50,000 tonnes.
These over-quota catches are illegal under ICCAT regulations as well as EU law.
EU Origins
Most can be traced to EU purse seine fleets (mainly French) and Libya - whose fleet includes ten former French vessels recently reflagged in Libya and still effectively under French controliv. Fishing in Libyan waters also uses illegal tuna-spotting planes during the forbidden period of June, some of which operate from Malta and Italy.
Turkey too is responsible for significant unreported catches as it has not been allocated a specific ICCAT fishing quota for bluefin tuna.
Laundering fish through farms
The EU and ICCAT have strict requirements for reporting landed bluefin tuna. However, these requirements are extremely difficult to enforce in the case of live tuna transferred to cages for fattening - meaning that these so-called tuna farms, which supply a lucrative market for cheaper bluefin tuna for sushi and sashimi, are a perfect way to launder over-quota tuna.
On top of this, it’s extremely difficult to keep track of how many tuna were caught where and by who due to the practice of transferring the catches at sea to tug boats, which then tow the live tuna to the farms.
Today, the majority of the Mediterranean bluefin tuna catch is caught by purse seines and transferred live to tuna farms, which are currently located off the shores of Spain, Italy, Malta, Croatia, Turkey, Cyprus, Tunisia, and Libya.
As of July 2006, the farms’ total capacity was 55,300 tonnes - much higher than the legal annual quota, and a clear incentive for overfishing.
Indeed, the rapid spread of tuna farms throughout the Mediterranean over the past decade is a major factor behind the current high level of IUU catches.
Transferring tuna to other ships without landing them
Another way that fleets avoid documentation of illegal over-quota catches is by transferring them directly to massive reefer vessels and cold containers without ever landing them at EU ports.
These reefers then ship the tuna out of the Mediterranean.
The tuna are then transferred to the reefers directly from tuna farms or after being slaughtered and processed at sea.
Side dishes
Bait fish starterYour plate of bluefin tuna was probably once herring, sardines, anchovies, and squid: caged tuna are fattened on a diet that includes these bait fish. But this fattening is not very efficient: 10–25kg of bait fish are needed to produce just 1kg of tuna.
The huge quantities of bait fish required for the farms has exacerbated fishing pressure on some stocks in the Mediterranean, such as anchovies and sardinella.
In addition, the massive use of imported bait fish carries the risk of introducing pathogenic species to Mediterranean fish. Such an event is believed to be responsible for the mass mortality of pilchards in Australia in 1995, where an exotic herpes virus was presumably introduced to local fish populations through the use of imported pilchards in the South Australia tuna farming industry.
Shark and turtle starter
Your tuna dish is likely to come with a side dish of turtle or shark. Many species of tuna, including Atlantic bluefin, are caught using longlines. These fisheries deployed an estimated 1.2 billion hooks in 2000 alone, which captured and killed a wide range of species including seabirds, marine turtles, marine mammals, sharks, and other fish.
Baby bluefin
The bluefin tuna on your plate could be a baby. Large numbers of small and undersized Atlantic bluefin tuna are targeted by Spanish, French, and Italian purse seiners in the Gulf of Lyon, Ligurian Sea, and Adriatic Sea.
Baby bluefin are also targeted for tuna farms, particularly in Croatia. Other tuna fisheries also catch large numbers of juvenile Atlantic bluefin tuna, such as longline fleets for albacore tuna in the Mediterranean Sea and purse-seine fisheries for yellowfin and skipjack tuna in the Atlantic Ocean.
Even bluefin tuna that are caught legally are often juveniles: the minimum landing size is 10kg in the Mediterranean and 6.4kg elsewhere, but the tuna don’t reach breeding age until they are at least 30kg.
Value subtracted tax
Your tax money has helped fuel the demise of Atlantic bluefin tuna. The French and Spanish purse seine fleets for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean have been either modernized or completely rebuilt in the past ten years thanks to massive grants from EU public funds.
On top of this, tuna farms are eligible for EU subsidies for aquaculture development — even though they are not aquaculture, as the tuna are caught from the wild. The result of these funds has been huge overcapacity of both fleets and farms, which only encourages overfishing.
Species check
Tuna woes are not just limited to Atlantic bluefin.
Of the 23 commercially exploited stocks of the main tuna species (skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye, albacore, Atlantic bluefin, Pacific bluefin, and southern bluefin), at least five are fully exploited, five are overexploited, and two are depleted. This includes species used for canning. Other tuna fisheries also suffer from high levels of IUU fishing as well as bycatch.
Say Yes to sustainable seafood
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