Alert! PLEASE Do NOT eat Bluefin Tuna (used in Sushi) [View All]

[G_j]

One of the most amazing and beautiful fish in the ocean is on the verge of extinction.
Not just suggesting a boycott, but a last ditch effort to SAVE these fish!

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1862255,00.html

The Sushi Wars: Can the Bluefin Tuna Be Saved?
By Vivienne Walt Friday, Nov. 28, 2008

If an army marches on its stomach, then the key item in the kit bags of the Roman legions that conquered southern Europe about 2,000 years was dried bluefin tuna. But having survived the demands of the Roman conquest, the species — each of which can weigh as much as 1,500 pounds and live as long as 40 years — might finally have met its match in the contemporary global appetite for sushi.

If environmentalists and marine scientists are right, the world's remaining stocks of bluefin tuna, 90% of which are in the Mediterranean, could be on the verge of extinction. Says Alain Fonteneau, a marine biologist for France's government-run Institute for Development Research in Montpellier: "If we do nothing, in five years we will fish the last bluefin tuna."

But not everyone is ready to heed the warning. A week-long international meeting to save the species ended in splenetic arguments Monday night, as European officials thwarted a proposal by the U.S. and environmental groups to impose a partial moratorium on bluefin fishing and to drastically reduce catch quotas.

Officials from the 46 members of the International Consortium for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) had spent days behind closed doors in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, battling over a rescue plan for the species. Several smaller ICCAT members such as Guatemala and Panama had initially backed a proposal supported by the U.S. and environmental groups to halt all bluefin fishing for nine months of the year, and to crack down hard on violators. But European officials persuaded them to instead adopt a reduced quota of 22,000 tons in 2009, and 19,950 tons in 2011. That certainly represents a sharp drop from last year's estimated global sales of 61,000 tons of bluefin tuna — and even from this year's official quota of about 29,000 tons — but it's still far above the 15,000 tons that marine scientists advise is the limit that can be fished without without the species becoming extinct.

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http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/the-tuna-tragedy-of-the-commons/?hp

November 26, 2008, 2:22 pm

The (Tuna) Tragedy of the Commons
By Andrew C. Revkin

There was new evidence early this week that the world has not yet absorbed just how deeply humans have depleted our “exhausted oceans.” At the latest meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, created under a treaty 42 years ago to manage shared fisheries in that ocean, European governments ignored a strong recommendation from the group’s own scientific advisers for deep cuts in some harvests of the Atlantic bluefin tuna. On its face, that would seem to be a strange development considering that the organization’s Web site says flatly: “Science underpins the management decisions made by I.C.C.A.T.”

But such moves seem unremarkable, for now, in a world seeking to manage limited, shared natural resources while also spurring economic growth — whether the resource is the global atmosphere or an extraordinary half-ton, ocean-roaming predator. The European stance — insisting on a harvest in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean 50 percent above the limit recommended by scientists — was sharply criticized by environmental campaigners, marine biologists and United States fisheries officials. Some biologists criticized the United States, as well, for playing down the role of American fishers, both recreational and commercial, in destroying the once-bountiful fishery.

But the biggest focus was on Europe. Biologists and American fisheries officials blamed European governments for failing to shrink the huge fleets of boats from France (771), Italy (619), Spain (441), England (331) and elsewhere that are acknowledged, even by Europe, to be too large for the fishery. Environmental campaigners have repeatedly reported on rampant, enormous illegal catches in European and international waters, as well. Given that tagging studies have shown that the half-ton tuna can roam the full span of the Atlantic in seeking breeding and feeding grounds, the European position is widely seen by fisheries specialists as sending the fabled species spiraling further toward outright collapse. At the center of the fight, spurred largely by the worldwide sushi trade, is one of nature’s most magnificent, and endangered, experiments — a transatlantic torpedo that can sprint at highway speed while warming its brain with energy from its muscles.

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http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/11/28/new-bluefin-catch-rule-riles-scientists/


New bluefin catch rule riles scientists

Environmentalists say despite reducing catch quotas, the decision of an international regulatory commission stops short of adequately safeguarding the fragile bluefin population.

By Lisa Abend| Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor/ November 28, 2008 edition

Madrid
The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) this week moved to reduce bluefin tuna fishing quotas in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean by less than was hoped for by some – a controversial decision that the European Commission supports but that critics say will irrevocably damage an already fragile tuna population.

The new levels still far exceed those recommended for safeguarding the population, scientists who work in the field say, and may drive the wild fish the ICCAT is supposed to protect into extinction.

“There are only 25,000 to 30,000 adult bluefins in the region,” says Brian MacKenzie, professor of fisheries at Technical University of Denmark and lead scientist of a major study on tuna populations. “The quota that ICCAT approved this week will basically take all of them.” Sebastián Losada, a Greenpeace spokesman who attended the meeting, was even more direct. “The game’s over.”
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