Greenpeace slams Spain's blue fin tuna catches

MADRID
INTERNATIONAL ecologists Greenpeace have joined forces with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in condemning the “particularly high” percentage of blue fin tuna measuring less than the legal limit for capture, which are being landed in catches in the Mediterranean.

Both organisations called on the International Commitee for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) to take urgent and decisive measures to stop the species being “fished out of existence.” The ecologists claimed that many undersized tuna are being scooped up by highly sophisticated fishing methods, sent to “fattening up” farms where they are fed intensively for between 4 and 10 months and are then killed and sold to Japan. An independent survey conducted between July 2008 and May this year, showed that 46 percent of all fresh sales of tuna in Japan came from “fattening farms.” The findings concurred with those published recently by ICCAT's Scientific Committee which confirmed that nearly 67 percent of tuna captured in season last year in Balearic waters and fattened in Spanish fish farms weighed less than 40 kilos when they were captured.

Meanwhile a new major campaign is being launched in Majorca to help save blue fin tuna, see this Sunday's Daily Bulletin.