Farming Tuna in the Mediterranean

[underwater-aa 1]

Hey everyone,

This method of aquaculture in the Mediterranean caught my attention last year, so I went to Malta and filmed their with some friends.

With some improvements, do you think this could be a sustainable way of harvesting tuna in the future?

Article and video: http://saltnomads.com/farming-tuna-mediterranean/

Edited October 9, 2017 by underwater-aa

[Interceptor121 549]

Hey everyone,

 

This method of aquaculture in the Mediterranean caught my attention last year, so I went to Malta and filmed their with some friends.

 

With some improvements, do you think this could be a sustainable way of harvesting tuna in the future?

 

Article and video: http://saltnomads.com/farming-tuna-mediterranean/

 

 

It is better than killing all the tuna and putting it in Tins however Tuna does not reproduce in those nets

 

The tuna is spotted with a plane and then captured then is fed to get fatter

 

I think only in Japan they have managed to reproduce in captivity

[ComeFromAway 7]

"With some improvements, do you think this could be a sustainable way of harvesting tuna in the future?"

 

No. This is absolutely not the answer to harvesting tuna. How can this be viewed as sustainable if you are still taking wild fish and harvesting them? The only way it could be sustainable is if you raised them from egg, which to my knowledge has been tried without much success and if at all successful only it certainly is not enough to satisfy demand.

 

I (and indeed many other biologists) would argue that this method is worse than rod and reel, hook-and-line fisheries like those in Atlantic Canada. You are talking about super high-tech fishing fleets (some use spotter planes and helicopters) with voluminous nets that round up thousands and thousands of pounds of fish at a single time. Sure, the fish don't die on the spot, but they certainly will once they've been sufficiently fattened up. Bottom-line is that they all wind up on a plate. To my knowledge, there's also no reproduction occurring in the nets that would otherwise offset the harvest mortality.

 

IMO, the only method of improving this fishery is to eliminate it.

Edited October 11, 2017 by ComeFromAway

[JimG 24]

As I recall, this method of "harvesting" bluefin tuna is the tuna fishermen's response to the EU's limp-wristed attempts to protect the very seriously endangered population of this spectacular fish in the Mediterranean. I think they put a size limit on what could be landed or some such thing. Of course, there are few big mature tuna left so this system of rounding up the juveniles and fattening them up was developed. This has gone on for years and the EU's response.....zilch. But what would you expect from this inept organisation which supports and funds the boats used in overfishing around the world, primarily by the enormous Spanish fleet.

 

I take objection to word "harvesting". Such a word implies that you put something back into the system or at least the item harvested is self-renewing. Neither occurs in this case, as ComeFromAway above explains, it is not sustainable and action should be taken to stop it.