The most ambitious Mediterranean tuna tagging project yet will today start seeking answers to some key mysteries on the migratory behaviour of this most valuable but also most imperilled ‘prince of the sea’.
The most ambitious Mediterranean tuna tagging project yet will today
start seeking answers to some key mysteries on the migratory behaviour
of this most valuable but also most imperilled ‘prince of the sea’.
WWF scientists, launching the three-year On the Med tuna trail project
in Spain’s Balearic Islands, hope to map tuna migrations around the
Mediterranean and verify theories that there may be resident tuna
populations in the eastern Mediterranean that never venture into the
Atlantic.
“It is scandalous that we know so little about a species we are putting
under such huge pressure from illegal fishing and oversized fleets,â€
said Dr Pablo Cermeño, WWF Mediterranean’s Tuna Officer.
“WWF’s new tagging project will shed new light on tuna migratory routes
and behaviour which will enable far more effective recovery and
management plans both for the tuna and the fishery that depends on
them.â€
On the Med tuna trail will also be a race against time to gather data
before the overstretched fishery collapses. Current annual catches
taking ever smaller and more juvenile fish are estimated to be in the
region of 60,000 tonnes – double the level allowed by law and four
times the amount considered sustainable by international scientists.
Very few tagging studies have been done in the eastern Atlantic and
Mediterranean so far, with activity focusing instead mostly on the
western Atlantic. WWF’s tagging project, which will collect, among
others, information on position and depth of the high speed fish, will
fit adult fish (over 40kg) with ‘pop-up’ tags that record information
at a frequency of once per minute, and which release from the fish at a
specified time and float to the surface for the data to be read by
satellite.
Important lifecycle information on the bluefin will also come from
‘archival’ tags clipped onto juvenile fish and recovered at point of
catch – wherever that may be.
“The plan behind this project is to fill the gap between the little we
do know about bluefin behaviour in the Mediterranean and what we need
to know,†said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean.
“When we have better data, we would urge fisheries decision-makers to
use it to make better-informed choices for the management of this
endangered species.â€
WWF’s tuna tagging activities – planned in partnership with key
international scientific institutions and fishing stakeholders in the
Mediterranean, and made possible thanks to financial help from the
Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation – will run to 2010.
Today’s On the Med tuna trail tagging launch will use tuna caught by
recreational fishers in the Balearics, once the most significant
breeding area for bluefin in the Mediterranean. WWF, which is calling
for a recovery period moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing if effective
rules for a sustainable fishery cannot be drawn up and enforced, is
also promoting the establishment of a tuna sanctuary in the Balearics.
Further WWF tagging events across Mediterranean waters will roll out in September and in 2009.