Bluefin tuna

EVERY year, between May and June, the bluefin tuna come from thousands of miles to spawn in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. When the sea reaches precisely 24 degrees celsius, the adult bluefin are ready to make babies. This agglomeration of fish has, for thousands of years, attracted fishermen. But in recent decades, these waters have become an unruly frontier.

In pursuit of the bluefin, fishermen arrive in some 140 boats to catch them. Behind them come a dozen big official EU fishing control ships and many tiny small boats carrying observers and inspectors. Inspecting them are at least three boats from green activist groups, including Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd. Bluefin tuna fishing has never seen so much surveillance as this year.

The quota for 2010 is 40% smaller, at 13,500 tonnes, than last year. It was quickly filled: on June 9th the EU announced it was closing the season early. A short fishing season of only a month, and two weeks of bad weather at the start of the season, have put the fishermen in a bad mood and under huge pressure.

At this time of year all boats are purse-seiners, which dangle a wall of net in the water. These nets can be over a mile long. Most of the fish are not killed straight away but are either towed to cages in places such as nearby Malta, or transferred at sea to cages. These cages are then towed to a farm on some convenient coastline where they are fattened up for sale to the Japanese market later in the year. Japan buys about 80% of the world bluefin catch.

On June 5th, in international waters near Malta, Greenpeace activists tried to free caged tuna from near a French vessel operating legally. They tried to push down the edges of the nets so that the bluefin could swim out. Reports suggest that the fishermen attacked the activists with metal gaffs (long poles with hooks), rammed the inflatable boats, and fired flares at the green group’s helicopter. One activist was Frank Hewetson, who was hooked through the leg with a large metal grappling hook. Speaking from his hospital bed to the local Maltese newspaper, the Sunday Times, Mr Hewetson said the hook went right through his leg and out the other side. He was dragged down on the boat until his leg became stuck at the front of the boat. “They then towed our boat using my leg as an anchor.” He added that he screamed “like an eight-year-old girl” but the fishermen kept on pulling on the rope until he was able to remove the hook from his leg.

Despite the efforts of people like Mr Hewetson, the bluefin is in deep trouble. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation suggest things are so bad that the fish qualifies for listing on Appendix I of CITES, an international treaty that could ban the trade entirely on the basis of its current population status. But earlier this year, Japan paid off a number of the countries voting at CITES, with the result that the proposal to ban the trade in bluefin was summarily dismissed.

Fishing quotas are set each year by an organisation known as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Nobody has had a great deal of faith in ICCAT. The group of nations that make it up has in the past met secretly and agreed quotas larger than any of the scientists have advised. Lots of bluefin are caught illegally, in addition to the quota. Their numbers have plummeted as a result.

America, which is a party to ICCAT, remains uneasy about the numbers being caught. Europe has responded by ramping up the inspection and monitoring of bluefin boats in the Mediterranean. Your correspondent boards the flagship fishing patrol vessel, the Jean Charcot, tonight at 9.30pm in Valetta in Malta. She will remain on board for two days.

(Further reading: Eaten away: A ban on bluefin tuna fishing is rejected)