You can hear the enthusiasm in Barbara Block’s voice about these tuna as she narrates the video. She shares with us how billfish, sharks, and tuna move around (and stay warm) in the open ocean. Knowing how these large predators travel through the open ocean will help us understand their role in the wider ocean ecosystem, she says – something many tuna hunting ships have apparently already mastered given the incentive they have for the high price obtained on the worldwide seafood market.

She describes, and indeed admires, tuna as ocean athletes — saying they are fast, far-ranging predators whose habits we’re just beginning to understand. As a marine biologist, she fits tuna with tracking tags (complete with transponders) that record unprecedented amounts of data about these threatened fish and the habitats they swim through.

Near the end of the video, you can see incredible animations of the migratory patterns for these tuna – pretty cool stuff!

From the Shem Creek blog.

Going deep with tagged tuna

Bench Mark’s Blue Marlin and 5 Sailfish releases toppled Reel Passion’s 2nd place spot of 2 Blue Marlin and 1 Sailfish release, but everybody involved had a great time no doubt!

“The interesting thing is that for the first time in years, a large number of blue marlin were encountered, with 14 actually being caught and released. This is more than the total number of blue’s that have been caught this year in the three previous tournaments combined. Further, in recent years, July has been a slow month for encountering blue marlin. The reason for the surge is unknown.” – SCDNR biologist Wallace Jenkins.

Congratulations to the ‘Bench Mark’ crew. So, what’s the split on $105,184 amongst y’all anyway?

From the Shem Creek blog.

‘Bench Mark’, winners of the 2010 MegaDock Tournament

In the case of both fish stocks, U.S. fishermen have not been able to catch the U.S. quotas designed to ensure that the stocks are fished sustainably. While these species are managed internationally, the United States manages the domestic part of these fisheries by taking into account the ecosystem and working to reduce bycatch of turtles and other species. This approach increases expenses for U.S. fishermen and makes it more difficult for them to compete in the marketplace with cheaper imports from fishing nations that subsidize their fleets and do not use an ecosystem approach.

“Swordfish are nearly rebuilt, yet our fishermen are only catching 54 percent of the U.S.
quota. Bluefin tuna are a more complicated story. U.S. fishermen have followed quotas based on scientific recommendations designed to end overfishing. There may be ways to fish more of the U.S. quotas for both stocks in a sustainable manner.” – Jim Balsiger, acting NOAA Assistant Admin. for NOAA’s Fisheries Service

The public process will also be a chance to examine using “catch shares,” which would allocate a portion of the total catch to a person, company, community or sector, to better manage these fisheries. NOAA will examine novel ways to limit the bycatch of sea turtles, marine mammals, or undersized, prohibited and spawning fish in the bluefin and swordfish fisheries.

Jim Balsiger says they’ve “heard a number of ideas from constituents and we want to broaden the conversation to include recreational fishermen, environmental organizations and the general public on how best to manage these valuable highly migratory fish species.”

This effort to involve the public comes as NOAA’s Fisheries Service announces this season’s bluefin tuna quota for U.S. commercial and recreational fishermen. The rule puts in place reductions in overall quota that were adopted at the November 2008 meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the international body that manages tuna, swordfish and other species that cross international boundaries.

The rule, which published on June 1, raises the daily catch limit from one to two bluefin tunas for recreational fishermen. NOAA had originally proposed a daily limit of one but raised the limit to two per day after reviewing comments from the fishing industry and analyzing the change for consistency with the bluefin tuna rebuilding program. The new rule maintains the three-fish per day limit for commercial fishermen.

NOAA received many comments and suggestions during the recent bluefin tuna rule making on ways to improve long-term management of bluefin and swordfish. These proposals will now be part of this summer’s public process.

In addition to considering catch shares and by-catch reduction, some of the proposals that will be discussed include:

• • an industry request to lower the commercial minimum size for bluefin tuna from 73 to 65 inches
• • an industry request to allow more bluefin tuna to be landed that have been incidentally caught in longline fishing gear
• • a proposal to allow approximately 5,000 commercial tuna fishermen who use rod and reel to land swordfish at low catch levels

Public comments on bluefin tuna fishery issues will close June 30, while comments on all other issues, including swordfish, will remain open until Aug. 31.

All meetings will begin with an opportunity for people to view information on the issues raised in the public process and ask questions at 5 p.m., followed by a presentation and opportunity for public comment beginning at 6 p.m.

The closest public meeting to us here on Shem Creek will be held next Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m. on June 25 at:

Roanoke Island Festival Park
1 Festival Park
Manteo, N.C. 27954

You can learn more about the public comment process or the bluefin tuna quota at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/

From the Shem Creek blog.

NOAA seeks our input on governing Swordfish, Bluefin Tuna fishing

“Overfishing is the great environmental disaster that people haven’t heard about”
– producer George Duffield.

In the film we see firsthand the effects of our global love affair with seafood – from right here on Shem Creek, all the way to the world’s biggest consumers of seafood: Asians, Japan specifically.

The documentary examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation.

Scientists predict that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.

“The End of the Line” lays the responsibility squarely on consumers who innocently buy endangered fish, politicians who ignore the advice and pleas of scientists, fishermen who break quotas and fish illegally, and the global fishing industry that is slow to react to an impending disaster.

“Reading the book changed my life and what I eat. I hope the film will do the same for others,” producer Claire Lewis.

From the Shem Creek blog.

Overfishing: The End of the Line

Find out more at http://www.panda.org/coraltriangle.

From the Shem Creek blog.

The healthiest sea on the planet

Turbot? Huh? Exactly. That’s what a fish broker just got arrested for after an investigation by NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement. Turns out he was selling turbot – a flatfish native to marine or brackish waters of the North Atlantic – as halibut.

I haven’t tried turbot myself, but fortunately for us here on the East coast, most of his sales took place in Utah and Texas, so it’s a pretty safe bet you’re getting what you pay for here on Shem Creek – and I’ve never heard otherwise.

But I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that the buyer was getting packaged fish, because as soon as I saw what turbot looked like, I knew I’d never confuse it with halibut, but flounder? Now that’s a different story!

Hi-Res Halibut
(Credit: Wikipedia)

Turbot
(Credit: Wikipedia)

Flounder
(Credit: Wikipedia)

 

From the Shem Creek blog.

How well do you know the fish you just paid for?

From the Shem Creek blog.

Sustainable fishing levels won’t be back until 2032

Demand from Japan has triggered an explosion in hunting over the past decade and they even use illegal spotter planes to track the tuna.

The WWF and other campaign groups say bluefin can only be saved by a complete halt to fishing in May and June as the fish rush through the Straits of Gibraltar to spawn in the Mediterranean.

Here’s a scene you don’t see everyday; watch the guy to the right as he clubs the tuna over the head to kill it:

UPDATE: 6/27/2010: From today’s NYT’s: Tuna’s End

From the Shem Creek blog.

Bluefin tuna extinct by 2012

• loss of hair,
• heart fluttering,
• heart, nervous system, and kidney damage,
• and more.

I haven’t ran into John in a couple of years, but hopefully everything is going good for him.

I’ve reported on seafood mercury levels in this blog before. As a matter of fact, my earlier post Seafood Mercury Levels Make Headlines quotes the same High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi article that MotherJones just mentioned, so it’s certainly nothing new on the health front, but it is one that people need to be aware of.

The problem is, with canned tuna providing the highest source of mercury in the American diet, people need to wake up and smell the tuna – without the mercury in it! Oh, and say thanks to the FDA for looking out for us.

It’s almost expected nowadays to hear that Bumble Bee, StarKist, and Tri-Union (parent company of Chicken of the Sea) are doing all they can to quiet their unhealthy ways, but when the FDA, the very agency of the U.S. government put in place to protect us, is out there reputedly taking payoffs from company executives, then we have a serious health issue here in America.

From the Shem Creek blog.

Why mercury in canned tuna is still legal

“Previous findings have shown that fish and fish oil can help prevent stroke, but this is one of the only studies that looks at fish’s effect on silent brain (lesions) in healthy, older people. While eating tuna and other types of fish seems to help protect against memory loss and stroke, these results were not found in people who regularly ate fried fish.” – Jyrki Virtanen, study leader.

Fish with omega-3 fatty acids are the most helpful, including: herring, mackerel, salmon, and sardines. The study showed that people who ate these fish 3x or more per week had nearly a 26% lower risk of having health conditions such as silent brain lesions, or mini-strokes.

From the Shem Creek blog.

Non-fried, Omega-3 fish deter memory loss