14
Aug 2008 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,” 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.”
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.”
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.
