After Two Decades of Delay,
A Chance to Save Bluefin Tuna

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My stand here may be strange, but I stand here to protect my culture. Of course, I assume the majority of reader here are the residents of US and it may be strange and weird to you all that we eat the fish and Tuna regularly in any meals from breakfast to dinner. The complete ban will limit and alter our eating habits and culture.

You need to understand there are so many people, whose income depends on fishing/importing/exporting Tuna. When the ban of commercial fishing of while was instituted, many fishermen and people lost their jobs. Many villages and towns in Japan were wiped off.

Also, we just don't slaughter Tuna for the human's ego. We always appreciate their sacrfice. In fact, we usually have a shrine that dedicates and appreciate the sacrafice.
Tuna is part of our daily life.

Also, don't label us "insane lust" to look for the freshest Tuna. It seems to me that you disrepect our culture. We don't eat meat and if you come from a country, where meat is eaten regularly, you always looks for the freshest meat, don't you?

Lastly, I just want to tell that eating Tuna is our culture. We all can't imagine the alternative fish of Tuna. It is so nutritious and affordable. I hope people respects our culture before going to the conclusion first.



Carl, Please address the issues of off-shore tuna mariculture.
thanks for all of your dedication and efforts. Prosper, Nikki



A powerful argument for the ban on the international Bluefin trade. Hopefully the European Union and everyone else will side with Dr. Safina and give these majestic creatures a chance to once again be masters of the seas.



Yes, and don't forget their insane appetite for whale meat also. And last but not least the insanity of putting this magnificent fish into cans and selling for cheap at the supermarket and killing dolphins in the process. I have given up on buying any kind of tuna in any form, canned, frozen or at the sushi bar long ago. Consumers need to be educated and Blue Ocean Institute is doing a great job on that front.



As Churchill said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

U.S. support for the bluefin's CITES listing is great news for anyone who cares about the oceans, and I applaud the US for finally committing to it - though of course it'd have been even better if they'd co-signed Monaco's proposal last October instead of vacillating.

I do wonder, though, what's to stop Japan from using CITES' provisions for objections. They have used the objections clauses many times before. If a formal objection can keep the Japanese market open, then just how effective is the listing really going to be? And that's assuming it even passes - don't forget that Monaco's proposal was in response to the EU's failure to agree to reduce bluefin quotas at ICCAT last fall.



Great! Good news indeed!!!

Please, tell us what can we do to help, even in countries such as Argentina, where buefins aren´t much consumed... Thanks so much!



RE:Taka - your argument that a "complete ban will limit and alter our eating habits and culture" is questionable, as fatty tuna did not become part of the Japanese sushi diet until after WWII. Before that, tuna was considered a "trash fish" and rarely eaten - it was only as the Japanese diet became more westernized that demand for fatty tuna grew.

There are other substitutes available for the bluefin such as Bigeye or yellowfin, which are more affordable, just as delicious, and not in danger of extinction (yet).

I personally can't imagine Japanese culture and traditions going extinct as a result of one type of tuna being removed from sushi menus. However, should Japan succeed in blocking the bluefin from being added to CITES, it is likely that it will disappear from menus in a few short years anyway.

Supporting the ban and allowing for bluefin populations to recover to sustainable levels is the only real way for bluefin to remain on sushi menus in Japan and the rest of the world.




Hi Taka San

Just trying to understand. A 1000 pounds fish at 175,000$ would be 175$ per pound.
You say that Tuna is affordable?

BTW, even if you do ban it, the fish is so depleted that it will most likely be gone in the next 10 years. So enjoy it while you can because your children won't.

For decades, Cod was overfished. Since Canada had a ban on the Cod in 1992, stock has not recovered and is Cod is now an among endangered species since 2000.
Last reserve of Cod are in Barents sea and will be gone in 10 years. We no longer fish Cod but 18 years and no recovery in view...



Please be clear; I know Dr. Safina would want you to: The tuna in cans is NOT bluefin tuna.

There are some tunas caught sustainably, and you can learn about them from numerous seafood guides and eat them with a clear conscience.

Moreover, work of advocates from Blue Ocean and other NGOs has helped reduce mortality of dolphins caught in association with tuna to less than one percent.



We learned a long time that we simply cannot sustainably harvest resources endlessly from terrestrial ecosystems in order to feed ever denser human populations. These lessons are precisely what initiated agriculture and animal husbandry thousands of years in the past. Essentially the only wild animals that we continue to exploit on a large scale for human consumption are marine resources, especially certain groups of fishes. Because these organisms are not visible across the landscape, their loss through over-exploitation has not been as obvious and the lesson has been excruciatingly slower to be absorbed.

In the end, no matter what the excuses, pretexts or negotiations, financial or cultural, the realities of production and harvest cannot be ignored. Like it or not, everyone who consumes animal protein from whatever source should at least be backing off on their level of consumption. With another billion human mouths entering the food chain so quickly, everyone will have to accept restrictions, either voluntarily as part of management strategies or obligatorily upon extinction of the species involved.



The catch and sell no matter what fishing industry is not-so-slowly driving themselves, along with their catch, to extinction. All Nations, the EU in particular at this moment, should heed the following Native American Proverb: Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. This should be sent to all.



I'm sorry, Taka, but this doesn't have anything to do with culture. There are plenty of fish you can eat without decimating the bluefin population. At this juncture, there is no possible justification for continuting to fish the Atlantic bluefin. If they are required for your culture, your culture won't last long, because they won't last long. Maybe it's time for you to adapt to changing conditions, to look around and think about something besides you and your taste buds. We should all be working to maintain the population of this magnificent animal that, in may ways, has evolved far beyond human capabilities.



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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carl Safina, a marine biologist, is president of the Blue Ocean Institute, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, and a MacArthur Fellow. He is the author of the award-winning books Song of the Blue Ocean and Eye of the Albatross. In an earlier article for Yale Environment360, he warned that a controversial decision by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas threatened to doom Atlantic bluefin tuna.
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