Tuna

It's only a couple of days since the Esperanza set out on the Defending Our Pacific Tour, but already the crew are deeply engaged in the fight to save Pacific tuna from decimation.

Tuna are the main target of industrial fishing fleets from Asia, USA and the EU. Between them they took over 2.5 million tonnes last year alone - a totally unsustainable amount. And the indiscriminate nature of their fishing methods means that thousands of sharks and turtles also die needlessly in their nets.

A haul of giant bluefin caught off Scarborough in the 1930s © Prof Callum Roberts

As per the great British tradition, there was something fishy in yesterday's news: an interesting little snippet in PR Weekly, announcing that a new PR firm has been hired to work for Seafish.

*Bluefin sushi will only be available for a limited period because bluefin will soon be extinct. © Ultimate Holding Company / Greenpeace

Bluefin tuna is an endangered species, and it's the oceanic equivalent of a tiger, rhino, or panda - yet it is still being served up as expensive sushi in restaurants. In London alone, there are dozens of venues serving up bluefin, although the celebrity hang-out Nobu is probably the most high-profile culprit.

Our politicians have failed on bluefin tuna, they ignore the scientific warnings, and continue to set quotas that are then ignored by the fishermen.

If we want to stop bluefin from becoming extinct in just a few years then we need to take action now.

The Great White shark: more threatened than threatening © CC  hermanusbackpackers

A couple of stories in the press today caught my eye. Both are about what we internally refer to as 'charismatic megafauna' (the big animals people tend to be interested in and care about), but they are also both damning indictments of our failure to protect our oceans and the life that depends on them.

Firstly – in the week of the International Whaling Commission meeting in Madeira, Portugal – whilst lots of countries get together to talk lots and try not to upset each other too much,  the BBC reports that a highly-endangered species of porpoise is being pushed ever closer to extinction.