Tuna

Video: what happens when grappling hook meets leg

Posted by jamie — 7 June 2010 at 1:48pm - Comments

For a taste of the violence Greenpeace activists encountered on Friday as they tried to free bluefin tuna from purse-seine fishing nets, look no further than the video below. But be warned: there are some close-up images of a serious injury which are liable to make you lose your lunch.

We just had a discussion about whether to promote this video. Other Greenpeace offices have chosen to use it (including our Turkish colleagues, hence the Turkish title) although it's quite close to the knuckle (or shin bone, to be more precise). Yet it shows not only the determination of everyone on board our two ships to put the brakes on the extinction of bluefin tuna, but also the violence and intimidation they've been confronted with. So here it is.

Article tagged as: activism, bluefin, direct action, marine reserves, mediterranean, oceans, tuna, videos

Taking action - and taking blows - to protect bluefin tuna

Posted by Willie — 5 June 2010 at 1:09pm - Comments

Greenpeace took action in the Mediterranean yesterday to stop some French purse-seiners catching bluefin tuna. And it's fair to say, things kicked off a bit.

At long last, the weather had calmed down and the sea had warmed, and whilst the seas here certainly are not brimming with bluefin, we knew the seiners were sniffing some potential catch. When we saw them coming together at lunchtime we raced to the scene with both the Rainbow Warrior along with the Arctic Sunrise, our not-so-secret second ship in the Mediterranean.

When we got to the scene we quickly worked out that there was a net with some fish, so we deployed immediately to set about freeing the tuna. We knew it would be complicated, there were seven fairly big purse seiners, some support vessels and a whole heap of skiffs and inflatables working with the seiners. The smaller boats were holding the net open whislt the bigger boats were circling to try and protect the catch. Meanwhile a transport cage was being towed towards the scene for the tuna to be moved into. We knew we had to act fast.

Article tagged as: activism, bluefin, direct actions, mediterranean, oceans, purse-seining, tuna

Greenpeace activist injured and boats sunk in attempt to halt bluefin tuna fishing

Posted by jamie — 4 June 2010 at 3:34pm - Comments

Activists are pulled from the sea as one of our inflatables sinks © Parsons/Greenpeace

Some disturbing news is coming in from the Mediterranean where, for the past two weeks, the Rainbow Warrior and the Arctic Sunrise have been waiting for the bluefin tuna fishing season to begin. As Willie (who's on board the Arctic Sunrise) reported earlier in the week, they've been waiting along with the fishing fleet for the bad weather to subside and the tuna to arrive.

It's been a long, frustrating wait for the crew but finally, this afternoon the waiting was over. Having found a fishing vessel - the Jean Marie Christian 6 - towing a purse-seine net, both ships launched inflatables with the intention of submerging one side of the net to free the tuna trapped within, but the crews of other fishing vessels intervened in a manner which can only be described as the direct opposite of peaceful and proportional.

One of the UK activists has been injured by (and I'm wincing as I type) a grappling hook through the leg. He's being evacuated to hospital but I'm told he'll be okay. We've also lost two inflatables which were slashed with knives then sunk when the fishing vessels ran over them.

A difficult start then but our two ships in the Med are going to keep taking action to shut down the bluefin fishing operations.

More updates soon.

Article tagged as: activism, bluefin, direct actions, mediterranean, oceans, ships, tuna

With ICCAT in the driving seat, what hope is there for bluefin?

Posted by Willie — 2 June 2010 at 9:14am - Comments

There's an analogy I sometimes use to explain the problem of overfishing.

Imagine you are in a car hurtling at full speed down a hillside towards a cliff. Your foot is fully down on the accelerator. You have four options. Keep the foot down and plunge to your certain doom. Slam on the brakes and try to stop before you reach the cliff. Take your chances and jump out of the moving car. Or take your foot off the accelerator and just hope you slow down in time.

Applying that analogy to Atlantic bluefin tuna, what needs to happen is the brake-slamming option.

Article tagged as: bluefin, iccat, japan, mediterranean, oceans, tuna

Missing: bluefin tuna, last seen heading for extinction

Posted by Willie — 26 May 2010 at 4:16pm - Comments

We're out here in the middle of the Mediterranean. But at the moment, the bluefin tuna don't seem to be here.

The fishing boats are here. The tugs and support vessels are here. The French navy ships which are monitoring/protecting the fishery are here... but the fish aren't.

Perhaps it's just not warm enough yet. Perhaps they're looking in the wrong places. Perhaps the fish are late.

The worst possible scenario for everyone is that the fish have gone.

Article tagged as: bluefin, mediterranean, oceans, overfishing, tuna

What's lurking in your tuna sandwich?

Posted by Willie — 25 May 2010 at 4:38pm - Comments

Another tin of tuna, because we know you can't get enough of these pictures

The old saying about a can of worms, is based on the idea that once you open said can, it's impossible to get the worms back in and close it again. Who knew that was true of cans of tuna too?

But fresh from our update on some of the international branded laggards yesterday, comes some news of more developments from some of the UK retailers.

Article tagged as: john west, oceans, princes, supermarkets, tinned tuna, tuna

Tinned tuna industry polices itself, and it smells so fishy

Posted by Willie — 24 May 2010 at 4:17pm - Comments

There's a well-known model of how dodgy big business deals with campaigns against them. To summarise, it goes a bit like this:

Company X gets some bad press for doing something wrong, especially bad press if it kills lots of charismatic megafauna;
Company X initially retaliates saying, 'It's all lies, honest';
Company X then admits it isn't all lies, but comes up with some way of kicking the issue into the long grass, usually some commission or foundation (ideally with a word like 'conservation' or 'sustainable' in its title) or some interminable period of gathering research, in the hope it all blows over and people forget what they were upset about.

Article tagged as: bycatch, oceans, overfishing, princes, tinned tuna, tuna

Rainbow Warrior sails the Med to help bluefin tuna's holiday romance

Posted by Willie — 21 May 2010 at 12:18pm - Comments

Imagine you are an Atlantic bluefin tuna. You've been out at sea most of the year in cooler waters, feeding away and generally getting on with being a big ol' fish at the top of your food chain. You have not a care in the world, save the occasional orca or shark scare.

Then spring is sprung, and the urge takes you. Forces you don't really understand compel you to head back to warmer waters, and a certain key place, sacred to you bluefin. The bluefin equivalent of a romantic dinner and some subdued lighting is a sheltered warm sea, and conditions have to be perfect, or it ain't happening. But even that's not enough. Because of the, er, messy, way most fish reproduce, they congregate together, and only release sperm and eggs when the time and the temperature is right: 23 degrees Celsius. It's the perfect temperature for a bluefin love-in.

Article tagged as: bluefin, marine reserves, oceans, rainbow warrior, ships, tuna

If tuna is too cheap, then stocks won't last

Posted by Willie — 29 April 2010 at 12:10pm - Comments

Brussels Expo: every sort of seafood imaginable - except bluefin

I'm in Brussels, at the annual European Seafood Exposition. In the shadow of the improbably-shaped Atomium, thousands of people gather to buy and sell seafood. Five vast halls in an impossibly imposing building, crammed for three days with every sort of seafood you can imagine, as well as quite a few you hadn't yet dreamt up. The scale of it takes your breath away. This is the world's largest seafood fair, and quite literally it's the place the big-money deals are done to trade away our ocean life.

Article tagged as: bluefin, brussels seafood expo, maldives, purse-seining, sustainable seafood, tuna

Is a small step for sushi a great leap for tuna-kind?

Posted by Willie — 14 April 2010 at 10:33pm - Comments

For many people it seems that 'tuna' is synonymous with 'sushi'. And there's certainly no doubt that the demand for high quality tuna to feed the fashionable sushi restaurant demand has had a devastating impact on some tuna populations. None more so than bluefin tuna.

Both the Atlantic and Southern bluefin species are in dire trouble, trouble caused by overfishing, to satisfy a demand for the fatty red belly meat in expensive sushi, sold as 'toro'. It's a demand that has led to a fishing frenzy, in places like the Mediterranean , over the past few decades. It's a frenzy that has trampled over artisanal fishing methods and harvested bluefin tuna with little or no regard to the scientific advice, or the law. They are fisheries that have been so spectacularly mismanaged, it's not even laughable.

Article tagged as: bluefin, sushi, tuna

Greenpeace UK