April 3, 2012 – Last night, seven years after audiences met a fleet of Alaskan crab fishermen via Deadliest Catch, National Geographic Channel premiered a show profiling the men and women who make their living on the ocean. Wicked Tuna follows five boats and their crews as they pursue bluefin tuna more than 100 miles from their home port of Gloucester, Mass.
When ads for the show began appearing, it was not surprising that Wicked Tuna attracted a lot of attention, both positive and negative. Some say National Geographic is glorifying the killing of a threatened species and the program will increase the demand for bluefin, further jeopardizing its survival. Others responded that the series simply portrays a group of hard-working fishermen going about their lives, following in the footsteps of generations of New Englanders who came before them.
As is often the case, the truth may fall between these two positions. I have written before that the Atlantic bluefin population has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years because of decades of unsustainable fishing. Although some people would like all fishing for the species stopped, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which manages this species and operates by consensus, is not likely to shut down the fishery. Given that reality, how can we improve the chances of bluefin recovery? One way supported by the Pew Environment Group is to improve compliance with the annual quotas set by ICCAT through reductions in the significant amount of illegal and unreported fishing in the Mediterranean and unintentional catch in the United States.
Much of that incidental catch occurs south of New England along the Atlantic seaboard and in the Gulf of Mexico. Each spring, longline boats fishing for yellowfin tuna and swordfish in the Gulf, using 30-mile lines baited with hundreds of hooks, unintentionally haul in bluefin tuna at the height of their spawning season. Most of these fish are thrown back dead. The damage does not stop there, because this indiscriminate fishing method also captures and kills other nontarget species, including blue marlin, sailfish, and endangered sea turtles. Fortunately, more selective types of gear are available as alternatives to surface longlines, two of which are being tested now in the Gulf. Buoy gear and green sticks primarily hook the fish they target (yellowfin tuna and swordfish) while greatly reducing the number of bluefin and other ocean wildlife that are caught and killed.
Read the full article at the Huffington Post.