The EU called for a ban of bluefin tuna fishing in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic for large industrial vessels last week following extensive evidence of illegal fishing.

Due to heavy exploitation by EU countries that hunt for it in these waters, there has been a marked drop in the number of bluefin tuna.

The environmental group, Oceana, had earlier highlighted the use of banned spotter planes which are being used to gather some of the last of a breeding population which scientists say face the peril of being eliminated completely.

Xavier Pastor, executive director of the organisation on board Oceana’s MarViva Med vessel, while stressing on the importance of this measure, said:

We congratulate the Commission for adopting this measure. However, we are not sure that it will be totally respected. We will be observing these fleets very closely in order to denounce any kind of illegal fishing activity and to protect this threatened species.

The bans apply to vessels which use a “purse seine”, a type of net that floats the top of a long wall of netting on the surface while its bottom is held weighted under the water.

The closure of the season for purse-seine vessels which catch three-fourth of the bluefin in the Mediterranean had been outlined for July 1. However, the European Commission declared that the end of the fishing season was being brought forward as a result of EU vessels’ consistent inability in fulfilling the rules.

Apart from Oceana, which is calling for the creation of a bluefin tuna marine sanctuary around the Balearic islands in the area where the bluefin breed, WWF too has expressed sharp disapproval of these activities. The urgent need of renovation of the rules which at present permit the catching of three times more tuna than scientists say should be caught for the survival of the species has been voiced by many other organisations too.

Aaron McLoughlin of WWF opined that overfishing and massive illegal catches threaten the survival of bluefin tuna and that fishing should be banned indefinitely at least during June, the crucial breeding time for Mediterranean bluefin tuna.

A meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT)is scheduled to take place in November.

Source: telegraph

Image: onfinite