Tuna will be wiped out by 2012 unless overfishing is stopped, environmental groups have warned. If current quotas are maintained, the breeding population of Atlantic bluefin tuna will have disappeared in three years, it is claimed.[via dailymail]
The population can only be saved by a complete halt to fishing in May and June, when the fish swim to the Mediterranean to spawn, the WWF says.
The call comes as the two month tuna fishing season begins.'Bluefin tuna is collapsing as we speak and yet the fishery will kick off for business as usual,' said Sergi Tudela, of WWF.
'It is absurd and inexcusable to open a fishing season when stocks of the target species are collapsing.'
Demand from Japan, where the fish is served as sushi, has seen the Mediterranean fishing fleet increase over the past decade.
Many of these boats use illegal spotter planes to track the tuna.
WWF said that the average size of mature tuna fish, which can weigh over half a ton, had more than halved since the 1990s.
This has had a large impact on the population since bigger fish produced many more offspring.
In November, EU members were among those who signed an agreement setting bluefin quotas.
The quotas were said by experts to be 47 per cent higher than recommended and were described as a disgrace.
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