EU bluefin tuna fishing ban for Mediterranean

A ban on fishing for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic has been announced by the EU for large industrial vessels after widespread evidence of illegal fishing.
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The closure of the season for purse-seine vessels which catch 70 per cent of the bluefin in the Mediterranean had been planned for July 1 but the European Commission said that the end of the fishing season was being brought forward because of EU vessels' repeated failure to comply with the rules.
Earlier this week the environmental group, Oceana, documented the use of spotter planes, which are banned, being used to round up some of the last of a breeding population which scientists say is in danger of being wiped out.
The Commission announced the closure of the bluefin tuna fishery on June 16 for the purse seine fleets of France, Italy, Cyprus, Malta and Greece, which supply the cages or "farms" in which tuna are kept before being exported, mainly to the Japanese market. The closure for the six vessels that make up the Spanish fleet will be delayed until June 23.
From these dates, it will be prohibited to retain on board, place in cages for fattening or farming, tranship, transfer or land bluefin tuna caught by these vessels.
Xavier Pastor, executive director of the organisation on board Oceana's MarViva Med vessel currently in waters around Malta, said: "This closure is necessary and urgent, as is curbing the production from the bluefin tuna fattening cages that are spread all across the Mediterranean and using tuna below the minimum legal size.
"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."
Oceana is calling for the creation of a bluefin tuna marine sanctuary around the Balearic islands in the area where the bluefin breed.
Aaron McLoughlin of WWF said: "We believe this out-of-control fishery should never have been allowed to open this year at all.
"Overfishing and massive illegal catches threaten the survival of bluefin tuna. Fishing should be banned indefinitely at least during June, the key spawning month for Mediterranean bluefin tuna."
A meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT, the organisation mandated to manage this fishery) takes place in November.
Conservation organisations are calling for an overhaul of the rules which currently allow the catching of three times more tuna than scientists say should be caught if the species is to survive.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/charlesclover/3344381/EU-bluefin-tuna-fishing-ban-for-Mediterranean.html