The End of An Odyssey Draws Near

Described by Homer, Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, the bluefin tuna has inspired man since antiquity. But today, this remarkable creature is being fished to extinction

Able to grow up to 1,000 pounds and travel the entire length of the Atlantic Ocean, the bluefin tuna is one of the world's largest, strongest and fastest fish. One of the few truly warm-blooded fish, it can maintain a body temperature higher than the water in which it swims, giving it immense energy and muscle power. Armed with retractable fins, it can streamline itself to achieve high speeds. It's no surprise that it has captured our imagination since we started throwing nets into the sea.

In 343 B.C., Aristotle described the habits of the bluefin tuna in his zoological treatise History of Animals. Homer wrote about the colossal battles that the fishermen of Favignana had trying to capture the huge and majestic fish in his epic 8th-century B.C. poem The Odyssey.

In the 1st century A.D., Pliny the Elder prescribed tuna as the basic ingredient in several homeopathic cures. Images of bluefin tuna graced the coins of both the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians. And the connection between the bluefin and international commerce is as strong as ever.

At a Tokyo fish auction in January, two sushi bar owners paid over $100,000 for a single bluefin tuna, which weighed in at 282 pounds (128 kilograms). It was the highest amount paid for a bluefin in almost ten years.

Most of the tuna used in sushi is provided by the northern bluefin tuna, one of the three bluefin tuna species. Toro, the meat from the belly of the fish, is a sushi delicacy. The other two bluefin species are the southern bluefin tuna and the Pacific bluefin tuna.

In 2006, Japan admitted to exceeding bluefin tuna catch limits, secretly taking up to three times their yearly quota for about two decades. Japanese fishermen illegally caught up to $6 billion worth of fish, according to the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin. The southern bluefin tuna is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

"Per capita fish consumption has nearly doubled in the last 50 years, according to Good Magazine. "The problem is that there may not be any more fish if we keep catching and consuming them at this rate."

"Since the mid-1990s, tuna populations have spiraled downward, and scientists warn that an immediate moratorium on fishing is the only way to avoid an irreversible collapse," said actor and activist Ted Danson, a founding member of Oceana, the largest international ocean protection advocacy group. "Time is running out to save these sleek and powerful fish."

What's a tuna lover to do? "Think about this," suggests Capt. Philip G. Renaud, the Executive Director of the Living Oceans Foundation. "You can live without eating bluefin tuna -- but they can’t." Concerned consumers can safely stick to albacore tuna, the kind of tuna commonly found in cans.

The Marine Stewardship Council declared the American North and South Pacific albacore pole and line and troll fisheries ("pole & troll") as the world's only certified sustainable tuna fisheries.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, "fish caught by pole or trolling are better choices over those caught on longlines, which have high levels bycatch, injuring or killing seabirds, sea turtles and sharks."

Unfortunately, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has not responded positively to the scientific research that portends the demise of the bluefin, preferring to side with the fishing industry.

"For the east Atlantic and Mediterranean, the scientists had recommended drastic and immediate catch reduction from nearly 30,000 tons annually to 15,000 tons. Yet despite official warnings and calls for a catch ban, the sleepwalking ICCAT commissioners on November 25 [2008] set the catch limit nearly half again as high: 22,000 tons," wrote Blue Ocean Institute president Carl Safina.

"Having by incompetence, greed and reckless industry interference caused the depletion of this magnificent and commercially important fish, the commissioners agreed to ensure further decline."

As ICCAT commissioners consider their recent ill-advised decision as well as future ones, they would do well to note a line from Homer's Odyssey: "They perished through their own arrant folly -- the fools, they ate the cattle of Hyperion the Sun, and he took away the day of their return."

GET INVOLVED

• Download the Environmental Defense Fund's "Pocket Eco-Friendly Fish Selector" to make choices that help prevent overfishing

RELATED POSTS

• 13.7 BILLION YEARS EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Philip Renaud, Executive Director, Living Oceans Foundation (Part 1 of 5) (March 15, 2009)
• Pick up the Fish Phone (January 20, 2009)
  
• Overfishing: How Supermarkets Rate (December 28, 2008)
• Crisis in the Bering Sea (December 3, 2008)
• Big Fish, Little Fish (November 13, 2008)
• Goodbye, Fish and Chips (October 12, 2008)
• Ted Danson's Fight to Prevent A Bluefin Tuna Collapse (September 26, 2008)
• A Six-Step Plan to Save the Oceans from An Extinction Crisis (August 17, 2008)
• Marine Life Bounces Back After Fishing Ban (July 17, 2008)
• US Backs Proposal for Destructive Fishing (June 3, 2008)

image: Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, by Rembrandt van Rijn, oil on canvas, 1653.