Appearing in everything from sushi rolls to sandwiches, tuna are among the world’s favourite fish. But are our current tuna fishing habits sustainable?
Probably not, according to a new global database of tuna catches created by researchers at the University of British Columbia and University of Western Australia.
In a study published in Fisheries Research, scientists from the Sea Around Us initiative found that global tuna catches have increased over 1,000 per cent in the past six decades, fuelled by a massive expansion of industrial fisheries.
The findings indicate that these fisheries — which have been catching nearly six million tonnes of tuna annually in recent years — are operating substantially over capacity. That’s because fisheries have fully exploited or over-exploited populations of tuna and other large fish species and spread out to point where no new fishing grounds remain to be explored.
Continue reading at University of British Columbia.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.