ICCAT FAILS....

[Capt. Jon Tennant]

Well not so surprisingly, ICCAT has failed again to take action to protect eastern Bluefin Tunas, even with Japan supporting the actions. The EU sucks donkey balls.... pretty depressing whats on the horizon now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7746965.stm

[Robja]

I think they also increased the quota from 15000 tns to 22000 tns.

[Capt. Jon Tennant]

Conservation groups which have long lobbied Iccat members to adopt scientists' advice are now likely to take their fight to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

Numbers of the East Atlantic stock of bluefin have fallen so fast that listing it as a threatened species is a possibility. The southern bluefin is already categorised as Critically Endangered.

"The game is over - Iccat has missed its last chance to save the bluefin tuna from stock collapse," said Sebastian Losada, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace in Spain.

"It's time to take the fishery out of their hands and look to conventions like Cites to impose trade restrictions on the species."

This will affect all atlantic Bluefin tunas if it happens... yes, were screwed too.

[shoefish]

What an absolute shame. It is positive to hear that Japan was on board though....especially since they hold the best chips in the game- the demand. If they were to truly want to limit the harvest from the med, all they would have to do as a country is stop buying med fish. I'm sure that in execution it wouldn't be very easy, but maybe the threat of it would cause someone to re-think.

[clt_capt]

Maybe Congress or Obama will authorize a bailout of the BFT - or maybe the EU...

It is a shame that the frogs and others (including the US)can't
get this right.

I'm sorry that our grandkids, or possibly even our own kids may never get a shot at thes magnificent beasts.

[Deep C]

The BFT has been screwed for decades... I put down my 130's back in the early nineties and 1996 was the last one I took "cause it was there"...
I remember mammoth schools of em when I was a kid in the sixties and seventies... I could remember guys cursing them on the party boats when they'de get in close and start blowing up tackle on guys working ling and whiting. I remember parking lot sized schools all over the ging clear flats behind Bimini and they are for the most part gone from sight. I see a stray one off Jersey or on the flat between cat cay and russel beacon but no numbers anymore...
They are vulnerable and each time the clowns at ICCAT drop the ball they're one step closer to being gone all together.
We as a country are not helping when we permit the unchecked rape of forage species that they need to survive. The once rich mud hole off north jersey is a virtuall barren wasteland...
Whats odd is that I saw a specil on tv about the sushi trade in Japan. The end vendors actually lose money on the BFT but they need to have it to get people in to buy the other more lucrative items they sell... They went eons without. then the craze started... Maybe it will end and the demand will go away but until then I see a black future for the bluefin...

[Nauti Natured]

It just amazes me how short-sited so many people are. It is not brain surgery to realize that take...take...take will lead to a future of despair. So sad.

[Capt. Jon Tennant]

"Europe sits on damning bluefin tuna report"
"A European fisheries report demonstrating continuing widespread infringements by bluefin tuna fleets despite increased fleet surveillance in the Mediterranean has been delayed until after the conclusion of next week's key meeting"

http://www.diariodelweb.it/Articolo/...81114&id=58916

http://www.economist.com/world/europ...ry_id=12609765