More Mediterranean Bluefin Supply Depressing Pricesff

The long-term viability of the Mediterranean tuna farming industry has been questioned with claims too many fish are being caught.

Port Lincoln's tuna farmers suffering because of the influx of tuna into Japan are watching closely to see what production will be this season.

Previous estimates were that the total catch in the Mediterranean farms last year could have been as high as 28,000 tons of which as much as 24,000 tons was farmed. But there are reports that this year already the fish may be hard to find and with the season just about to finish today the catch for farms so far may only be between 10,000 and 12,000 tons.

Newspapers in Europe including the Financial Times and Independent are reporting concerns the 2003 catch levels may not be sustainable. This follows a report from the World Wildlife Fund questioning the sustainability of the fishery as well as the European Union subsidies, encouraging greater catches thereby leading to the potential commercial extinction of the northern bluefin.

The Australian tuna industry faced with lower prices because of the increased supply from the new Mediterranean farms is not content to wait and find out if that fishery will last. Instead the advantages of the local farmed tuna are being highlighted to the Japanese and industry representative Brian Jeffriess is currently touring tuna farming countries in the Mediterranean on a fact-finding mission.

According to the Financial Times of London, the WWF is saying tuna farming jumped by 50 per cent last year in the Mediterranean to reach 21,000 tonnes and that subsidies of $34 million from the EU since 1997 will keep the industry going despite saturation of the key Japanese market and falling prices.

Another newspaper article in the Independent questioned the long-term viability of Mediterranean tuna farms comparing the situation to Port Lincoln where the main difference is a strict enforceable quota.

Mediterranean countries with tuna farms include Spain, Italy, Turkey, Malta, Cyprus, Croatia, Tunisia and Libya, while tuna farming is also expanding rapidly in other countries such as Mexico, the US and Japan, WWF says.

Ironically, Australian tuna farmers who pioneered the technique in the early 1990s helped establish some of the Mediterranean tuna farms and several local companies have a stake in these new enterprises. However Mr. Jeffriess said Australia had three key advantages over the Mediterranean.

The first being was farms in that region were sometimes as close as 100 meters to shore creating concern about impact on the seafloor, whereas Mr. Jeffriess said Australian farms were out in the Spencer Gulf where strong currents and scavenging fish dispersed any left over feed.

Secondly, tuna in the Mediterranean were harvested close to their spawning grounds reducing the ability of the big fish to breed, compared to the Great Australian Bight that predominantly saw younger fish. This also led to the third advantage in that Australia's fish are much younger and so have had less time for heavy metals and other contaminants to build up in their systems. ”The market is increasingly becoming aware of these advantages,” Mr. Jeffriess said.

Tony's Tuna International manager Leith Whittaker said the latest information was that catches in the Mediterranean may be down already compared to last year with the fish harder to find.

Mr. Whittaker said Australia's bluefin fishery had the advantage of being strictly managed by a quota, which limited the amount of fish taken and ensured a long-term future for the species.

”Our quota is set at 5265 tons and we can't go a kilogram over it,” he said. Fellow tuna farmer Sam Skoljarev of the Sekol company also said Australia was in a good position in the long run, but that times would be tough until the market adjusted to the changes. “We feel that we are at lowest price now, but we hope things will correct by the market expanding with demand increasing already and by catches around the world stabilizing,” he said.

Identifying northern bluefin tuna industry

An international aquaculture consultant has produced a report about the Mediterranean tuna farming industry.

Malta-based professor Carmelo Agius has identified that northern bluefin tuna arrive in the Mediterranean to spawn annually from May with numbers peaking in June-July.

In the 1980s in particular, there was rapid development in the fishery of this species both with long line and purse seining. The Mediterranean is split into two fairly distinct areas - the west and the east. Much of the tuna schools entering the western Mediterranean, migrate as far as Malta, southern Italy and the Adriatic then turn around, but some venture further east. Consequently, there tends to be a lot more fish in the western Mediterranean compared to the east and they are also larger in size.

In the 1990s, ICCAT (The International Commission for Conservation of Atlantic Tuna) established quotas for each country based largely on the catches in 1994/1995. At about this time, interest in farming started to build up. Having seen what they were doing in Port Lincoln, Australia, the Spanish started to culture tuna.

The total allowable catch of northern bluefin tuna has been hovering around 30,000 tons annually and stocks appear to be on the decline.

Two years ago, roughly 35 per cent of the allowable catch was farmed (8000 to 9,000 tons), now estimated to exceed 50 per cent (18,000 to 20,000t) out of the allowable 27,000 to 28,000 tons per annum. “Clearly the farming volumes are increasing rapidly with new player countries such as Turkey, Greece and Libya coming onto the scene,” Professor Agius said.

Quotas are important because spawning and rearing bluefin in captivity is still very much at the experimental stage and the industry relies totally on recruitment of wild stocks.

He wrote instead of killing the fish in a short period of time and delivering it to the market in variable quality and quantity (sometimes over hundreds of tonnes), aquaculture adds value to the product and enables a supply over a longer time period.

By October when the first fish are ready for harvesting, an electric stunning technique is often used to harvest fish for the fresh fish market.

Some farms harvest all their fish by December; others depending on market price, transport logistics etc., harvest fish up until February or March and some retain their stock until the following year. Needless to say a number of problems have to be addressed.

Mr. Agius said in response to uneaten food fish falling to the seabed, a system has now been devised using a collecting net similar to that used in salmon farming, which has proved successful in removing uneaten food.

Undoubtedly, the overriding issue is the long-term sustainability of the sector.

”The entire dependence on wild stocks, the extremely limited experience of tuna juvenile production in captivity and the, by now well known weakness in enforcing international fishing regulations cast huge doubts as to the sustainability of the industry in the Northern Hemisphere,” he wrote.

”Declining sea bass and sea bream prices in many Mediterranean countries has resulted in farmers turning to more attractive tuna production, further stretching wild fish resources as well as leading towards over-production and lower market prices. It is vitally important that all concerned endorse and enforce appropriate conservation measures to ensure the sustainability of this fledgling industry and above all to preserve this biologically important and exciting species for future generations.”

Source: The Australian News