Source: ABC

Conservationists have hit back at claims from the tuna industry that the Southern Bluefin tuna population is booming.

The tuna season in Port Lincoln is expected to finish six weeks earlier than normal because three-quarters of the quota has already been filled.

Nicola Beynon, from Humane Society International, says the way the tuna migrate could give a false sense of the numbers.

“Southern Bluefin tuna aggregate, and that’s the way it migrates down past South Australia, so you do get large concentrations of the fish,” he says.

“But it doesn’t mean that the overall global population is doing well. Overall the global population is down to less than 10 per cent...very, very low levels and it's critically endangered.”