It is a critically endangered species but the human appetite for blue fun tuna shows no signs of slowing. In this video, BBC presenter Simon Reeve travels to Port Lincoln, Australia to visit a tuna ranch.
Blue fin tuna caught in the wild and are then herded into open water pens to grow out. Divers monitor the fish everyday to ensure they healthy.
Tuna ranching allows the authorities to monitor how much tuna is caught, helping to stop overfishing of fish stocks.
The fish can double in size in six months, making them a lucrative export to countries such as Japan and making some fishermen very wealthy.
However, taking fish from the wild to grow on is not the most sustainable option. Reeve visits a secret research facility where Dr Craig Foster is working on closing the cycle for tuna. The fish is difficult to grow in captivity because tuna are temperature spawners, meaning they migrate from Australia to warmer waters in the Java Sea to lay eggs. This process is hard to reproduce in a tank but Foster has created an environment which mimics the daylight, moonlight and water temperature the fish encounter in the wild.
Blue fin tuna has been spawned in captivity for the first time ever. But that's just the first step of the process. If Foster's project is successful, it could take the pressure off fish stocks and farmed tuna may be coming to a plate near you.
Blue fin tuna caught in the wild and are then herded into open water pens to grow out. Divers monitor the fish everyday to ensure they healthy.
Tuna ranching allows the authorities to monitor how much tuna is caught, helping to stop overfishing of fish stocks.
The fish can double in size in six months, making them a lucrative export to countries such as Japan and making some fishermen very wealthy.
However, taking fish from the wild to grow on is not the most sustainable option. Reeve visits a secret research facility where Dr Craig Foster is working on closing the cycle for tuna. The fish is difficult to grow in captivity because tuna are temperature spawners, meaning they migrate from Australia to warmer waters in the Java Sea to lay eggs. This process is hard to reproduce in a tank but Foster has created an environment which mimics the daylight, moonlight and water temperature the fish encounter in the wild.
Blue fin tuna has been spawned in captivity for the first time ever. But that's just the first step of the process. If Foster's project is successful, it could take the pressure off fish stocks and farmed tuna may be coming to a plate near you.
No comments:
Post a Comment