BITE BACK - Blue Fin Tuna

Written by staff reporter Friday, 18 September 2009 00:00

Well, that is the manner in which the Nobu chain of restaurants is acting. Selling customers sushi, described on the menu only by the type of cut, and omitting to mention that it is in fact bluefin tuna, which is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.

When asked, staff at Nobu in London denied they sold bluefin tuna. DNA testing revealed the truth. The End of the Line film has opened a lot of people’s eyes to the plight of many fish species and the resulting celebrity involvement from stars such as Stephen Fry and Elle Macpherson has increased pressure on the likes of Nobu.

The tuna fishing industry is regulated by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, although its ICCAT acronym is widely regarded as standing for the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna. ICCAT itself routinely ignores the advice of its own scientists, setting this year’s bluefin quota at 22,000 tons despite their advice that it should be no more than 8,500 to 15,000 tons. The tuna fishing fleet already has a massive over-capacity and with legal quotas being exceeded, pirate fishing, illegal use of spotter planes, catch under-reporting and fishing during the closed season, the actual catch will far exceed this. In 2007 the scientific advice was for no more than 15,000 tons, the quota was 29,500 tons, the reported catch was 61,000 tons and the true total far higher still. Last year ICCAT was heavily criticised by the EU Commission for it’s ineffectiveness, although a recent report by Jo Borg, the EU fisheries minister, claims that it is now working well. Seeing this year’s tuna fishing carrying on just as before would certainly suggest that this is far from the case.

The latest report on the state of tuna stocks makes chilling reading. It baldly states that the massive over-catch in 2007 caused the collapse of the bluefin tuna breeding stocks in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic, and that this massive ecological disaster took place under the supposed governance of the EU and ICCAT. Analysis showed that 33 per cent of the tuna in Tokyo fish markets were below the legal limit of 30kg, which makes a mockery of the inspection procedures by the Mediterranean countries under ICCAT’s supervision. The report’s conclusion is that the collapse of the breeding stock means there is no way that bluefin tuna populations could ever recover.

Nonetheless ICCAT seems determined to carry on business as usual and right now the latest high-tech equipment is being used in an attempt to remove as many of the remaining fish as possible. Mitsubishi, the car makers, are heavily involved in this trade, having cornered nearly 40 per cent of the world trade in bluefin tuna, and are freezing huge quantities, supposedly in anticipation of huge price rises as bluefins career towards extinction.

Despite years of requests to the Nobu chain to stop selling bluefin tuna, Nobu Matsuhisa, the founder and chef, and Robert De Niro, who part owns it, refuse to take it off the menu.

They claim Nobu ‘takes the issue of bluefin tuna and its environmentally threatened status very seriously and always has done’, but attempt to justify their refusal to stop serving it by saying ‘there is still an enormous demand for this delicacy at all our restaurants’. Which just goes to show how effectively greed can remove all moral sensibility.

The most responsible source for tuna is pole-and-line caught skipjack tuna; Marks and Spencer, Sainsburys and the Co-op are all increasing the amount of pole-and-line caught tuna they stock. At the other end of the scale, Morrisons and Tesco won’t even respond to requests for information and the big tinned tuna manufacturers, John West and Princes, have not changed their practices at all.

And what can we do? The best protest is with your wallet. Choose pole-and-line tuna rather than the likes of John West and Princes, go to any of the supermarket websites and congratulate the good ones on their forward thinking and explain to the bad ones why you’ll never set foot in their shop until they start behaving responsibly. One stage better is to directly encourage the likes of John West to change their ways, www.john-west.co.uk/contact-form.aspx , and you can let Nobu know your thoughts at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . And ask Joe Borg, on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , for immediate and total protection for bluefin tuna.