Tagging tuna in the deep ocean

Filmed April 2010 at Mission Blue Voyage.

Tuna are ocean athletes — fast, far-ranging predators whose habits we're just beginning to understand. Marine biologist Barbara Block fits tuna with tracking tags (complete with transponders) that record unprecedented amounts of data about these gorgeous, threatened fish and the ocean habitats they move through.

Giant Bluefin Tuna Aquarium Day

(via: International Fishing News)

High-Tech Tuna Researcher Uncovers Marvels of the Big Fish

Bluefin tuna are badass.

Of all tunas tested by Block and various co-authors, at all temperatures tested, the bluefin displays the highest rate of calcium uptake in the tuna family, twice that of albacore and three times that of yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna.

LINK (via:National Geographic)

Take Action: Urge NOAA to Strengthen Longline Fishing Proposal

From the IGFA:

Surface longlines kill thousands of hard-fighting game fish, including white marlin, sailfish, and bluefin tuna. In 2012, the fishery threw back dead nearly 25% of the U.S. bluefin quota. Please join us in calling on NOAA Fisheries to implement strong measures that will protect spawning bluefin in the Gulf of Mexico and reduce unwanted catch off North Carolina, hold surface longliners accountable for bluefin bycatch, maintain current bluefin quota allocations, and promote increased fishing opportunities for recreational anglers.

LINK

Pacific bluefin tuna numbers drop 96%

Time to cut back on the sushi.

The bluefin tuna, which has been endangered for several years and has the misfortune to be prized by Japanese sushi lovers, has suffered a catastrophic decline in stocks in the Northern Pacific Ocean, of more than 96%, according to new research published on Wednesday.

Equally concerning is the fact that about 90% of specimens currently fished are young fish that have not yet reproduced.

LINK (via: The Guardian)

Sunday Tuna

A single bluefin tuna has sold in Japan for $1.7 million, almost triple the record price set last year.

LINK (via: The BBC)

A step in the right direction before we kill the last bluefin?

North of the border.......

Scientists are denouncing Canada’s management of fish stocks as a commercially driven approach that is threatening to wipe out the bluefin.

It is the ultimate fish.

When its muscles fire up it can actually cook its own flesh.