Under Pressure – Almost one-third of all Bigeye and Yellowfin tuna is being caught by vessels using FADs,
Australia’s Tuna Fishing Industry under Threat Australia’s fishing industry is deeply concerned about their future from over fishing in the region and cheap inferior quality imports being sold in supermarkets and some restaurants. Compounding this is the threat from the current Labour government to closure off more areas around Australia’s coastal to both commercial and recreational fishing. Environmental groups are calling for a permanent ban on ''deadly'' artificial fishing devices known as FADs (fish aggregation devices) used to attract huge tuna catches in the Pacific after scientific reports found that stocks of Bigeye tuna are collapsing. ''Bigeye tuna are seriously overfished and have a strong affinity for FADs,'' a Greenpeace Oceans campaigner, Genevieve Quirk, said. ''Juvenile fish are found more frequently with FADs. This seriously undermines the population as fish are removed before they have the chance to breed.'' More than half of the world's tuna is now caught in the Pacific and is valued at between $US3 billion and $US4 billion ($ billion and $ billion). Fish are a healthy source of protein with Australians consuming about 16kg of fish and seafood per person per annum. Hence fish are a multi-billion dollar industry for Australia and according to statistics for 2005 from the Australian Fisheries Management Authority fish are Australia’s fifth largest food producing industry ( after beef, wool, wheat and dairy) worth more than $ billion to the Nations economy every year. The Australian Fishing Zone (AFZ) is the third largest in the world, covering nearly nine million square kilometres. It extends to 200 nautical miles from the Australian coastline and also includes the waters surrounding our external territories, such as Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, and Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic.
Size: 3872px × 2592px
Location: South East Queensland Australia
Photo credit: © Adrian Page / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: bigeye, eye, fauna, generic, head, queensland, reflection, se, top, tuna
