Diving into the 55-degree water, I didn't know what to expect. I was hoping to see a blue fin, a lot of bluefin tuna.
Bluefin are some of the biggest and baddest fish in the ocean. They can grow to 15 feet long, weigh over 1,000 pounds, and swim up to 50 miles per hour when pursuing prey. Like tigers or lions, they are fierce predators that play a critical role in the ecosystem.
Most people don't have the opportunity to see an animal like this in the wild. I got to, because I've teamed up with several organizations -- Nautica, an international ocean conservation group called Oceana, and GQ's Gentlemen's Fund (an initiative that encourages men to become agents of change by supporting charities important to them) -- to shoot a PSA about bluefin. I'm no marine biologist -- just an actor who loves to dive and loves the ocean. Our goal was to get close enough to film with them, and that is very hard to do, because they are so fast. You see them, and then they are just gone. It is clear why they are among the ocean's top predators.
Unfortunately, bluefin are also among our top prey these days. Too many of us love to eat them -- particularly as sushi or sashimi. To satisfy our appetite, the fishing industry has developed better and faster techniques for catching bluefin. The tuna industry has also adopted the practice of catching juveniles and "fattening" them in large pens out on the open ocean. The removal of these fish from the wild before they are able to spawn is rapidly becoming one of the biggest threats to their survival.
The end result? An ocean with fewer and fewer bluefin. This amazing creature, according to many experts, is now teetering on the edge of complete collapse.
The international group that oversees the Atlantic bluefin fishing business is about to hold its annual meeting in Paris. But this group, the International Convention to Conserve Atlantic Tunas, has too often ignored its own scientists' recommendations for setting responsible tuna quotas. An independent body commissioned to review the organization has called it "an international disgrace."
Earlier this year, several nations were calling for a total ban on fishing for Atlantic bluefin tuna. ICCAT could at least follow scientists' recommendations to cut way back on bluefin fishing, allowing this incredible creature the chance to thrive.
The path ICCAT is currently on leads to the extinction of one of the great ocean predators and an uncertain future for the marine ecosystem.
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There is an old native-American saying that is spot-on:
"Only when the last tree has died, only when the last river has been poisoned, only when the last fish has been caught will we realize that money cannot be eaten."
Which tribe?
Link?
All the large fish that humans consume are seriously threatened, not the mention the effects of habitat destruction. As are all large animal species via habitat destruction. The truth is, humans are currently an out-of-control cancer on the planet. We either radically change, or the ecosystem will send us a bill we cannot afford to pay - our own demise.
Easter Island: Cut down every tree and allowed mass erosion to destroy fragile farm land.
Anasazi: Western U.S.: Cut down every tree in a hundred mile radius (Dr. Jared Diamond: Collapse) leading to desertification and complete societal collapse.
Norse Colony: Greenland: Refusal to adopt a more marine base diet in favor of beef, leads to desertification of marginal lands and starvation.
Modern Brazil: Destruction of Rainforests for farmland leading to mass erosion and desertification.
Uzbekistan and Kazakstan: Draining the Aral Sea in attempt to farm water intensive crops in the desert.
In California the abalone are in dire straits, the San Francisco Bay Oyster is nearly extinct, and the salmon season has been canceled again due to the dangerously low population numbers; this in an area that is very ecologically minded. Without strong enforcement of a massive reduction in tuna quotas and preferably with a ban on harvesting for several years, the tuna will be the latest victim of short-term gain over long-term interests.
Whales? Japan!
Dolphins? Japan!
Bluefin Tuna? Japan!
Japan has been strip-mining the oceans of the world for a very long time. When will they be brought under some form of control? After all the animals are gone, and the control is done by nature?
But the rest of the world objected.
I saw lately that Japan cuts the fins on more than 60,000,000 sharks each year, then throws tha live shark back into the sea to drown.
SIXTY-MILLION SHARKS 'FINNED' PER YEAR.
How many years do they think they can do that before sharks are gone forever?
The Japanese conduct on the sea is more than shocking and despicable. It is criminal.
I have hoped that the ship purched by Bob Barker (The Price Is Right) would ram Japanese whalers and sink the vessels. That is the only way to stop the Japanese whalers.
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM1K4WO1FG_index_0.html
Fortunately, they were hardly hit at all.
Can't believe I have to spell that out.
As it is, only the Japanese can afford a good tuna roll.