Tuna 🐟

[Marjo]

Hi guys,

2nd May is World Tuna Day. According to the United Nations (you can read more here), it's observed in order to highlight the importance of sustainably managed fish stocks in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  It's also linked to the reversal of the decline in the health of the Ocean to ensure sustainable management of marine life. Tuna is a significant source of food all around the world, and is now threatened by overwhelming demand.

I've collected a few tuna-related facts below from the UN info page about World Tuna Day as well as elsewhere on the internet and thought you might find them interesting!

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1. There's approximately 40 species of tuna (and other tuna-like species) in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and in the Mediterranean Sea. 
2. Tuna have been known to team up with dolphins for protection from sharks. In addition to sharks, also humans and orca hunt tuna.
3. A tuna fish is warm-blooded and a carnivore. They eat different types of fish, such as mackarel, and also squid.
4. The two main products that drive tuna production are traditional canned tuna and sashimi/sushi. 
5. Almost 7.7 million metric tonnes of tuna and tuna-like species are caught every year.
6. Tunas are over-fished, and as a result, their numbers have decreased over 90% since the beginning of the 20th century.
7. Tuna fish is often bigger in length than anyone in the Community Team is tall! The largest specimen of tuna that has been recorded was 21 feet long, weighing 1600 pounds!
8. If fish were like cars, tuna would be the Ferraris of the ocean" --> I read this on the WWF website where they describe the speed and body of tuna.
9. They are very fast swimmers: some of them can swim as fast as 43 miles per hour!
10. During their mating season, a female tuna can have 30 million eggs, of which only 2 will survive into adulthood. The eggs are food to other marine creatures.
11. Of those who do reach adulthood, their average life span is 15-30 years!
12. Tuna needs to constantly keep swimming, because it breathes oxygen from the water.

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[pgn]

I've seen a line-caught tuna that it took about 10men to lift off the boat at the jetty... This was in the Med, and I think I was about 11 or so. The small flatbed truck they had to transport their catch was nearly fully-flattened, the weight of it!

Overfishing is never good. The rules and the livelihoods clash often.

[jonsie]

They don't get the chance to grow that size no ......