Did anyone see the "Tuna Wranglers"....

[striperman36]

ever see those shots of a tuna purse seiner driving the tuna into the net with boats?
Or high seas drift nets 20 miles long?

It's a business, just like any other harvesting of wild fish. Unfortunately effiency has the industry overfishing the supply.

[spence]

It was pretty amazing really...they corral the tuna into pens and literally drag the pens into the harbor for processing.

They have a quota, and have to put any fish over quota back where they caught them...80 miles out.

As long as the species is being properly managed, who really cares how they catch them, especially if it's going to deliver a better product and reduce (or eliminate) bycatch?

-spence

[FishermanTim]

Maybe it's just me, but seeing how they are corralling entire schools of tuna, it seems that they may soon have to enlarge their range if there are fewer schools in their own region. (Kind of like the Japanese fishing fleets having to traverse the globe for fish because they depleted their own ocean.

(It would be like having fishing fleets corral all the stripers in Cape Cod Bay. They wouldn't be taking "ALL" the stripers from New England waters, but just from that bay. They wouldn't be taking all the fish, just all the mature, breeders. Then when the bay is empty, they'd have to "expand" their fishing range to the South Shore or to Buzzards Bay.)

If this is how all tuna fishing is done, then I apologize for my rant. I just thought it would be a little more like the tuna fishing of old, where you had to fish for them, not lure them into a pen with bait.

[beamie]

FT,

This is also the way the BIG purse seiners catch thier Giant BF on Stellwagon and all over CC Bay. Last year there were 5 of them, not sure how many are in the area now. But they have a quota, seperate from the other catogories. Disheartening yes but it is the business................