Greenpeace raises red flag for bluefin tuna

Tuna, sometimes called tunafish, are several species of ocean-dwelling fish in the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tuna is an important commercial fish and popular seafood.

Tuna are fast swimmers (they have been measured at 77 km/h (48 mph)) and include several species that are warm-blooded. Unlike most fish species, which have white flesh, the flesh of tuna is pink to dark red. This is because tuna muscle tissue contains greater quantities of myoglobin, an oxygen-binding molecule, than the muscle tissue of most other fish species.

Some of the larger tuna species such as the bluefin tuna can raise their blood temperature above the water temperature with muscular activity. This enables them to live in cooler waters and survive a wider range of circumstances.

According to the environmentalist group Greenpeace, the bluefin tuna population in the Mediterranean Sea may be on the brink of collapse and the fishery must be closed immediately.

In May, Greenpeace published a report which drew the world's attention to the serious depletion of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea and demonstrating that up to 45,000 tonnes of tuna may have been caught each year in 2004 and 2005, despite the fact that only 32,000 tonnes can be caught legally. During the past month the fishermen Greenpeace has spoken to admitted that quotas are not respected and that there is no effective control over the fishery.

Greenpeace is calling on the countries of the Mediterranean to protect bluefin tuna with marine reserves in their breeding and feeding areas. They would become part of a global network of marine parks across 40% of the world's oceans that are needed to give the oceans a chance to recover from decades of large-scale industrial exploitation.