Feeding frenzy risks wiping out bluefin tuna
By Guy Dinmore Like bovine torpedoes, a trapped shoal of bluefin tuna, some two metres long, swirl in ever decreasing circles within the “chamber of death” as an intricate maze of nets closes around them. The signal is given and the mattanza – slaughter – begins. Two dozen Italian fishermen on longboats haul the final section of nets to the surface. In a foaming frenzy of blood and water, the fish are gaffed and dumped into holds packed with ice, where they are dispatched with a dagger in the heart. Within 20 minutes it is all over. The fishermen cross themselves, ending a ritual killing every spring that has sustained isolated communities since Arabs more than 1,000 years ago brought their net-trapping skills to catch tuna migrating to southern Italy from the Atlantic. Towed ashore, the fish are weighed and tagged under the watchful eye of coastguard observers, then quickly gutted and processed in the 355-year-old fishery on the island of Carloforte, off southern Sardinia. Soon they are transported to high-end restaurants in northern Italy. Carloforte’s fishery is one of three in Italy that still practices the mattanza. There were dozens until huge commercial fishing fleets began to dominate and overfish an industry worth several hundred million euros a year. Giuliano Greco, whose family has run the fishery for 150 years, wonders what the future has in store for his small operation – which, he stresses, in spite of the gore, is environmentally sustainable. Few other fish – mostly sunfish and one or two swordfish – are caught in the maze, while smaller tuna escape or are released. The bluefin tuna lies at the centre of a highly complex maze of competing interests: the Japanese market, which buys 90 per cent of Mediterranean tuna and dictates prices; big European fishing companies supplying them; environmentalists who warn they are close to extinction; scientists who lack reliable data; governments under pressure from all sides; and even the hidden hand of the Mafia. “It is all a big mess,” admits Mr Greco. …
