High-tech fishing devices wipe out tuna

By MARIAN WILKINSON ENVIRONMENT EDITOR ENVIRONMENT groups are calling for a permanent ban on ”deadly” artificial fishing devices used to attract huge tuna catches in the Pacific after scientific reports found that stocks of bigeye tuna are collapsing. Greenpeace activists aboard the Esperanza confiscated several of the devices known as FADs (fish aggregation devices) in Pacific waters this week and forced a Korean fishing vessel to leave a closed fishing zone in an effort to highlight the threat to the tuna fisheries. ”Bigeye tuna are seriously overfished and have a strong affinity for FADs,” a Greenpeace Oceans campaigner, Genevieve Quirk, said. ”Juvenile fish are found more frequently with FADs. This seriously undermines the population as fish are removed before they have the chance to breed.” The Pacific fishing nations that make up the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission have implemented a two-month ban on the devices, although Japan has insisted on an exemption from the ban. …