Five local vessels in the Indonesian longline wooden enter Benoa port in the space of two hours. They fished for yellowfin and bigeye tuna in the Indian Ocean for the past week and discharged today for a single treatment plant, next to the pier, TFK, for the export of night Tokyo, Japan. It is the third day of the new year, and the world's largest fish market, the wholesale market in Tsukiji in Tokyo, Japan, will open again on Saturday 5 January 2013, in two days time. The captain and crew know the boat that day is jackpot, the day the highest price will be paid for a bluefin tuna, and hope that their fish will also get a good price. And taken surprise of this trip is an BFT 150kg South which, given its size, will have a high fat content and thus be very valuable.
On every night of the year, he is so drawn by longline fishing fleets tuna in the world that bypasses the world five times -. Which is 200,000 km of longline
The last batch of fish last ship to unload that day comes ashore at 17:45. Each fish is inspected for freshness and toro (fat) content. Fish are rejected or approved at this stage and if approved will be flown to Tokyo tonight. Each fish that is approved is weighed and packaged in standard size cardboard "coffins". These are then transferred to a refrigerated truck in the meantime, that shortly after accelerates on its way to the Ngurah Rai International Airport, where cargo is scheduled for loading on Garuda flight to Tokyo 00.35, arriving at Narita 08:45 the next morning.
During this day in Japan, tuna shipment through customs and health checks, then held in a large cold storage room, which also manages more tuna than any other facility in the world, before being transferred by road to the Tsukiji wholesale market, the Tokyo main wholesale market for fruits, vegetables and fish. The market is open every morning at 3:00, the trucks unload, and one hour before the auction begins tuna fish are placed on the floor for inspection by buyers. The auction gets under way at 05.20.
Back to Benoa, Bali, the crew reaches the end of their two days off and prepare to head tomorrow morning early to try and tuna sashimi quality fresh land again in time about seven to 10 days. There are over 850 of these vessels longline tuna based in Benoa.
This is the height of the southern Bluefin tuna breeding season with their spawning areas south of Java. Although these fish are between the southern half of the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, this is their known breeding ground.
SBT is one of the three bluefin tuna species that cover the world's oceans. They are valuable, large pelagic migratory fish. All are long-term, long pre-maturity period of 5 to 12 years and almost constant exposure to fishing pressure; Each stock is slow to recover from depletion compared to other more short-lived species, including most other tuna species.
Figure A. Current operating state of the tuna will of Health (Yellowfin and Skipjack) in SE corner to heavily overfished (bluefin tuna in the Atlantic and South) in the northwest corner, where the biomass is below the level to produce the maximum sustainable yield and fishing mortality is higher than the level to support fishing.
In detail, the table with four quadrants gives the state of exploitation of different fish species. In the lower right quadrant, stocks are healthy (fishing mortality F is less than the maximum fishing mortality < Fmax; standing stock or adult biomass is greater than the minimum sustainable biomass > Bmin). the top left quadrant stocks are overfished (F> Fmax; B >> B max) and the adult biomass is less than that required for the population to be sustainable (B << B max). the fishing mortality rate Figure B. Overall for skipjack, a most prolific breeder and more elastic tuna species increased from very low levels in the 1950s to its current high of about 18% of the Standing removed each year because of fishing stock, which is still a healthy level of fishing mortality for this species.
Japanese and Australian fishermen have targeted SBT commercially since the 1950s In 1961, taking a peak of 81,000 tonnes of SBT were landed by both nations. The species was originally sold to the tuna canneries, but the development of fresh tuna market for sashimi and sushi in Japan over the past four decades have seen a major change in the fishing and marketing of SBT and today it is mostly sold in this market.
Despite global species SBT catch is regulated since the mid-1980s, high levels of fishing caused a serious decrease in the adult stock. Scientific studies suggest that the spawning biomass can now be between 3% and 8% of its unexploited level, and therefore, the species is considered "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
in 2010, the organization that manages only this resource, the Commission for the conservation of SBT, for the first time in its history twenty six, unanimously adopted a formal strategy reconstruction to enable SBT to recover to sustainable levels with its members pledged to rebuild the stock SBT with an interim target of 20% of its level untapped in 2035, with new annual national allocations adopted in 2011 for the fishing seasons 2012 to 2014 the increase of global allowable catch (TAC) was 2,000 tonnes in this period of three years. the TAC 2009 to 2011-9449 tons was the lowest. obviously, managers this valuable fish resource, mainly Australia, Japan and New Zealand have consistently failed in their duty to conserve this resource for nearly 30 years. The overall TAC for 2013 is 10,949 tons, including Indonesia gets 707 tonnes (6.5%).
The Tokyo market manages more than 400 different types of seafood, weighing more than 700,000 tons with a value of more than Yen 600 billion / year (US $ 7 billion / year) - equivalent to more from $ / day 20 million. registered employees varies from 60,000 to 65,000 including wholesalers, accountants, auctioneers, company managers, and distributors.
Tsukiji market holds the record for the most expensive fish sold. For each of the past five years, a bluefin tuna sold for a record price in the world on the first day the market opened after the New Year. 2013 was no exception. "Bluefin tuna sells for record £ 1 million" - British newspaper The Telegraph title banner screamed
.On 5 January this year, a Pacific bluefin tuna was sold for a record 155.4 million yen (1.09 million pounds or $ 1.82 million, corresponding to more than US $ 10.600 / kg net) - nearly three times the previous record set last year.
The record sale comes as environmentalists warn that stocks of the majestic, fast fish are being depleted worldwide amid strong demand for sushi.
Japanese eat 80 percent of bluefin tuna caught worldwide, and much of the global catch is shipped to Japan for consumption. Stocks of three species of bluefin tuna, Pacific, South and red of the Atlantic, have dropped dramatically over the past 20 years, amid undeclared overfishing, unregulated and widespread illegal, including fleets of EU countries and Japan.
"All that we hear is that there is no good news for the Pacific Bluefin tuna also," said Amanda Nickson, director of the conservation campaign based World Tuna Washington Pew Environmental Group. "We are seeing a very high value fish continue to be overfished... these species poor are hit from all angles."