Bye-bye bluefin tuna

Yesterday the European Union decided not to impose a temporary ban on the fishing of bluefin tuna. Specifically, Mediterranean countries with lots of fishermen such as Spain, Italy, Greece and shockingly France (whose president had appeared to be seeing sense on the issue) blocked the move, citing insufficient scientific evidence (?!!) and the economic drawbacks of such a ban.

This is the kind of news which makes me very very angry, and makes me despair of politicians. If our leaders are so short-sighted and downright stupid what hope is there for the future? They don't seem to understand that if you fish a species to extinction now, it (by definition) won't be there in the future. I'm sure life must be difficult for the fishermen who are returning with ever decreasing catches, and there probably are some who are genuinely struggling to feed their children. But if they carry on this way, in a few years’ time there will be no tuna left at all, and what will they do then?

Fish are not an infinite resource, they have to be left to breed if you want more. So doing things like taking the young ones and fattening them up in captivity, thereby removing any chances of them ever reproducing, is clearly a very silly idea. As is catching in the region of 50,000 tonnes of bluefin in a year when scientists estimate that the removal of any more than 15,000 tonnes will almost certainly push the species beyond the brink of no return.

But hey, if politicians dare to think long-term they might temporarily lose the vote of the fishing community, and that is of course a much more important consideration than the potential loss of an entire species...