BajaNomad

Tuna pens destroyed; Bluefin wash ashore in San Diego

BajaNews - 1-23-2010 at 01:55 AM

http://www.demotix.com/news/228532/bluefin-tuna-washed-ashor...

Bluefin Tuna started washing ashore early this morning in San Diego, California after tuna pens in Northern Baja California were destroyed by a series of powerful storms fueled by El Niño conditions in the Eastern Pacific. The tuna pens are owned and operated by Baja Aqua Farms and stocked with bluefin tuna caught in the fertile waters off of San Diego.

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Tuna for the taking in Imperial Beach

BajaNews - 1-23-2010 at 03:12 AM

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/22/beachcomber-g...

By Ed Zieralski
January 22, 2010

IMPERIAL BEACH — Beachcomber Kevin Carlson says he never knows what the Pacific Ocean will deliver after a big storm, but Friday morning he encountered his most unusual discovery in more than 20 years of walking beaches.

Carlson found several bluefin tuna in the 35- to 50-pound class struggling in the surf line off Imperial Beach. He was just north of the Imperial Beach Pier and north of the first jetty when he spotted them. Carlson theorizes the tuna escaped from one of the tuna pens floating off the coast of northern Baja. Perhaps the recent storms tore open one of the pens.

“There were a lot of them out there,” he said. “More than a dozen, but a couple of them were fresh dead fish and a few others were struggling to get out of the shallow surf. Once they got into the surf line, they couldn’t get out.”

Carlson waded in and gathered up 35- and 50-pound bluefin and let the ocean have the rest.

“The Pacific Ocean has been wonderful and bountiful for me over the years,” Carlson said. “But in 20 years of beachcombing, I’ve never found anything like this. I’ve found lobster traps with lobsters in them, you name it. You just never know what the Pacific Ocean is going to give up.”

Carlson, who works on the sport boat The Long Run out of Marina Cortez on Harbor Island, said he plans to eat the tuna and save the carcasses for his hoop nets. He also hoop nets for lobsters.

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Poor fish

Sharksbaja - 1-23-2010 at 04:51 AM

But better eaten here than over there!!
:smug:I wonder if all the pens got wasted?

Hip Hip Hooray !:bounce:

beachbum1A - 1-23-2010 at 07:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Sharksbaja

:smug:I wonder if all the pens got wasted?

Hip Hip Hooray !:bounce:


Be nice if everyone of them got wasted! IMO

DENNIS - 1-23-2010 at 07:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by beachbum1A
[
Be nice if everyone of them got wasted! IMO


They would be back in a month. This is big business and surley they have insurance.

I'm just wondering why they beached themselves. Too fat to swim or disoriented from incarceration perhaps?

[Edited on 1-23-2010 by DENNIS]

805gregg - 1-23-2010 at 10:46 AM

Why would the tuna die if they were released from captivity?

Woooosh - 1-23-2010 at 11:39 AM

Some good eating for sure! Lucky guy.

bacquito - 1-23-2010 at 12:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 805gregg
Why would the tuna die if they were released from captivity?


I was wondering the same thing. Perhaps they were weakened by stress caused by a being in a broken tuna cage.

Ken Bondy - 1-23-2010 at 12:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bacquito
Quote:
Originally posted by 805gregg
Why would the tuna die if they were released from captivity?


I was wondering the same thing. Perhaps they were weakened by stress caused by a being in a broken tuna cage.


This is really puzzling. Do they use any type of growth-stimulating drugs (steroids, etc.) when feeding the tuna in the pens?

Bajahowodd - 1-23-2010 at 12:15 PM

I'm no aqua-culture expert, but it would not surprise me if just being confined in those pens is debilitating- something akin to how veal is raised. Just thinkin'.

Don Alley - 1-23-2010 at 12:46 PM

There's a long thread on BloodyDecks. Seems it wasn't just this one lucky guy, but many people getting fish for a couple of days.

Also lots of conjecture there on why they washed up. Perhaps caught in "shipwrecked" pens and worn out by tide or waves until they could escape. And these fish have been swimming in tight circles for some time. They might have just kept swimming in circles until currents carried them in. But maybe they put something bad in their food?

Skipjack Joe - 1-23-2010 at 03:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Sharksbaja
But better eaten here than over there!!
:smug:I wonder if all the pens got wasted?

Hip Hip Hooray !:bounce:


It's sad. A miserable life that ended like that.

fishbuck - 1-23-2010 at 03:59 PM

My guess is the water was cold and dirty and they hadn't been feed for a few days.
They were weak and disoriented.
It takes extra food to keep them alive in Ensenada because of the cold winter water. They stay warm by eating more.
Free swimming Bluefin would be way south at this time of year.

JESSE - 1-23-2010 at 06:19 PM

That's just wrong, whatever happens to them in those pens, makes them unable to carry on a normal life after being released. Wich in my opinion, makes them cuestionable for eating. So lets stick to sustainable locally linecaught baja yellowtail.

fishbuck - 1-23-2010 at 06:40 PM

Those fish may have been caught as late as Oct. And then drag at 1 mph 50-100 miles to the pens. When the water was much warmer.
So to release them they would need to be draged south to warm water out in the open ocean.
Then they would be just fine.

Alan - 1-24-2010 at 09:20 AM

I would tend to think that the fish that died got caught as the net cages collapsed around them and then couldn't move water through their gills and drowned.

Personally I am still undecided about pens. I would like to see them be successful to the point that they are attached to a hatchery operation. We can't continue to decimate the wild stock and expect to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for seafood. Every where you look one continually hears reports that "the fishing just isn't what it used to be".

There are some successes though. The White Sea Bass hatcheries in So Cal are a prime example, and that fishery is slowly starting to make a come back. Personally I hope that one day enough is learned that it becomes much more economically viable to raise fish for market and allow our wild stock to regenerate.

DENNIS - 1-24-2010 at 09:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Alan
Personally I hope that one day enough is learned that it becomes much more economically viable to raise fish for market and allow our wild stock to regenerate.


Tell it to the Japanese. The US is missing a good opportunity to tax hell out of the exported fish. That would be a way to regulate the fishery.

fishbuck - 1-24-2010 at 02:18 PM

I saw a Docu a while back and a Japanese scientest has sucessfully hatch Bluefin and pen raise them.
Strictly an experiment but has value for replenishing Bluefin in Japan.
Maybe there's hope.

Don Alley - 1-24-2010 at 02:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by fishbuck
I saw a Docu a while back and a Japanese scientest has sucessfully hatch Bluefin and pen raise them.
Strictly an experiment but has value for replenishing Bluefin in Japan.
Maybe there's hope.


That's step one. Step two is to raise a crop that can be processed into tuna food. Otherwise, the demand for feed will eventually wipe out just about everything. As if there is a surplus of farmland.

Alan - 1-25-2010 at 07:55 AM

From what I have seen and read, the wild stock requires live or fresh dead feed but hatchery raised fish have taken to pelletized feed so this could potentially save the bait fish as well. I am assuming these feed pellets are produced from the non-marketable parts of the fish.

Don Alley - 1-25-2010 at 08:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Alan
... I am assuming these feed pellets are produced from the non-marketable parts of the fish.


Why would you assume that?

Some of the biggest fisheries in the world are not for traditional food fish, but "reduction fisheries" where fish that cannot be marketed as food are simply processed into fish oil, additives, protein supplements, and feed pellets. The controversial Atlantic menhaden fishery is one example. Last year I watched a modern seiner, with a spotter helicopter, seine barillette near Loreto, presumably also for reduction. Anchovies, sardines, and other fish are used as well.