COULD the tiger of the sea be domesticated 鈥� and thereby saved? Plans to farm endangered Mediterranean bluefin tuna moved a step closer this week, following the successful rearing in captivity of the smaller but closely related species, the Atlantic bonito.
Fernando de la G谩ndara and colleagues at the in Murcia announced that for the first time they had reared bonito from egg to sexually mature adult 鈥� a cycle that takes a year. Now they hope to apply many of the methods to raising bluefin. 鈥淲e鈥檙e developing lots of techniques in the bonito that we can use in bluefin larval breeding and handling,鈥� says de la G谩ndara, who is part of the European Union鈥檚 .
So far, the project has succeeded in keeping bluefin larvae alive for more than two months. But with a breeding cycle of four years, from the larval stage through to spawning, domesticating the bluefin will take a while. 鈥淲e need at least another four years to close the life cycle of the bluefin,鈥� de la G谩ndara says.
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The aim of the Selfdott project is to relieve pressure on the wild stocks of Mediterranean bluefin, which have declined by 50 per cent since the 1970s. Domestication could be the fish鈥檚 only hope. At the March meeting on trade in endangered species in Doha, Qatar, proposals to ban bluefin trade were defeated.
