The skipjack tuna, Katsuwonus pelamis , is a medium sized perciform fish in the tuna family, Scombridae.

Barbara Block Tagging tuna in the deep ocean

Tuna are ocean athletes fast, far ranging predators whose habits we're just beginning to understand. Marine biologist Barbara Block fits tuna with tracking tags that record unprecedented amounts of data about these gorgeous, threatened fish and the ocean habitats they move through.

Caught tuna are swung on board, by two to three fishermen if the tuna is big, or with an automated swinging mechanism.

It s made of peceto (veal), topped with a sauce of tuna, mayonnaise and anchovies.

The warning advised that expectant, pregnant and nursing women and children should not eat any shark, swordfish or king mackerel due to high mercury levels. The advisory also included a caveat that women should eat no more than 12 ounces of light tuna a week and no more than six ounces a week of white tuna.

As awareness grows, levels of consumption of large predatory fish such as tuna and swordfish are dropping.

There is especially high demand in foreign markets for tuna, shark, lobster and shrimp.

And if it's tunas you don't care about, perhaps you might be interested that international long lines and pursing chase down tunas and bycatch animals such as leatherbacks, sharks, These animals and their demise occurs in the tuna fisheries.

The varieties landed are tuna, bonito, mackerel, squid, shark, lobster and shrimp.

The implication for Pacific island nations that rely on longline access fees is that consumption of these predatory species may continue to experience a decline in the U.S. as a result of health concerns and may soon do the same in the EU as more reports on the dangers emerge.

This tag rides on the tuna, senses the environment around the tuna and actually will come off the fish, detach, float to the surface and send back to Earth orbiting satellites position data estimated by math on the tag, pressure data and temperature data.

We've fished with many nations around the world in an effort to basically put electronic computers inside giant tunas.

For example, the longline fleet in the Indo Pacific is flooding Japan with low grade tuna, causing prices to decrease while continuing to take relatively large numbers of tuna from the ocean.

We've actually taken a sliver of the ocean, put it behind glass, and we together have put bluefin tuna and yellowfin tuna on display.

And when I see that tuna this is my favorite view I begin to wonder how did this fish solve the longitude problem before we did?

In 1999, a private company built a tuna loining plant with more than 400 employees, mostly women.

All species are in the subfamily Scombrinae, except the butterfly kingfish which is the sole member of subfamily Gasterochismatinae.

This was the approach adopted by the GATT Panel Report, United States Restrictions on Imports of Tuna ( USA Tuna II ), DS29 R, 16 June 1994, unadopted, 33 ILM (1994) 839, para. 5.19.

To that end and despite the fact that the export of tuna constitutes about 94 per cent of all export earnings of fish, Fiji has reduced the number of tuna fishing licenses issued annually from 103 in 2002 to 72 in 2005.

Tuna and swordfish fisheries are especially petroleum hungry, with energy consumption three times the average.

The European population and North African the Eastern bluefin tuna is fished at tremendous levels 50,000 tons over the last decade almost every year.

That's where the tuna wants to go it wants to forage on schools of herring but it can't get there. It's too cold.

Guam's port is a major trans shipment centre of the western Pacific and is equipped to move containerized bulk and tuna cargo efficiently.

Much of the fish is tuna transhipped from the South Pacific region on its way to the U.S. market.

The challenge we face is that we know very little about tuna, and everyone in the room knows what it looks like when an African lion takes down its prey.

Same thing with Laysan albatross who travel an entire ocean on a trip sometimes, up to the same zone the tunas use.

So two populations of tunas that is, we have a Gulf population, one that we can tag they go to the Gulf of Mexico, I showed you that and a second population.

In this connection, reference was made by some delegations to a new initiative to establish a fisheries management organization for non tuna species in the South Pacific.

In the six weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revised its mercury in fish warning, the sale of tuna fell by 9.3 percent.

Asian Development Bank, The role of tuna fisheries in the national economies, date unknown, available at http www.adb.org Documents Reports Tuna tuna08.pdf.

The high seas, where whales, tuna and dolphins travel the largest, least protected, ecosystem on Earth, filled with luminous creatures, living in dark waters that average two miles deep.

Fisheries are underdeveloped, with commercial fishing accounting for only a third of the total catch, most of it tuna exported to Japan.

The swordfish fishery was closed and the tuna fishery subject to time area closures due to high levels of sea turtle and sea bird bycatch.

The impact of high seas longline fishing in the Pacific, which consists of the largest tuna fishery in the world, can be felt throughout our planet.

So it's a deep think about it in a big three dimensional space, very deep three dimensional space with herds of tuna, whales, all kinds of deep sea marine life like we've seen here before.

Among the fisheries with the most inefficient edible protein return on investment, vessels targeting shrimp, tuna and swordfish are at the top of the list.

And then there's Scott Shaffer and our shearwaters wearing tuna tags, light based tags, that now are going to take you from New Zealand to Monterey and back, journeys of 35,000 nautical miles we had never seen before.

For example, many small island developing States considered that better understanding of the impact of climate change on the ENSO phenomenon and its effect on pelagic fishery resources (mainly the tuna fishery) would enable better planning and management.

But then it warms up, and the tuna pops in, gets some fish, maybe comes back to home base, goes in again and then comes back to winter down there in North Carolina and then on to the Bahamas.

And, funded primarily through Sloan Foundation and others, we were able to actually go in, in our project we're one of 17 field programs and begin to take on tagging large numbers of predators, not just tunas.

You know, you look at sharks, and they're streamlined, and they're sleek, and you look at tuna, and they're like torpedoes they just give away their agenda. They're about migration and strength, and then you look at the sunfish.

The impact on local artisanal fishermen and women is nowhere better illustrated than in the Western and Central Pacific where an estimated 10 percent of the total tuna catch is taken by vessels based in the region.

Targeting highly migratory predatory fish species including tuna and swordfish, industrial longlines also catch or kill as many as 4.4 million sea turtles, billfish, sharks, marine mammals and seabirds.

In 1999, Greenpeace published a report revealing that the amount of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean had decreased by over 80 in the previous 20 years and government scientists warn that without immediate action the stock will collapse.