The discovery of three new species of fossilized octopi in Lebanon has caused scientists to suspect that the first octopus appeared tens of millions of years earlier than previously thought.

In a paper published in a recent issue of the journal Palaeontology, researchers Fuchs, Bracchi and Weis describes three new species of fossil octopus placed in two new genera: Keuppia and Styletoctopus. The species have been given the names Keuppia levante, Keuppia hyperbolaris and Styletocopus annae.

The descriptions are the result of the fortunate discovery of three astonishingly well preserved octopus fossils from the Cenomanian, i.e. octopus that lived at some point between 93 and 100 million years ago.

Studying the history of octopi is difficult since the octopus, unlike dinosaurs for instance, is composed almost entirely of soft tissue; predominantly muscle, skin and viscera. When an octopus dies the body rapidly decomposes and vanishes, and extraordinary conditions are necessary for the animal to leave any fossil record behind.

Fortunately for science such extraordinary conditions must have been at hand in Lebanon some 100 million years ago, because the three newfound fossils are so well preserved that even traces of muscles, suckers, internal gills and ink can be distinguished.

This type of fossil is so rare that Mark Purnell, for the Palaeontological Association, remarked that finding an octopus as a fossil “is about as unlikely as finding a fossil sneeze”.

Before these three species were discovered, only one species of fossil octopus was known to science.

For more information, see the paper published in Palaeontology: Fuchs, D, G Bracchi and R Weis (2009) New Octopods (Cephalopoda: Coleoidea) from the Late Cretaceous (Upper Cenomanian) of Hakel and Hadjoula, Lebanon. Palaeontology 52, pp. 65–81.

A Taiwan research team has successfully extracted a brain-boosting nutrient from squid skin, according to an announcement made by the Council of Agriculture’s Fisheries Research Institute.

The nutrient in question is phospholipid docosahexaenoic acid, commonly known as PL-DHA, a substance known to improve a persons memory and enhance learning ability.

According to the institute official, PL-DHA is superior to TG-DHA another form of docosahexaenoic acid commonly found in deep-sea fish oil — when it comes to inhibiting degradation of the intellect since PL-DHA can cross the blood brain barrier and be absorbed directly by the brain.

Researchers at the institute have also showed that PL-DHA is effective in reviving neural cells and enhancing the content of three oxidation-resistant enzymes — GSH, CAT and SOD. In addition to this, the fatty acid will moderate the oxidative damage to neural cells that can be induced by free radicals in the body, which means that it will decrease the pace of plaque and tangle accumulation in brain cells.

Quoting medical reports, the institute official stressed that Alzheimer’s and other forms of senile dementia is known to be associated with the accumulation of plaque and tangles in the brain.

Reef damage more limited than suspected

A new study from Carl Meyer and Kim Holland of the Hawai’i Institute for Marine Biology encompassing four protected marine sites in Hawai’i reveals that snorkelers and scuba divers only have a low impact on coral reef habitants at these sites and that the impact is limited to comparatively small areas.

The study, funded by NOAA Fisheries and the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources, is based on secret observations of snorkelers and scuba divers at four marine life conservation districts: Honolua-Mokule’ia on Maui, Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island, Manele-Hulopo’e on Lana’I, and Pupukea on O’ahu’s North Shore.

“These are areas created with the overarching goal of maintaining an environment in pristine or near pristine condition“, says Meyer. “One of the ironies is that because it’s such a nice area, a lot of people want to come and visit it, and that sets up the potential for the original goal of marine protected areas to be undermined by overuse.“

The researchers used handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) units to map the movements of swimmers in the water and identify “hot spots” where the highest amount of contacts with reefs and other substrate took place. They found that divers and snorkelers use no more than 15 percent of the total reef habitat at each studied site and that the visitors stay within comparatively small areas associated with access points.

“Although Hawai’i marine protected areas were heavily used in comparison to those in other geographic locations, this did not translate into high recreation impact because most fragile corals were located below the maximum depth of impact of the dominant recreational activity (snorkeling),” according to the report.

The Meyer and Holland study provides information on a subject suffering form a severe shortage of reliable data.

“A lot of work on marine protected areas has focused on what the marine life is doing, not people,” saysMeyer, who hopes that information from the study will be used to create designated access points and boat moorings to focus activities away from the most sensitive parts of the reefs. By looking at a dive site’s topographical features, it is possible to predict where snorkelers and scuba divers are most likely to proceed from an access point.

“If you manage those access points somehow, you can determine where people go,” Meyer explains.

Boat access vs. shore access

According to data retrieved from the study, boat access has a lower impact per dive than shore access, for several reasons. People that dive and snorkel from a boat do not access the site from land so there is no wading involved, but information and supervision also seem to play a major role.

Divers and snorkelers on tour boats are instructed on proper reef behaviour before going into the water and they are also monitored by dive tour staff.

“If people are doing things they are not supposed to be doing, I’ve seen them intervene, and that separates boat-based activities from shore-based,” says Meyer.

Shore-based snorkelers and divers may of course receive instructions from shops where they rent their gear, but they will not be as strictly supervised during the actual dive as those who access from tour boats. There is less on-site management at dive spots accessed from shore, Mayer says.

According to the study, most of the substrate contacts between reef and humans occurred at shoreline access points where people waded to enter and exit the ocean. Even in such areas, the reef impact level was low since the contacts mainly involved sand or rocks where no coral grew. (The study does however point out that we “cannot rule out that (coral) colonization is being prevented by continued trampling.”) Only 14 percent of the contacts were between humans and live substrates, such coral, coralline algae, or invertebrates living attached to the substrate, and less than 1 percent of the contacts caused apparent damage, e.g. tissue abrasions or broken branches. Most of the damage was caused by snorkelers accessing from the shore. Scuba divers do however have a greater average impact on coral per dive than snorkelers, chiefly because scuba divers stay down longer each dive, explore a larger area, and venture deeper down.

Impact would be slashed in half if 16% of visitors stopped acting like morons

As in many other parts of the world, a major part of the damage is caused by a comparatively small part of the population.

“One of things we noticed is that about half of the physical impacts that we observed in these areas [shoreline access points] resulted from only 16 percent of the people who are using it,” Meyer says. “There is a subset of people who have a much higher impact. If you can reach that 16 percent, you could literally halve the existing impact.”

Meyer suggests placing educational signs at popular dive sites and letting volunteers provide visitors with information and advice.

Only few places are heavily impacted by tourist, but those places are of high commercial and recreational value

Although coral trampling only damages a very small part of Hawai’i’s total reef resources, the damage naturally tend to take place along beaches and at offshore sites of high recreational value.

The state of Hawai’i’ is heavily dependant on its $800 million ocean recreation industry and managing even heavily visited areas is therefore imperative for the long-term financial stability of this island state and its inhabitants.

According to Ku’ulei Rodgers, another scientist with the Hawai’i Institute for Marine Biology, increased visitor use results in a clear pattern of decreasing coral cover and lower fish populations since popular reefs can’t recover from damages while being continuously trampled.

“It can do really heavy damage to have people standing on the reef, but the good news is there are few places where there is a heavy impact from tourists. It’s mostly concentrated in places like Waikiki and Hanauma,” she said.

During the last fiscal year, the lower beach at the renowned snorkelling site Hanauma Bay was visited by 780,000 people. This can be compared to the areas studied by Meyer and Holland where the most heavily visited site, Kealakekua, was visited by roughly 103,300 snorkelers and 1,440 divers annually. Honolua-Mokule’ia received 84,000 snorkelers and 2,050 divers, Pupukea 47,700 snorkelers and 22,500 divers, and Manele-Hulopo’e a mere 28,200 snorkelers and 1,750 divers.

Closure, permit only or mandatory guides

In some situations, education and information simply isn’t enough. Last year, people straying onto unmarked coastal trails and trampling reefs at two popular snorkelling coves (the Aquarium and the Fish Bowl) forced managers of the ‘Ahihi-Kina’u Natural Reserve Area in South Maui to close much of the reserve’s 2,045 acres.

“It was a big step for us,” says Bill Evanson, Maui District natural area manager for the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR).

The closure took place in October and will be in effect for two years to give damaged areas a chance to recover. An advisory board is currently considering whether to allow future access by permit only or through guided hikes. Before the closure, the ‘Ahihi-Kina’u Natural Reserve received 700 to 1,000 visitors a day.

The ‘Ahihi-Kina’u reserve was created for conservational reasons and is home to some of Hawai’i’s oldest reefs. Within the reserve, you can find rare anchialine ponds as well as numerous extraordinary geological and archaeological features.

Even though the reserve has only been closed since October last year, there are already noticeable signs of recovery.

“We’re seeing that many of the tide pools and coves where there used to be people are inhabited by fish in numbers and variety we haven’t seen,“ says Evanson. “Fish aren’t being scared away by the presence of people. Now they are able to feed, hide from larger predatory fish and breed.“

Since the first specimens were spotted in the year 2000, the number of lionfish living off the coast of North Carolina is now so high that scientists fear it is too late to eliminate them. Instead, marine researchers are joining forces with sport divers and cooks to keep the fish population in check the old fashion way – with rice, spicy sauce and a slice of lemon.

The lionfish has a sweet meat that tastes similar to that of the appreciated food fishes like the snapper and the grouper. If you want to help save the native North Carolinian fauna by putting lionfish on as many dinner plates as possible, there are several things you can do.

For all you scuba divers, Discovery Diving Co. in Beaufort and Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City are recruiting sport divers for a series of “lionfish rodeos” that will take place during the summer dive season. The first event is planned to May 18 and 19, and new events will then be held regularly throughout the summer.

During the first lionfish rodeo, participating divers will be thought how to collect lionfish in a safe way using protective gloves. In addition to getting some lionfish off the reefs and provide all participants with a tasty meal, the rodeo will also give marine researchers a chance to study how rapidly lionfish repopulate an area after being vanquished.

In addition to divers and marine researchers, representatives of the Carteret Community College culinary school will be involved in the rodeo project. One of their main goals is to persuade restaurants in the area to start serving lionfish, so those of you that don’t dive can still help out by asking for lionfish when dining out.

“They taste good, and if we can create a food market for them maybe that will not only help keep them in control but maybe take the pressure off some other species,” sais Debby Boyce, owner of Discovery Dive Shop.

The lionfish is not a welcomed guest in North Carolina since it competes with native species for space and food and puts even more stress on already threatened fish like snappers and groupers. The lionfish seem to lack natural predators in western Atlantic waters because the lionfish population has increased at a pace unlike anything scientists have ever seen from an invasive fish species in this part of the world.

“In places off North Carolina the population density appears to be several times the norm in their native waters”, said NOAA researcher James Morris.

North Carolina is not the only state with an exploding lionfish problem on their hands; the species can now be found in large quantities all the way down into the Caribbean.

“They’re eating everything,” said Lisa A. Mitchell, executive director of Reef Environmental Education Foundation, a Florida non-profit group that is helping several Caribbean governments deal with invasive lionfish. “They could wipe out entire reefs.

The lionfish is not only a problem for native flora and fauna; it is also disliked among snorkelers and scuba divers since it is equipped with long spines capable of delivering a painful venomous sting. The venom itself it usually not lethal, but it can cause paralysis and excruciating pain – two things you definitely don’t want to suffer from while trying to get up from the deep.

In North Carolina ordinary swimmers and snorkelers rarely have to worry about lionfish since this tropical species prefer to stay in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, i.e. miles offshore and mostly at depths of at least 100 feet. In the warmer places like the Caribbean you can on the other hand encounter lionfish in the shallows right next to the beach.

In North Carolina it is usually the scuba divers who see this fish and they are alarmed by the situation. Divers off the North Carolina coast now routinely find up to 100 lionfish during a single wreck dive.

“If you go deeper than 100 feet, they’re ubiquitous now,” said Paula Whitfield, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Beaufort. “They’re absolutely everywhere.”

Catching lionfish is labour intensive but not very difficult; all you need is a net or a spear and some protective clothing to keep yourself from being stung. The divers organized by Discovery Diving Co. in Beaufort and Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City will be fitted with the kind of puncture-proof gloves worn by workers who handle used hypodermic needles and other medical waste. Before the lionfish is cleaned and cooked it will be held down using pliers and have its venomous spines snipped off by a wire cutter.

Lionfish is not very hard to net or spear-fish since they are virtually fearless and will hold their ground even when approached by divers. Since they have so few enemies in the wild, they probably don’t see any point in fleeing. However, if we are to really eat our way out of the lionfish problem a less labour intensive method than sending down divers armed with spears and nets must naturally be developed and NOAA researchers are therefore currently working on a trap system that uses live bait.

Hopefully, we will soon see the invasive lionfish on dinner tables all the way along the western Atlantic.

Fish females subjected to stress produce highly active offspring but the risk of abnormalities also increases, according to new research carried out by Dr Monica Gagliano, a research fellow with the AIMS@JCU joint venture, and Dr Mark McCormick from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at the James Cook University.

The research focused on the Ambon damsel fish (Chromis amboinensis), a common reef species in the Indo-Pacific, and has deepened our understanding of how stress factors affect not only the adult fish themselves but also their offspring. Being more active than normal affects survival and more active offspring will therefore have important implications for fish populations in a changing environment.

In their laboratory testing, Dr Gagliano and Dr McCormick exposed fertilized Ambon damsel eggs gathered from the wild to various amounts of the stress hormone cortisol. Previous studies have shown that female Ambon damsels release cortisol from their ovaries when subjected to environmental stress. Fish that lived on reefs with few predatory fish around and little competition released less cortisol than those who lived in environments where they had to deal with a lot of competition and predators.

In addition to making the offspring more active, high doses of cortisol also increases the risk of developmental defects.

“If the mother fish is more stressed and she passes on more cortisol, then the offspring will have a faster developmental rhythm and therefore errors will be more likely in their development. One likely result of this is that the offspring are born asymmetrical,” Dr Gagliano said.

“These baby fish can’t make these important hormones until later in life, so their whole initial development is determined by hormones they obtain from their mothers,” Dr McCormick added.

Developmental errors can naturally cause serious problem for fish and lower their chances of survival. In 2008, Dr Gagliano and her colleagues showed that fish born with asymmetrical ear bones have a hard time handling the open ocean stage of their life and that a large percentage of these fishes die before being able to find a reef to settle on. The asymmetry hurts the fish’s hearing ability and makes it difficult for it to pick up reef-related sounds.

In her new research project, Dr Gagliano has been able to show that maternal stress has a large measurable effect on the shape of ear bones. Offspring subjected to a high dose of cortisol are more than twice as likely to have asymmetrical ear bones compared with those that received no dose of cortisol.

You can find more information in the study published in Oecologia.

A research boat used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency charged with protecting the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, collided with one of the whales off the Massachusetts coast this Sunday.

The NOAA vessel Auk was on its way back from a research journey when a Right Whale surfaced just 10 feet in front of the boat. The boat collided with the whale and the propeller cut into the animal’s left tail fluke. According to NOAA spokesman David Miller, the lacerations on the left tail fluke did not appear to be life-threatening. Researchers followed the whale for about 45 minutes after the accident and it appeared to be OK.

The accident highlights how difficult it is to avoid whale collisions and how we must work even harder to learn new ways of keeping these animals safe from boats. Even with the special precautions taken by NOAA vessels, the calamity still happened.

“To me, if it can happen to NOAA, it can happen to anybody,” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a Plymouth-based biologist with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. “Therefore, everybody needs to up the ante and up their vigilance and take the issue much more seriously.“

Ship strikes are currently the major threat to the North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis). This year, a record number of calves were born in U.S. waters, but the population still comprises no more than roughly 400 animals.

In Australia, a live shark was dumped on the doorstep of The Standard’s Raglan Parade office in Warrnambool shortly after midnight on April 22.

Fortunately for the shark, a local resident passed by, saw the shark, and alerted the police.

“I’d just come out of McDonald’s and there was another gentleman there and he told me there was a shark on the doorstep,” the man said to the Standard. “I thought he must have been drunk . . . but I put a spotlight on it and the shark was just sitting there perfectly still and you could see its gills going.“

Since the man didn’t have a phone with him, he drove to the police station, hoping someone there would believe him.

“I said to the policewoman at the counter: ‘I’m not sure how to explain this but there’s a shark on the front door of The Standard and it’s still alive’ and she said ‘what?’. It’s not something you hear about every day.“

The man said he drove home and told his girlfriend, who didn’t believe him. To convince her, he took her to The Standard’s front door where they found police officers busy pouring water over the poor shark to keep it alive.

The officers responsible for saving the shark and bringing it back to sea were Constable Jarrod Dwyer and Acting Sergeant Greg Cresell who, after pouring water over the animal, loaded it into their divvy van and transported their unusual passenger to the ocean.

“I nursed it on the front seat (of the divvy van) and we took it to the breakwater and put it back in the water near the boat ramp,” Constable Dwyer said. “It was literally right on the doorstep of The Standard.” He said the shark swam off when placed in the breakwater.

Acting Sergeant Cresell said it was one of the most bizarre incidents he’d come across in his time as a police officer.

“We’ve had some strange things in the van before but never a shark,” he said. “We wanted to save it and the longer it was out of the water the worse it was for it.”

The approximately 60 cm long fish has been identified as a Port Jackson shark by Ian Westhorpe, senior fisheries officer with the Department of Primary Industries. The Port Jackson shark is a common southern species but not often taken on a hook.

Not returning a fish to the water if you don’t intend to keep it is an offence, Westhorpe explained, and it will usually result in an on-the-spot fine.

“These laws are there to encourage the humane handling of fish,” Westhorpe said.

He also added that a Port Jackson shark isn’t dangerous to humans, except for the two venomous dorsal spines located near the dorsal fins.

Warrnambool police are investigating the incident and wish to speak with anyone with information.

Good news from Queensland: Certain reefs in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park seem to have undergone a remarkable recovery since the devastating Keppel Islands coral bleaching event of 2006.

In 2006, massive and severe coral bleaching occurred around the Keppel Islands due to high sea temperatures. After being bleached, the reefs rapidly became overgrown with a species of seaweed and scientists feared this would be the end of the corals.

Picture is not from Keppel Island. It is another part of the Great barrier reef

Earlier studies have indicated that reefs that do manage to recover from catastrophes like this one need at least a decade or two to bounce back. However, a lucky combination of three previously underestimated ecological mechanisms now seems to have made it possible for the Keppel Islands reefs to make an amazing recovery, with large numbers of corals re-establishing themselves within a single year.

“Three factors were critical,” says Dr Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, from the Centre for Marine Studies at The University of Queensland and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS). “The first was exceptionally high regrowth of fragments of surviving coral tissue. The second was an unusual seasonal dieback in the seaweeds, and the third was the presence of a highly competitive coral species, which was able to outgrow the seaweed.“

Dr Diaz-Pulido also stresses that the astonishing recovery took place in a well-protected marine area where the water quality is at least moderately good.

Surviving tissue, not sexual reproduction

“The exceptional aspect was that corals recovered by rapidly regrowing from surviving tissue,” explains Dr Sophie Dove, also from CoECRS and The University of Queensland. “Recovery of corals is usually thought to depend on sexual reproduction and the settlement and growth of new corals arriving from other reefs. This study demonstrates that for fast-growing coral species asexual reproduction is a vital component of reef resilience.”

Buying time

According to Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, also of the CoECRS and The University of Queensland, understanding the different mechanisms of resilience will be critical for reef management under climate change. “Clearly, we need to urgently deal with the problem of rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but managing reefs to reduce the impact of local factors can buy important time while we do this. Our study suggests that managing local stresses that affect reefs, such as overfishing and declining water quality, can have a big influence on the trajectory of reefs under rapid global change.”

Dr Laurence McCook from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority agrees. “As climate change and other human impacts intensify, we need to do everything we possibly can to protect the resilience of coral reefs. This combination of circumstances provided a lucky escape for the coral reefs in Keppel Islands, but is also a clear warning for the Great Barrier Reef.“

You can find out more about the remarkable recovery in the paper “Doom and boom on a resilient reef: Climate change, algal overgrowth and coral recovery”, published in the journal PLoS ONE, by Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, Laurence J. McCook, Sophie Dove, Ray Berkelmans, George Roff, David I. Kline, Scarla Weeks, Richard D. Evans, David H. Williamson and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

A record number of North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) calves have been found in winter nursery waters off the coast of Florida and Georgia this winter. No less then 39 calves have been confirmed by researchers, a number which breaks the old record from 2001 when 31 calves where spotted.

The North Atlantic Right Whale is one of three right whale species belonging to the genus Eubalaena. Earlier, all three species were classified as a single species. Since 2001, only 20 calves have been born in these waters each year, on average, and 39 new calves in one season is therefore very good news for an endangered North Atlantic species that numbers only about 400 animals.

“Right whales, for the first time in a long time, are doing their part: They’re having the babies; they’re having record numbers of babies,” says Monica Zani, an assistant scientist at the New England Aquarium who works with North Atlantic Right Whales. “We need to be vigilant and still do our part to prevent the whales from being killed“, she adds.

“For me, personally, it is a source of optimism,” says Barb Zoodsma, a marine mammal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I just think we’re on the right track.“

It is however important not to put too much weight on one single year. “It’s definitely good news, and it’s the most that we’ve seen, but it’s only one year,” says Kate Longley, who works on a team with the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies to monitor right whales in Cape Cod Bay. “I think it would be premature to make any sort of prediction or any sort of statement about the state of the species based on one year of high calving. There hasn’t been much indication that the species is rebounding significantly.“

To get from their feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine to their winter nursery areas off the coast of Georgia and Florida, the North Atlantic Right Whales have to migrate through areas with heavy shipping traffic and deaths from collisions with shipping poses a serious risk for this already depleted population.*

During recent years, several attempts have been made to decrease the amounts of deaths and injury from collisions, but it is too early to tell if these changes have contributed to the record number of calves.

In 2003, discussions between Irving Oil Corp. officials and Moira Brown, a Canadian expert on right whales and a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium in Boston, caused the corporation to shift shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy to protect the North Atlantic Right Whales. That same year, Canadian and international shipping officials agreed to shift shipping lanes in the bay between Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, about four nautical miles east in hope of decreasing the risk of whale collisions. Four years later, the US government changed shipping routes out of Boston in an attempt to make the U.S. coastal waters safer for whales, especially the North Atlantic Right Whale.

Another problem faced by the North Atlantic Right Whale is fishing ropes. Today’s modern fishing ropes are strong enough to entangle a whale and rub through its tough skin and thick flesh, all the way into the bone. This year, researchers had to rescue five entangled whales in the southeast Atlantic, using small boats, knives and grappling hooks.

The calving season is now over and the North Atlantic Right Whales are heading back to feed in the Gulf of Maine. Hopefully, a large portion of the newborn calves will stay clear of both ships and fishing gear. If they survive for an additional 5-7 years, they will be able to reproduce and aid this dwindling population on its way to recovery.

* Vanderlaan & Taggart (2007). “Vessel collisions with whales: the probability of lethal injury based on vessel speed” (PDF). Mar. Mam. Sci. http://www.phys.ocean.dal.ca/~taggart/Publications/Vanderlaan_Taggart_MarMamSci-23_2007.pdf.

In a world first, the Australian company Clean Seas Tuna has managed to successfully rear Southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) in captivity. This breakthrough opens up the way for the development of an alternative to wild-caught tuna.

Clean Seas Tuna announced on April 20 that their tuna broodstock had spawned continuously during a 35-day period from March 12 to April 16, and that the company now had succeeded in raising 28-day-old 2.5 cm tuna fingerlings. During the breeding period, over 50 million fertilised eggs and 30 million larvae were produced by the captive held tunas.

“This is equal to Armstrong walking on the moon,” says an elated Hagen Stehr, chairman of Clean Seas Tuna. Clean Seas Tuna now hope to breed tuna in their facilities off Port Lincoln. “The achievements are world firsts and major stepping stones to present the world with a sustainable tuna resource for the future. There are a number of other hurdles to overcome, but Australia can now achieve total sustainability in tuna.“

According to Fisheries Research and Development Corporation executive director Dr Patrick Hone, farm raised tuna can be a solution to the problem of falling world-wide fish stocks and increased seafood consumption.

“Australia uses 450,000 tonnes of fish a year of which 70 per cent is imported,” says Dr Hone. “Our goal is to lift farmed finfish production from about 50,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes annually by 2015.”

Large-scale commercial fish farming is however not a completely unproblematic endeavour from an ecological point of view and farmers will be forced to find solutions for sustainable water management, run-off handling, and food procurement if they truly wish to make farmed tuna an environmentally friendly alternative to wild caught fish.  It is however no doubt that it could provide the wild tuna population with a well needed chance to recover.