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201912015 Nalional Geog'aphic Magazine- NGM.com

"Th.e Mediterranean is at the point that if bluefin stocks are not actually oollapsing, they are approaching oollapse," said William T. Hogarth, ICCAT's
recently appointed chainnan, who also serves as director ofthe U.S. National Marine Fisheries Servire. "I was really disappointed-when it gotto bluefin,
scienrejust seemed to go out the window. The bottom line was that, as chairrnan, I felt I was sort of presiding over the demise of one ofthe most magnifi.rent
fish that swims the ocean."

Th.e story ofgiant bluefin tuna began with unfathomable abundanre, as they surged through the Straits of Gibraltar each spring, fanning out across the
Mediterranean to spawn. Over millennia, fishermen devised a method of extending nets from shore to intercept the fish and funnel them into cluunbers,
where they were slaughtered. By the mid-18oos, a hundredtuna traps-known as tonnara in Italy and almadraba in Spain-harvested up to 15,000 metric
tons ofbluefin annually. The fishery was sustainable, supporting thousands ofworkers and their families.

Today, all but a dozen or so of the trap fisheries bave closed, primarilyfor lackoffish but also because of ooastal development and pollution. One ofthe few
that remains is the renowned tonnara, founded by Arabs in the ninth rentury, on the island of Favignana off Sicily. In 1864, Favignana's fishermen took a
record 14,020 bluefin, averaging 425 pounds (190 kilograms). Last year, so fewfish were caught-about 100, averaging 65 pounds (3o kilograms)-that
Favignana held only one mattanza, which occurs when the tuna are channeled into a netted chamber and liftedto the surfare byfishermen who kill them
with gaffs. One sign of the Favignana tonnara's diminishment is that it is run by a Rome marketing executive, Chiara Zarloeco, whose pian for the future is to
dress the fishermen in historicoostumes as they reenact the mattanza.

The big trouble for .Atlantic bluefm beganin the mid-1990s. By then, stocks ofsouthernbluefin tuna-which, alongwith Pacificbluefin and.Atlantic bluefin,
compose the world's three bluefm species, all treasured for sushi-had been fished to between 6 and 12 percent ofthe originai numbers in the South Pacific
and Indian Oceans. As the Japanese searched for new sourres, they turned to the Mediterranean, where bluefm reserves were stilllarge.

In 1996, Croatians who had developed techniques for fattening southern bluefin in.Australiaestablished the first Mediterranean tuna ranch, in the Adriati.c.
The process is simple. Newly caught bluefin are transferred to coastal sea cages, where-for months, evenyears-they are fed oily fish such as anchovies or
sardines to give their flesh the high fat content so prized inJapan.

The prospect of producing a steady-andhighly profitable-supply of fatty Mediterranean bluefin set off a cascade ofevents that has proved disastrous. The
Mediterranean fleet has increased its fishing effort threefold, with the bluefm flotilla nowtotaling 1,7a0 vessels, including 314 purse seiners. Compounding
the problem, the advent of tuna ranching rnade it difficult for the European Union and national governments to enforce quotas. Bluefin are netted at sea,
transferred into cages at sea, fattened offshore, killed offshore, and flash-frozen on Japanese ships. As Masanori Miyahara of the Fisheries Agency of Japan,
and a former ICCAT chainnan, told me: "It's kind of a black box."

The spread af tuna ranching means that bluefin are beingwiped aut at all stages oftheir life cycle. In Croatia, for instanre, the industry is based almost
entirely on fatteningjuveniles for two to three years, which means fish are killed before they spawn. Elsewhere, in plares such as the Balearic Islands, large
females, capable ofproducing 40 million eggs, are being wiped out. lnjust ten years, bluefin populations bave been driven down sharply.

"What's happening is a bit like what happened to ood," said Jean-Marc Fromentin, a marine biologist and bluefin expert with IFREMER, the French
Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea. ''You don't see the decrease right awaybecause you bave had a huge accumulation ofbiomass. But it's like
having a bank account, andyou keep taking much more out than you're putting in."

At the heart of the fishing activity is Francisco Fuentes and bis Cartagena-based oompany, Ricardo Fuentes & Sons, which, according to industry experts,
oontrols 6o perrent of the giant bluefin ranchingbusiness in the Mediterranean, generating revenues of more than 220 million dollars ayear, according to
industry sources. (AFuentes spokesman said revenues are rouglùyhalf that.) In partnership with the Japanese giants Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Maruha, the
Fuentes Group--with the help of EU and Spanish subsidies-has bought the sea cages, tugs, and support boats needed for large-scale fatteuiug operations.
Fuentes & Sons also formed partnerships with French and Spanish companies that owned 20 purse seiners-five-million-dollar vessels equipped with
powerful sonar systems and nets that can encircle 3,ooa adult bluefin.

With the Fuentes Group and its partners leading the way, the bluefin fleet methodically targeted the fish in the spawning grounds dose to Eurape, then
turned its attention to untouched areas. The richest of these de facto reserves was Li.bya's GulfofSidra. "It was the tuna aquarium of the Mediterranean,"
recalled Roberto Mielgo Bregam, a tuna ranching oonsultant who first visited the GulfofSidrasix years ago. "l've never seen anything like it. The average
size ofbluefin was 6oa pounds [270 kilograms]. Itwas one ofthe last tuna Shangri-las."

Mielgo Bregazzi, a dapper Spaniard and former professional diver who heads Advanced Tuna Ranching Technologies, has been on a mission to expose IUU
- illegal, unreported, and unregulated- bluefin fishing. Drawing an a wide networkof inside sourres, as well as published information, he has written
lengthy reports detailing the IUU bluefin business. Using arcane data such as the capacity and schedules ofJapanese freezer vessels, he has shown that the

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