EU urged to stop feeding fish in tuna farms

EU states should stop using fish as feed in tuna farms, which risks spreading exotic viruses to the Mediterranean, environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said yesterday.

The EU's farmed tuna industry, dominated by Spain, buys more than 200,000 tonnes of mostly frozen and untreated fish annually from the North Atlantic, West Africa and South America. Nearly all Europe's farmed tuna exports go to Japan.

"A huge amount of fish is dumped into the Mediterranean to feed tuna and this brings a risk of exotic diseases," said Sergi Tudela, WWF's Mediterranean Fisheries Coordinator. "The fact it is concentrated in just a few places makes the disease risk much higher," he told reporters.

WWF has asked the European Commission, the EU executive, to ban non-Mediterranean fish for tuna farms and use feed pellets instead, he said.

Europe's tuna farming is driven mainly by demand for sushi and sashimi in Japan: the world's largest consumer of fresh and frozen tuna, and destination for more than 90 per cent of the EU's farmed tuna exports.

Spain, particularly its southeastern region of Murcia, runs most of the EU's 45-odd tuna farms. Malta and Italy are also major players and, outside the European Union bloc, Turkey and Croatia.

WWF said up to a quarter of Mediterranean farmed tuna comes from Murcia, where more than 56,000 tonnes of baitfish are introduced into a 170-kilometres coastal stretch every year.

Between 15 and 25 kilos of fish feed were needed to produce one kilo of tuna, it said in a study. The fish used as feed are usually small-sized species such as herring that do not live in Mediterranean waters.

"We don't know which viruses are in the imported fish and how they might affect fish in the Mediterranean," Mr Tudela said.

The Commission, which regulates EU fishing policy, said it would study WWF's proposal and ask the tuna industry for data.

"We are sensitive to this and we will talk to the tuna farming industry to see what action we can take," one Commission official told Reuters.