Following National Geographic Channel’s announcement of its upcoming TV show, “Wicked Tuna,” and <a href=”http://huff.to/A7ecU1″ target=”_hplink”>my consequent slam</a>, I received a phone call inviting me to Nat Geo headquarters. Our discussion seemed a big improvement over their press release. Yes, really. As announced, this show will feature commercial fishing for bluefin tuna. With or without [...]
original blog posted in Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-safina/national-geographic-channel-wicked-tuna_b_1207859.html Well, people, what an incredibly long drop it’s been since the electrifying National Geographic TV specials of my youth, whose mere opening theme notes would raise the hair on my neck. It seems almost like the scenario of a post-apocalyptic surrealist satire, unimaginable just a few years back: [...]
Here’s how I can tell if an environmental news story has permeated the public consciousness: my 86-year old mother phones to tell me about it. She doesn’t have a computer, just her morning newspaper. So when she called to read to me that a single bluefin tuna had sold at wholesale auction in Tokyo for [...]
First published on The Huffington Post. On May 27, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced it won’t list Atlantic bluefin tuna as endangered. (Note timing: a Friday before a 3-day holiday.) The decision is understandable. The warm-blooded giant bluefin tuna can exceed half a ton and swim at highway speeds. Though also extremely [...]
Guest blog by Stephen Dishart, Executive Director, Blue Ocean Institute To view Carl’s TEDx Oil Spill lecture click here. Safina points to gross negligence as the cause of the spill With a remarkable agenda of speakers, the hottest topic on the planet and a crowd of environmental experts and others eager for the latest word [...]
Audubon magazine quotes a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employee saying that ‘There have been no reports of oil in the known spawning areas yet.’ First of all, that’s basically wrong. Second, as if, what, they think the nearby spawning area won’t be imminently drenched with dissolved toxic dispersant and oil? They’re still wait-and-seeing? [...]
In his New York Times blog, Andy Revkin writes about both Japan’s fading passion for whale meat and Japan’s entrenched bureaucratic defense of whaling. He speculates that I’d love to see the Japanese stop eating both whales and tuna. He’s half right. What’s weird about Japan’s nationalistic policies on whaling and fishing is that they’re [...]
The right thing never happens for the mighty bluefin tuna. The latest debacle just happened at the CITES meeting in Doha, Qatar. The main Atlantic bluefin tuna fishing nations—the U.S., the entire European Union—plus Norway and Kenya, supported Monaco’s proposal to ban international trade in bluefin tuna. Forty years of mismanagement and continual decline, the [...]
In a few days the 175 countries meeting at the CITES conference in Qatar will vote on a proposal to ban international trade in bluefin tuna. The following quotes are from an article on terra.wire: http://bit.ly/aXNBbC. The responses are mine. Doesn’t Get It: “I can’t imagine sushi without tuna,” said Ayaka Mimura, a 21-year-old Tokyo [...]
- Carl Safina Pattern recognition: An international tuna commission that Japan belongs to sets catch levels, then Japan is found guilty of systematic, planned overfishing. An international commission that Japan belongs to bans commercial whale hunting, but Japan continues killing whales for commercial sale, while widening its kill to more species in more regions of [...]
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