NEW YORK -- The vulnerable stocks of bigeye tuna beloved by sushi fans face an even deeper threat as the juveniles become an unintended casualty of weakly regulated buoyed devices that lure vast numbers of fish, the Pew Charitable Trusts said ahead of World Tuna Day on Wednesday.
No one knows how many of these fish aggregating devices, known as FADs, are scattered across the oceans. The devices, which attract plentiful skipjack tuna like moths to a flame, allow purse seines to scoop up massive quantities of fish at once. But they also can catch the young of more endangered species like bigeye and yellowfin tuna in the process.
