Bluefin tuna rapidly vanishing

SUCURAJ, Croatia — Two decades ago, the channels that separate the Adriatic Islands here were brimming with giant bluefin tuna, a species so plentiful that tourists used to climb ladders by the sea to watch the schools swim by.

Today, these majestic predators are rarely if ever caught.

The tuna population in the Mediterranean is nearing extinction, a new World Wildlife Fund report concludes, with catches down 80 percent over the past few years, even for high-tech trawlers that now comb remote corners of the sea.

"This is past the alarm stage," said Simon Cripps, director of the global marine program at the World Wildlife Fund. "We are seeing a complete collapse of the tuna population. It could disappear and never come back." The group is urging the European Union to impose an immediate fishing moratorium until the international body that regulates tuna catches meets in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in November.

Many edible fish stocks in the Mediterranean and its extension, the Adriatic, have sharply declined in the past decade because of pollution and intensive fishing, including John Dory and crayfish, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

But it is the bluefin tuna that is in crisis, thanks to a new and lucrative European network of fishing and fish farming companies that provide the prized fish to sushi and sashimi markets in Japan.

With tuna prices going as high as $15 a pound in Tokyo, European trawlers fish for tuna aggressively and illegally, far exceeding international quotas meant to protect the species, scientists said.