Finding tuna the easy way (Image: Seawifs)

TIMES are tough for tuna. The guidance of scientists that advise groups that manage tuna stocks is falling on deaf ears.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas meets this week in Brazil to set catch limits. ICCAT’s scientific advisers have told it that stocks of the giant bluefin tuna are plummeting towards collapse. Catches in 2008 were at three times the ICCAT limit, which is itself more than what its scientific advisers consider sustainable (see “Tigers of the sea”). “It’s like the year before the collapse of the northern cod,” says Dan Pauly at the University of British Columbia, Canada. …