Drawings by Michiteru Kusaba
Translated by Shelley Clarke

�GLOBAL GUARDIAN TRUSTMom,I'm
home.

Oh! You'reback late
today.

Well, I was
thinking
we'd havetuna
sashimitonight.

I stoppedby thelibrary tochecksomething.
Mom,
are yougoing out
shopping?

Yeah,something
I learned
today atschool.

I havesomethingcool to tellyou.

Something cool?

1

That'sgreat!
I'll gowithyou.

Its about
the bycatch
problem in tunaﬁsheries.

Bycatch?

But what is"bycatch"?

But that's
what aspecialinstructor
who cameto theschool
told usabout

Hmm, tunaﬁsheries...well,
you do attend
a ﬁsheries
high school
don't you?

Earliertoday
I wasthinking
the samething.

l roomAudio-visua

2

長崎鶴洋高校

Nagasaki Kakuyo
High School

This isbecause thetechniqueused by tuna
longlines
also catches
sea turtles
by accident.

As I wassaying,
bycatchincludesnot only
sharks andseabirds
but also...

In orderto allowsea
hookturtlesremovaland other tosurvive,
specialhandling
is usedand thenthey arereleased
to thesea

seaturtles.

but there
are somethat die onaccount ofswallowing
the hook.

3Fish otherthan thetarget
species (liketuna)...forexample,sharks,seabirds
and also sea
turtles

So in otherwords, what
we mean by"bycatch" is...

that we
don't
intend tocatch but
end upcaught on
the hook.

Recently I've
heard that it
is no longer
allowable toimport theseand thematerial to
make themis getting
scarce.

its a Nagasaki
speciality madefrom tortoise shellfrom the hawksbill
turtle4

so in thatcase what
about mybrooch...

The only
turtlespeciesthat canbe usedfor tortoiseshell is thehawksbill.

Well, that's
really putting
the cart
before thehorse.

For example,
leatherback
sea turtles .

So, why isn't
it OK touse thosebycatchturtles tomake thesebrooches?

Thinking
like this cancause somespecies ofsea turtles togo extinct!!

Yeah,
that's quite
disturbing
isn't it?

*Other threats to
sea turtles suchas development
on beaches where
they lay their eggs,
and environmental
damage, are also
causing sea turtle
populations todecline.
＊It's also said that global warming might be a contributing factor.

5Extinct...

Like
what?

If we don'twant thisto happen,
there are lotsof things weneed to think
about!

Think
about...?

Well, like,ﬁrst of all...

Let's assume
the branchlines arenumberedfrom #1 to #6
like this.

Let's take alook at theconditions

underwhich sea
turtlesbecomehooked6

So in thisway weknow that
sea turtles
are hookedin waterdepthsless than
120 m.

water depth 120 m

If so, thehooks
which aremost often
taken
are theshallowest
ones, #1.

Once weknow that,
we canmake surethat eventhe #1
hooks areoutside ofthis zone.

Oh, Isee...

We are testing atechnique now involving
using a buoy to place
the hooks outside thezone where turtles arefeeding but where tunacan still be caught.
Neutral buoyancy
buoy system

7

And in addition, we'retrying things with thehooks themselves.

Until now
we've used
this kindof hook tocatch tuna.

Tuna hook

Circle hook

Frequencyof turtle
hooking
mouth

Pop!

60.0

40.0
throat20.0

But wecan round
this into
what iscalleda circlehook fora bettereﬀect.

ﬂipper0.0

Tuna hookcircle hooktheincidence offatal hooking
decreases.

Actually,mouthhooking
increases
with thecircle
hook but,*Although the incidence of mouth hooking with the circle hook is high, in these cases it is easy to remove the hook.

8Certainly that'strue but hooks
are a ﬁsherman'slife. Until now
ﬁshermen haverelied on theirown ideas, so
its not easy tochange theirminds.

So this is
why wecan't getthis idea
to take oﬀ
with theﬁshermen.

And also
there's theproblem ofcost.

Wouldn't
it be good
to change
the hooks
as soon as
possible?

Also, ifmackerelis usedinsteadof squid,
the turtle
hooking rate
will go down.

We also haveto get theword out toﬁshermenthat circle
hooks areeﬀective for
tuna.

umm.

9

aack!

and astheychew
they getcaught
on thehookmunchThis isbecausesquid
are hard
to chew
throughmunch

So we arerecommending
to use ﬁsh thatare easy tochew as bait.

These
are themethods
we havebeen
talking
to avoid
catching
seaturtles.

In the future
we arehoping thesemethods will
be put into
practice byﬁshermenlike you ontuna boats.

10

I doubt I'm goingto go onboard atuna boat but...

But itseems I canthink about
bycatchfrom theconsumer's
perspective.

Yea, until theworld starts
spinning in
the opposite
direction, I'm
going to catchtuna!!

but thebycatch
problem...?

You said
you will be
on a tunaboat, didn't
you?

on my wayhome I'mgoing tostop by thelibrary andcheck it out.

Notat all,Mom.

but isn't itsomethingforﬁshermen
to handle?
There's
nothing
we cando, isthere?

11Well, OK,I certainly
understandthatbycatchis a bigproblem,The mostimportant thingis for us
Wow,
you'rethinking
big!

to commit toprotecting
theenvironment
and themarine
ecosystem.

If we have this kindof consciousness,
we canstart todo smallthings..

but
sometimes
there arelabels thatare not soclear.

hhmm,
somehow
it seems
this shop
has all that
information

For example,
the label on
this packna,
eﬁn tuern blud),south at (thawe dianeInm:sdreundg gro.
ﬁshinu Portn,: YaizOcea
g portlandin12a,tuneﬁn ),blu awed diannrn(th s: Ithet.
sou meat oundr
Porred ing gaizu
hﬁs an, ort: YeOc ing pdlan

This southern
blueﬁn tuna
is a natural
product ofthe Japanesetuna ﬁshery.

This southern blueﬁntuna looks the same but
is actually fed and raised
in a pen in Australia.
southernblue"chuﬁn tuuna,(farm toro" gradeing),Aus
traliaBut it
doesn't
So can say whatkind ofwefeed thesereallyﬁsh aresay this raised on,is safe? does it?

hhmm.

So this isa farming
southern
blueﬁn tuna
but even
though it ishigh grade"chuu toro",
it is cheap.

So
that'sgood,isn't it?

The farming method involves catching and putting lots of small ﬁsh in a pen, and as a result it is easy for this to contribute to overﬁshing problems.

13

Well, there
are ﬁshingboats
that don't
completely
obey therules butare stillcatchingﬁsh.

So evenamong
naturalproducts
like tuna,
there arecheapervarieties,
right?

OK,where?

what's wrong
with you?

By doing
this, thehungry
Japanesesashimimarketends upwith a lotof verycheapﬁsh!!

While they
are not
obeying
the rules,
they aresecretly
catching
tuna.

Eat!
Eat more!!

uh!

Nuh-h!!

-uNuh

Not only
are theseboats notthinking aboutprotecting
the marine
environment,
they don't
listen about
the bycatch
problemeither.

14

gulp!

In the end,
the global
ecosystem
becomes a
mess!!

Ofcourse,
there
won't beany moretuna tocatch!!

This will leadto resolutionof the bycatchproblem andallow global
environmental
protection
eﬀorts tosucceed.

or we must
read thelabels very
carefully,
and choose
very safe andhealthy ﬁsh.

15

In otherwords, wemust ask the
shopkeepers
if they'vebought tunafrom boats
which arethinking
carefully
about theircatches andobeying therules,

We're so proud of you!

Pricey!

Tuna
fromoﬀshore
Sanrikuarea
in thePaciﬁc.

Of course its
expensivethen.

I guess
you'veseen
throughmy clever
plan!

16

This isgood
isn't it?

But this ishigh grade"toro",
right?

Lantern shark (Etmopterus /ucifer)
Body length about 60 cm. In front of each dorsal fin there 1s an
extremely sharp spine. Lives in deep sea environments at around200-800 meters. The English name is'lanternshark' because it isunusual among shark species in possessing a light—emitting organ.
Once dead it becomes a dark black color but when alive, against a
black back drop it has a shimmering light purple color and is
extremely beautiful. Nevertheless, its emerald-colored eyes andeerie face conjures up images of the devil (lucifer)

邊恥r the benefit of species and people
GGT

GLOBAL GUARDIAN TRUSTThe production of this pamphlet was made possible throughthe support of the Japan Fund for Global Environment 2006.