Richard Robinson Underwater Photojournalist

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TUNA { 49 images } Created 25 Aug 2021

Billion-Dollar Fish -Tuna are the gold of the ocean—and, because certain species are so sought-after, they’ve become synonymous with overfishing and modern slavery. But in some areas, populations that were teetering on the edge of total wipe-out seem to be making a tentative comeback. Are things finally turning around for these fisheries?
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/
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  • Billion Dollar Fish- Tuna are the gold of the ocean—and, because certain species are so sought-after, they’ve become synonymous with overfishing and modern slavery. But in some areas, populations that were teetering on the edge of total wipe-out seem to be making a tentative comeback. Are things finally turning around for these fisheries?<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 01.TIF
  • In New Zealand waters, southern bluefin tuna are mainly caught by surface longlining. It’s hard, bloody, and thrilling work. Each fish is fought from the ocean by hand, killed quickly, bled, gutted and trimmed, and treated with the utmost care until it is sold for several thousand dollars at a Japanese fish market.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 02.TIF
  • Today, tuna are one of the world’s most lucrative fish, netting US$40.8 billion globally in 2018, according to a report by United States-based policy research group the Pew Charitable Trusts. Tuna fisheries employ people in more than 70 countries, and sustain the economies of multiple Pacific Island nations.<br />
But soaring demand for tuna over the past 50 years has decimated global populations. Forced labour and abusive working conditions are rife in some offshore fleets, and controversies abound over bycatch and damaging fishing methods.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2001.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 03.TIF
  • Southern bluefin are powerful hunters, eating fish, squid and crustaceans. Their warm blood supercharges their muscles, allowing them to accelerate at twice the rate of a Ferrari, and keep up a steady pace of three kilometres an hour for weeks at a time. They live for much longer than other tuna species, up to 40 years, and the largest of them top two and a half metres in length and 260 kilograms in weight. Unlike skipjack tuna, which are sexually mature at the age of one or two, southern bluefin don’t reproduce until they are at least eight years old. Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 04.TIF
  • New Zealand’s southern bluefin quota is currently set by the CCSBT’s management procedure at 1088 tonnes, of which 1046 tonnes are allocated to commercial fishers, with 20 tonnes to account for discard deaths and other mortality, another 20 tonnes to reflect the sudden growth of the recreational fishery, and two tonnes to reflect Māori customary fishing. In 2019, then-Minister of Fisheries Stuart Nash set a recreational bag limit of one bluefin per person per day “until we understand more about this highly variable developing fishery”. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 05.TIF
  • Crews spend around a week at sea, spooling 50-kilometre nylon lines into the ocean, then returning to pull up the catch. Researchers discovered in 2017 that tuna control the shape of their fins using a kind of pressurised biological hydraulic system, enabling them to manoeuvre accurately at speed while conserving energy. “<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 06.TIF
  • Pelagic or surface longliners, like the Brid Voyager, owned by Altair Fishing, seek bluefin tuna and the even-more-massive swordfish.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 07.TIF
  • They had started paying out the line the previous afternoon, steaming ahead at full speed while sending mile after mile of three-millimetre-wide monofilament out behind them into the Tasman. Every 11 seconds or so, the crew clipped a snood—a 14-metre-long length of nylon—onto the main line. On the end of the snood dangled an arrow squid the size of a man’s hand, and a 60-gram lead weight.<br />
By the time they were done, it was dark, and the main line stretched for about 30 nautical miles, invisible beneath the surface of the water. In the far distance, the Southern Alps glowed white above the West Coast.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 08.TIF
  • The animal itself is worthy of respect, says NZ longline skipper Michael ‘Smithy’ Smith, but it’s his job to catch it, and he loves the work. “In a perfect world, maybe we shouldn’t be hunting the apex predators… but it’s a good living, and it’s a good clean fishery. I certainly don’t want to drive any species to extinction. That’s not logical. You want them to survive.”<br />
It’s hard to judge a fishery over just seven years, Smithy acknowledges, but it looks healthy enough to him. “From what I see, there’s no shortage of tuna around where we work. But I don’t know what goes on overseas.”<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 09.TIF
  • Today, tuna are one of the world’s most lucrative fish, netting US$40.8 billion globally in 2018, according to a report by United States-based policy research group the Pew Charitable Trusts. Tuna fisheries employ people in more than 70 countries, and sustain the economies of multiple Pacific Island nations.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 10.TIF
  • The same six species of tuna fished commercially in New Zealand waters—southern bluefin, Pacific bluefin, yellowfin, bigeye, albacore and skipjack—are also caught by small-scale fishers in the coastal waters of Pacific nations, and by industrial purse-seine vessels and longliners operating in the island states’ exclusive economic zones and in the remote high seas.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 11.TIF
  • Tuna are some of the largest, fastest, most finely tuned fish in the sea: schooling, torpedo-shaped, migratory hunters. Humans have hunted them in turn for thousands of years. We stamped their image onto coins in ancient times, and incorporated them in music and art from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 12.TIF
  • But soaring demand for tuna over the past 50 years has decimated global populations. Forced labour and abusive working conditions are rife in some offshore fleets, and controversies abound over bycatch and damaging fishing methods.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 13.TIF
  • Deckhand Nyrin Wills (left) and leading hand Tamati Te Au (right) have to work quickly to prepare each tuna for storage. After the fish has bled out, they gut it and remove the tail and fins. The sodden carpet on the deck minimises damage to the flesh. “It’s hard yakka, and it’s hard being away from your family, but you see stuff that other people don’t get to see.”<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 14.TIF
  • Bluefin tuna are the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the ocean, says Pew’s Amanda Nickson “or maybe it’s The Rock these days”—all muscle. In 2017, researchers discovered tuna control the shape of their fins using a kind of pressurised biological hydraulic system, enabling them to manoeuvre accurately at speed while conserving energy. “They’re a pretty bloody impressive piece of equipment,” says NZ longline fisher Captain Michael ‘Smithy’ Smith.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 15.TIF
  • Leading hand Tamati Te Au tallies up the estimate weight of their catch from three line sets, totalling up to five and a half metric ton of fish. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 16.TIF
  • On some longliners, tuna are carefully wrapped in muslin shrouds and placed in ice in the hold. Some vessels have a refrigerated brine tank instead, filled with water chilled to below zero. After being bled, gutted and gilled, the fish are given unique tags to identify them, and immersed in the tank as soon as possible after leaving the sea, to prevent deterioration. “Every fish is precious,” says NZ longline skipper Michael ‘Smithy’ Smith. “We treat them like a baby, apart from the fact we’ve killed them.”<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 17.TIF
  • On board the Brid Voyager, deckhand Nyrin Wills transfers a freshly-caught southern bluefin into ice in the freezing hold. This southern bluefin is destined to become sashimi in Japan. Each fish will be laid out on the floor at fish markets and auctioned to the highest bidder. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 18.TIF
  • When the hold is full and the boat returns to port in Westport, Wayne ‘Flip’ Taylor unloads the catch by hoist. In 2019, a 278-kilogram Pacific bluefin caught off Japan was bought at Toyosu Market in Tokyo for a record NZ$4.3 million by the attention-seeking owner of a Japanese sushi restaurant chain. On a normal day, Pacific and southern bluefin net around $38 and $35 per kilo respectively, according to Pew, meaning each fish is still worth thousands of dollars. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 19.TIF
  • The bluefins in Port Lincoln’s pontoons have to eat at least nine kilograms of sardines to put on one kilo of weight, making them one of the most feed-hungry species in aquaculture. But industry spokesman Brian Jeffriess, the chief executive of the Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Industry Association, says captive bluefins put on twice as much weight for the same amount of food as their wild counterparts, because they aren’t using as much energy avoiding predators, hunting, and migrating. “All we are doing is relocating the same tuna and using half the sardines for much higher growth and lower mortality. It is the same tuna, and the same sardines.” Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 20.TIF
  • Southern bluefin tuna swim in captivity in South Australia’s Port Lincoln, which is dotted with floating tuna pontoons run by seven family-owned companies. Some have experimented with breeding southern bluefin so they don’t have to be taken from the wild population. But it is economically unviable, says industry spokesman Brian Jeffreiss: it costs so much more to grow a bluefin tuna from a hatchling to 15 kilograms than it does to catch it at 15 kilograms and fatten it up. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 21.TIF
  • Three decades ago, no one thought that voracious, migratory tuna could thrive in a cage, but ranching has been so successful that the vast majority of Australia’s 6165-tonne quota of southern bluefin is now harvested from the pens off Port Lincoln.<br />
The remote town of around 16,000 people lies near the tip of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, more than seven hours’ drive from the state capital, Adelaide. For two generations, tuna has been such big business that the place reputedly has more millionaires per capita than any other Australian locality.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 22.TIF
  • Feeding the captive southern bluefins requires the use of around 97 per cent of South Australia’s 34,200-tonne sardine catch. The fishery is Australia’s largest by volume, but it remains healthy, the 2020 stock assessment estimating there were more adult sardines than any year since 1990.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 23.TIF
  • In Port Lincoln, divers Brandon Williams and Mick Dalby check the tuna for disease and the pens for damage. They fish spend four to six months getting fed sardines twice a day, eating as much as possible. Finally, in late winter, it’s all over. The fish have fattened up, reaching anywhere from 18 to 50 kilograms. A small purse-seine net is shot off inside the pen, capturing around 700 tuna—the number that can be processed in a day. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 24.TIF
  • The population of southern bluefin tuna is bouncing back—that’s something the negotiators generally agree on. But governments and fishing industries have been wrong about such things before. How can they be sure now?<br />
New genetic sampling methods are giving scientists the most accurate picture yet of just how many southern bluefin are swimming around out there—and they don’t rely on reporting by the commercial fishing industry.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2001.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 25.TIF
  • There has also been little research into the role southern bluefin tuna play in the wider ocean ecosystem. The species might be back up to 20 per cent of the unfished population—but less than a century ago, there were five times as many swimming from the tropics to the Southern Ocean each year. What other rhythms were lost as their numbers dwindled?<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2001.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 26.TIF
  • Rob Hunt processors Southern Bluefin Tuna to be exported at Lee Fish in Leigh, north of Auckland mostly destined to become sashimi in Japan. Each fish will be laid out on the floor at fish markets and auctioned to the highest bidder.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.
    TUNA 27.TIF
  • At Lee Fish Linwood Viliua cuts small sections from each tuna’s tail and uses the colour (ideally bright, steaky) and fat content (ideally high) to assess its quality. “The tail cut tells a story about the rest of the fish,” says Lee Fish’s Sam Birch.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021
    TUNA 28.TIF
  • Photographs of the cuts are sent to Japan ahead of the fish so buyers know what they are bidding on.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 29.TIF
  • The Japanese like their tuna perfectly unblemished, he says says NZ longline Skipper Michael ‘Smithy’ Smith —unless there’s a good story behind the damage. Sometimes a mako shark will attack a tuna while it’s on the line, biting the tail off so the fish can’t swim away. “We actually get quite good money for them sometimes, if it’s a bit garked up and it’s died in battle with a shark. It’s got a bit of mana, I suppose.”<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 30.TIF
  • Wayne Penman (left), Alan Drew and Trevor Gielen pack Southern Bluefin Tuna ready to be exported to the Japanese market at Lee Fish, Leigh New Zealand.<br />
The Japanese like their tuna perfectly unblemished, says NZ longline Skipper Michael ‘Smithy’ Smith —unless there’s a good story behind the damage. Sometimes a mako shark will attack a tuna while it’s on the line, biting the tail off so the fish can’t swim away. “We actually get quite good money for them sometimes, if it’s a bit garked up and it’s died in battle with a shark. It’s got a bit of mana, I suppose.”<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 31.TIF
  • Alan Drew (left) and Trevor Gielen pack Southern Bluefin Tuna into cupboard boxes at Lee Fish in Leigh, north of Auckland to be exported to the Japanese Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.
    TUNA 32.TIF
  • At Lee Fish in Leigh, north of Auckland, Ian Strongman loads Southern Bluefin Tuna onto a truck to be transported to Auckland International Airport to be exported to the Japanese market. Each fish will be laid out on the floor at fish markets and auctioned to the highest bidder.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.
    TUNA 33.TIF
  • As the sun sets a purse-seiner closes in around its catch of skipjack, 20 nautical miles off the Tutukaka Coast of New Zealand with the famed Poor Knights Islands marine reserve silhouetted in the background.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 34.TIF
  • Around 5000 tonnes of skipjack tuna are caught in New Zealand waters each year, mainly by purse-seining, which involves encircling schools of fish in a net and hauling them aboard. Globally, skipjack accounts for more than half of the total volume of tuna landed each year and nets US$16 billion. Most of it ends up in cans.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 35.TIF
  • 2021 four vessels targeted skipjack tuna in NZ waters (down from six in 2017). This one can hold 300t of tuna, which means that 100,000 individual fish can be caught on one trip.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 36.TIF
  • For Edward Daniels, who works on purse-seine boats, summer is skipjack season. When the fish swim into New Zealand waters, spotter planes pick out a likely school. (Fishers won’t target a school that’s too big for their boat’s capacity.) Every year the fish are in a different place, and “if the temperatures aren’t right the fish might not even turn up,” he says. “That’s why it’s called fishing, not catching—because you don’t always catch it.”<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 37.TIF
  • A skiff tows the end of the net back to the purse seine. The net is then closed underneath the school a process called "pursing" preventing fish from escaping by swimming downward. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
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    TUNA 38.TIF
  • Green dye is thrown in the water as the purse seine net is encircled around a school of Skipjack tuna. The dye confuses the fish preventing them from escaping the net as it is being closed.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 39.TIF
  • Skipjack tuna sexually mature at the age of one or two unlike southern bluefin that don’t reproduce until they are at least eight years old.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 40.TIF
  • For Edward Daniels, who works on purse-seine boats, summer is skipjack season. When the fish swim into New Zealand waters, spotter planes pick out a likely school. (Fishers won’t target a school that’s too big for their boat’s capacity.) Every year the fish are in a different place, and “if the temperatures aren’t right the fish might not even turn up,” he says. “That’s why it’s called fishing, not catching—because you don’t always catch it.”<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 41.TIF
  • Skipjack tuna are managed regionally by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, as skipjack tuna are part of the larger Western and Central Pacific Ocean stock. The commission was established in 2004 to conserve stocks of tuna and other highly migratory fish and manage the populations of tuna fished in the area: albacore, skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye. In 2019, the region’s catch of all four species totalled three million tonnes—the largest in history.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 42.TIF
  • From the purse seine the fish are transferred into the hold, which is filled with super-salty brine that is still liquid at –10°C, allowing the fish to be kept very cold but easily extracted at port.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 43.TIF
  • Climate change adds more uncertainty. Modelling predicts the Pacific stocks of skipjack and yellowfin tuna will move eastwards as the globe warms—out of the jurisdictions of some Pacific nations. And all the southern bluefin in the world breed in one location south of Indonesia, gathering to release their sperm and eggs at once. If something goes wrong—the waters get too warm, or too many adults are taken from the population for there to be the necessary critical mass to trigger spawning—breeding could fail to happen at all.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 44.TIF
  • Longliners sit at anchor in the Port of Suva, Fiji. Fishing the waters of the 22 island nations of the central and western Pacific, this industrialised international fishery accounts for returns seven times greater than that of the Pacific Island nations themselves.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
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    TUNA 45.DNG
  • Tuvalu fisherman Francis Fomai heads into Sir Roberts Wharf in Alofi on the South Pacific nation of Niue, with their small catch of Yellowfin Tuna, fishing puts food on the table but contributes little to revenue.<br />
In 2017, Niue caught the attention of the world by announcing its intention to protect 40 per cent of this blue estate from fishing and other activities that might compromise it.<br />
In this, Niue leads the world. The United Nations Development Programme is promoting 10 per cent marine protection by 2020. The United Kingdom is more ambitious, advocating 30 per cent by 2030. New Zealand, by contrast, currently protects less than one per cent of its exclusive economic zone.<br />
Niue has decided that an intact marine ecosystem is ultimately of greater value than an exploited one—the island is betting the farm on tourism.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
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    TUNA 46.TIF
  • Fish Aggregating Device’s (FADs) are often used for catching Tuna in the Central and Western Pacific by casting shadows into the water to attract shoaling fish, but they can also cause entanglements, primarily sharks and sea turtles such as this critically endangered Hawksbill. Industry is moving towards using devices that are constructed without netting to minimalise ghost fishing. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 47.TIF
  • That is the challenge when it comes to globe-trotting fish like tuna. They may visit a countries exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in some seasons, during some stages in their life cycle, but their peregrinations depend on climate and currents, and take them across oceans and borders. Managing tuna fisheries requires cooperation, diplomacy and negotiation between countries that don’t always see eye to eye. <br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.
    TUNA 48.TIF
  • Longliners at anchor in the Port of Suva, Fiji, that have fished the waters of the 22 island nations of the central and western Pacific. This industrialised international fishery accounts for returns seven times greater than that of the Pacific Island nations themselves.<br />
Shot on assignment for New Zealand Geographic Issue: 170 July August 2021.<br />
Read the Feature: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/billion-dollar-fish/<br />
Photograph Richard Robinson © 2021.<br />
Rights managed image. No Reproduction without prior written permission.
    TUNA 49.TIF