Good news for tuna as they bounce back from the brink of extinction[2]:
There’s good news for the tuna you’re used to seeing in supermarkets, like Atlantic and Southern bluefin. These and two other species are showing signs
of recovery from overfishing.
They have been hunted by commercial fishing companies for decades but now it’s
hoped they might not go extinct, as previously feared.
The news comes from International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
which has just released an update to its Red List.
This list shows the extinction risk of thousands of species around the world. Unfortunately, more than 38,000 species are still facing the threat of extinction[3], but there were signs of recovery for some.
In 2011, most species of tuna were considered to be at serious risk of extinction. With 6 million tonnes[*] thought to have been caught in 2019,
these are some of the most commercially valuable fish in the world.
In this update, the status of seven commonly fished tuna species was
reassessed and there was good news for four of them.