Tuna may be a cheap and tasty snack, but where it comes from is another story.
Greenpeace wants consumers know to know that there's a dark side to the canned tuna industry. This animated video from Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore aims to spread the message that the tuna industry has a “dirty little secret.”
According to the Greenpeace website, the low cost of canned tuna means that the industry has “to cut some pretty significant corners.” These cost-saving measures increase bycatch, which are other sea creatures that are caught accidentally.
Greenpeace explains that one of the most ecologically damaging practices is the use of fish aggregating devices (FADs). These are free-floating objects which attract large numbers of tuna, as well as many other species of fish and marine animals.
The FADs often create entire ecosystems around them, which are destroyed when the tuna is harvested. FADs can increase harmful bycatch by “between 500 and 1000 percent when compared to nets set on free-swimming schools.”
A Pew Charitable Trust report on the dangers of FADs found that the greatly increased bycatch often includes sharks, sea turtles and juvenile tuna.
Watch video here.
Article courtesy of huffingtonpost.com