Every Picture Counts: Bring the Waste of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Into Focus

Atlantic bluefin tuna are incredible fish. They grow to 10 feet long, weigh up to 1,500 pounds, and live as many as 40 years. They are warm-blooded, like mammals, and can regulate their body temperature in colder waters. Thus they are able to dive deeper than 4,000 feet and inhabit a large migratory range.

Despite these remarkable adaptive characteristics, bluefin are depleted, and surface longline fishing takes a large part of the blame. This wasteful fishing method uses lines that extend up to 40 miles with hundreds of baited hooks intended to catch commercially valuable species such as yellowfin tuna and swordfish. Surface longlines also unintentionally kill hundreds of tons of bluefin annually as well as more than 80 other species of nontarget ocean wildlife, including blue marlin, sharks, and sea turtles, in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Bluefin mortality is of particular concern in the Gulf, which is the only known spawning ground for the western Atlantic population of this species.

Picture greater protections for bluefin: Submit your photos today

This summer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries, will seek public comments on a new rule that could help stop the waste of Atlantic bluefin tuna and other nontarget species. This rule should encourage a transition to more-selective fishing methods, prohibit surface longlines in the Gulf to protect spawning bluefin tuna, and set a firm annual limit on bluefi n mortality in the surface longline fishery. You can help make this happen.

All you have to do is take a picture! Follow the five steps below to have your snapshot used along with thousands of others to create a photo mosaic of a bluefin tuna. The mosaic will be hand-delivered to NOAA Fisheries as an offi cial public comment.

Directions for Submitting Your Photo Comments

1. Print this document. There is a bluefin tuna sign on the back.
2. Snap a photo of yourself, friends, and family holding the bluefin sign.
3. Email your photos to [email protected] along with the name, zip code, telephone number, and email for each person featured in the photo.*
4. Recruit others to do the same. Submit as many photo comments as you can to [email protected]. And don't forget to post your photo comment and a status update to Facebook and Twitter.
5. Check back here www.PewEnvironment.org/BluefinPics in December to find your photo in the mosaic and download a free high-resolution copy.

* Note:  By submitting this photo you give The Pew Charitable Trusts (“Pew”), its licensees, successor and assigns, permission to use all or parts of your photograph in connection with Pew's U.S. bluefin tuna work.  The rights you give to Pew are royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, and for use in any media, language or technology now known or later developed.

Photo Gallery

Sample Messaging for Social Media

Tagline(s)

• Help NOAA Fisheries Get the Big Picture
• Let's Stop the Waste of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

Sample Social Media Posts for Facebook and Twitter

• Help NOAA Fisheries get the big picture. Take your photo today to help protect bluefin tuna from wasteful fishing gear.
  • Take your photo today to help stop the waste of Atlantic bluefin tuna.
  • Submit your photo to urge NOAA to end the waste of Atlantic bluefin tuna on surface longline fishing gear.
• Take your photo to support ocean wildlife conservation.
• Snap a photo, protect bluefin tuna.
• Show NOAA Fisheries how much bluefin tuna mean to you.
• Bluefin tuna need protection from wasteful fishing gear! Submit a photo comment today.
• Help stop the waste of bluefin tuna! Submit a photo comment today.
• I submitted a photo to help protect depleted bluefin and other marine life. Submit your pic, too.
• Let's help depleted ocean wildlife rebuild to healthy levels. Submit your photo.
• Submit your best blue steel pose to help end the waste of bluefin tuna.