Million Dollar Tuna

Last weekend I was lucky enough to meet 2 handsome men from the US and New Zealand under the age of 70! Things are definitely looking up here in Tarawa. Even more exciting was the fact that these guys work for one of the fishing fleets that comes to Kiribati to fish for tuna. I see the huge vessels parked in the sea each day and have been wanting to see one up close.

Kiribati is one of the world's most productive tuna fishing grounds, generating hundreds of millions in revenue each year. 

My new friends are pilots and they explained how easy it is to catch a ton of tuna. The vessels have helicopters that go out in search of the tunas.

When they see a large school, they communicate the GPS coordinates to the shipping vessel and it comes out to the area to set the net, which can be as long as 2 kms and more than 150 meters deep.  The vessel  encircles the school of tuna with the net trapping the fish inside a sack. The net is then pulled aboard the vessel and the fish are frozen alive. Once the vessel reaches its capacity in tens of tons of tuna, it comes into the port of Tarawa to transfer the frozen fish to a container ship typically chartered for Korea, Spain, Japan or the US.
 

Tuna coming out of the deep freeze

Frozen tuna going to container ship

I was definitely impressed with this high-tech fishing operation which makes it pretty quick and easy to capture so many fish. For example, the vessel I was on contained 1400 tons of tuna and was worth $3 million and it only took 3 weeks to catch. Considering that Kiribati’s fishing license is $5,000 a day, these guys are really making a bundle. I do wish that Kiribati could make benefit more and wonder if they will be out of fish soon with such large catches.