I love a good long story in fisheries when it is initiated by people on the factory floors and boats in the harvesting and processing countries instead of offices in the consumer countries.
It gets better for me as the story mixes various aspects of my professional career, interests, and positions… i.e. my qualifications in fishing vessel operations (2nd mate), Fisheries Science (MSc), and Food Science (a further MSc), my interest in learning from people on the floor (experience rules), and my profound distrust of all private certifications and ecolabels.
Soni is on the left of the picture
Back in 2016, in a blog post on FAD politics, I quoted my friend Fernando (ex-fisherman and factory manager), who said that for him, MSC-certified skipjack (only FAD-free at the time) stands for Mushy Skipjack Canned… as the high levels of Mushy Tuna Syndrome (MTS) found in the processing of free school-caught tuna.
We theorised how the “soft texture” may be related to a higher level of enzymatic reactions and the higher body temperature of fish caught while actively feeding in a school during the day, as opposed to fish caught while lazily circling a FAD in the very early mornings.
Free school fishing happens when tuna are feeding "out there". Skipjack feed predominantly on small pelagics, micro-crustaceans and some squid. Stomach contents show a huge variety, though, so it is a highly opportunistic feeder. (It would eat its juveniles as well.)
From the fishes in the Skipjack diet, Scombers and Thyrsitops are quite represented, and both have high enzymatic contents in the stomach. The high level of enzymes in Skipjacks' stomachs while feeding and the high temperature of the fish at death (as they are hunting and swimming fast when we capture them) seemed to me to be potentially associated with mushy and soft meat.
And this is not just on tuna; I hated it when trawling for Hake and Hoki in the South Atlantic (in my pre-tuna fishing life), since if the fish was feeding on sardines or anchoveta for the same reason, the fish became mush in no time.
So, if the level of rejections has increased, this means that the fish is sent to the fishmeal factory. Hence, more fish need to be caught to maintain production (usually demand-driven by contracts), so the situation goes against one of the aims of MSC, which is sustainability and such (one assumes) catching fewer fish and selling them for better money.
A couple of years later, in Noro, talking with my friend Soni Peter, who was at the time the QC Manager of Soltuna, we discussed the same, and she was keen to do some research on this and started talking about hopefully doing her PhD on this, and if I could help her! Which, of course, I did!
It was a long story to go ahead with it… As an Indian national and young mother, getting a placement at a good university was a big challenge… then visas and so on… But what I know from Soni and her husband is that they did not shy away from challenges.
She finally got a placement at the University of Queensland, and has recently completed her PhD thesis… which is undoubtedly the ultimate research on the Mushy Tuna Syndrome so far written! On top of that, she was incredibly kind in thanking me for the idea and support given in her acknowledgements section.
It is compulsory reading if you are a tuna processing nerd.
As per my musings on the origins of the issue, it seems that I was spot-on… On page 88 her thesis states:
“These findings suggest that catch from school fish is associated with a significantly higher proportion of MTS rejects compared to FAD sets. This highlights the potential impact of fish behaviour and physiology at the time of catch on the occurrence of MTS.
In page 89:
It was observed that skipjack caught from FS (free school) and around seamounts had fuller stomachs than those associated with FADs and natural fish aggregation structures such as drifting logs (Machful et al., 2021). The proportion of empty stomachs was 85% in FAD’s compared to 25% in FS, which is associated with the high feeding activity in FS with tuna caught during daylight hours (Menard et al., 2000). Additionally, it has been reported that the relative condition factor in the developing and spawning phase of skipjack was higher in the FS than in the FADs.
Of course, the key issue on board that has the primary influence is the freezing capacity, which is highlighted in the study, yet the temperature and condition at which the fish comes in affects the freezing times and process… which gives space for the secondary reason for ATS, FAD of FS sets
Which gets me then to one of the many criticisms I have of the MCS ecolabelling schemes, which at the time only covered FS tuna (even if in the same trip you were doing FS and FADs), and while not naming the MSC, Soni’s thesis says:
While fishing on free-swimming schools is generally considered more sustainable than fishing on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) due to lower bycatch and less impact on target species and the marine ecosystem, it is important to understand the potential implications of this method on the incidence of Mushy Tuna Syndrome (MTS). The association of free school tuna with the incidence of MTS in the study suggests that even seemingly sustainable fishing practices may have unintended consequences on seafood quality.
Furthermore:
By integrating considerations of seafood quality into sustainability assessments, fisheries managers and stakeholders can make more informed decisions that balance ecological, social, and economic priorities in managing marine resources.
This kind of rounds out my whole criticism of eco-labels: that standards written by people far from the sources, operations, and processing, and they can decide what is “sustainable.”
Everything has advantages and disadvantages. While MSC now also certifies FAD fishing (which used to be the non-sustainable way, but they had both on the same boat… so what is the point?), if it is only FS, then you have higher rejection levels, and more tuna goes to fish meal (to feed other fish or pigs). Therefore, you need to catch more tuna to fulfil your contracts. If you catch FAD fish, you have greater environmental impacts through bycatch and effort creep.
All these trade-offs (plus many of my other criticisms) confirm (to me) that there is no value in ecolabels, other than that of a “mafia-style” pay me or we tell everyone you are not sustainable. To the hypocrisy and neocolonialist approach that ecolabels mimic specific characteristics of the legal extraterritoriality observed during the colonial period, and how these neocolonial forms of extraterritoriality create disaggregated and variegated sovereignty scopes.
Their colonialist-type shared features include identifying subjects that need protection, a narrative depicting developing states as inadequate for providing these protections, and creating “private jurisdictions” where transnational private certifications provide these protections without the involvement of statutory bodies.
Beyong the MSC issues, this is an excellent work by Soni, whom I’m incredibly proud of knowing, and an example of someone who knows what she is talking about, not just because she wrote a thesis, but because she worked on the floor of factories and listened and learnt from people that may not be qualified or even educated… but knows from doing, yet we tend to ignore.