Hooked on tuna: People have been harvesting these ocean predators for 44,000 years

A review drawing on 18 researchers and sources ranging from archaeological bones to ancient rock art traces tuna fishing back roughly 44,000 years to East Timor, with evidence of sustained fisheries emerging in Japan, Korea, the Mediterranean and North America's northwest coast thousands of years before the modern canning industry existed. By 3,000 years ago a commercial Atlantic bluefin fishery had formed in the Mediterranean, complete with specialized nets and traps, eventually landing tens of thousands of tons annually by the 16th and 17th centuries.

Indigenous fishers on North America's northwest coast developed a nighttime fjord fishery using canoe fires and bioluminescent plankton to lure bluefin close enough to harpoon, a practice documented in 23 regional archaeological sites. The researchers note that even the largest ancient fisheries removed only thousands of tons over millennia, a fraction of the millions of tons harvested annually today.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.