Recreational fishermen from around the province met at the Santa Pola Yacht Club this week, as part of their ongoing collaboration with the science world.
A select group of fishermen put their boats at the service of science to be able to catch giant tuna without killing them, so that scientists can collect data on their behaviour. Each captured specimen will be measured and marked, as well as a biological sample taken. One of them will also be marked with a Pop-up electronic tag that will collect data on their behaviour day by day and that in the future all this information will be collected via satellite, serving global scientific studies on Mediterranean bluefin tuna.
Pascual Orts, president of the Santa Pola Nautical Club, has declared that “on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Nautical Club, this year we are once again celebrating a fishing and scientific event, which of course brings a lot of awareness and news about the importance of tuna, its conservation and protection”.
On the other hand, Andrés Orts, vice-president of APERS (Association of Responsible Recreational Fishing), announced that “this weekend’s event is one of the actions that are being carried out by APERS, which is in charge of communicating the concept of sustainability from what the recreational fishing sector has to do, and the GTR (Great Tuna Race), which is a scientific action of citizen collaboration in which recreational fishermen at the mercy of the science to go out and catch tuna and mark them with the aim of being able to study and know what their behaviour. This project is developed throughout the Spanish Mediterranean coast.”
