Atlantic bluefin tuna should not be farmed, animal welfare group says
Farming Atlantic bluefin tuna is a cruel practice – and it threatens wild fish populations. That’s the warning from campaign group Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), which has brought out a report on the sector.
Atlantic bluefin tuna: caught, caged, and under threat is published today. It turns a spotlight on what CIWF says are the environmental, sustainability and welfare costs of tuna farming.
Raising tuna through the full cycle from egg to plate has proved a very difficult proposition commercially, but much more widespread is the practice of “ranching”, where wild tuna are captured and grown to maturity in sea cages.
Compassion in World Farming says the rapid expansion of Atlantic bluefin tuna farming risks threatening the population of one of the ocean’s giants, whilst also causing animal suffering and biodiversity loss, and weakening global food security.
Atlantic bluefin tuna is not to be confused with the skipjack and yellowfin species, which are commonly canned.
CIWF says: “Captured live at a crucial point in their reproductive season, wild Atlantic bluefin tuna are dragged in large nets to farms where they are fattened and confined in sea cages. This puts unique pressure on wild populations. Their need to swim continuously just to breathe - over long distances in the wild - also causes them exceptional distress in confinement.”
It adds that its research has revealed reveals an industry “boom” as the number of licensed Atlantic bluefin tuna farms has risen from 13 farms in 2006, to 123 in 2026. And from 2003, the number of farmed tuna has rocketed 19-fold from up to 55,000, to up to one million per year in 2024.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) first sounded the alarm on the species in 2011, classifying it as endangered. While there are signs populations are recovering – in the UK an Atlantic bluefin Tuna was caught on the Yorkshire coast for the first time in 60 years earlier this month and the species has recently returned to the southwest cost – this may be short lived.
CIWF warns that the rapid expansion of industrial tuna farming risks a return to the overfishing that caused the species to become endangered in the first place. The situation is most alarming in the Mediterranean, where regional populations have not been assessed by the IUCN for 17 years, making an update urgently needed.
The report also finds that one farmed tuna, producing just 200kg of meat could consume up to 3,000kg of wild-caught fish – the equivalent of up to 33,000 sardines, or 166,000 anchovies. Beyond the sustainability concerns of feeding carnivorous species in farms, this system threatens marine life and vulnerable, low-income coastal communities in Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa, who depend on these smaller feed fish for food and livelihoods.
CIWF argues that, rather than improving food security, this industry weakens it, due to its colossal use of human edible fish as feed and it primarily being used to meet demand for luxury sushi and sashimi, mainly in Japan, the report finds.
‘Totally unsuitable for farming’
New footage also released by CIWF reveals what it describes as “appalling welfare conditions” in a Mediterranean tuna farm. It shows the animals in close confinement, constantly swimming around cages, and suffering from skin erosion, fin injuries, and eye loss. This reinforces the strong scientific evidence that the animal welfare impacts are severe, and the species is totally unsuitable for farming, the NGO says.
Dr Elena Lara, Senior Research and Policy Advisor at Compassion and report author, said: “Atlantic bluefin tuna are incredible underwater giants. In the wild, they can swim 260 kilometres every day – so it is completely cruel and unnatural to confine them in sea cages.
“This destructive and unsustainable industry takes wild tuna from our oceans to fatten them on huge quantities of wild-caught fish – mainly to supply luxury sushi and sashimi markets.
"For too long, governments have failed to regulate a sector which is driving environmental harm and severe animal suffering. They must act now to stop tuna farming and commit to keeping tuna wild.
“So soon after the species recovered from endangered status, we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
The report also reveals how a lack of reliable data on Atlantic bluefin tuna catches, aquaculture production, and trade, is obscuring the true scale of the industry’s expansion, and that more than €64 million in public subsidies has supported tuna farming over recent decades.
Compassion in World Farming is calling for an immediate, international moratorium on new or expanded Atlantic bluefin tuna farms, an urgent assessment of the species’ conservation status, improvements to industry transparency and monitoring, and animal welfare assessments to be required before new farm permits are granted. They are also calling for subsidies to be redirected to sustainable low-trophic aquaculture.
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