Tuna Killed Crashing into Aquarium Window

By Dania Akkad, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

Jul. 24–A 229-pound bluefin tuna, a species rarely found in aquariums, died Sunday after it was spooked by two other fish and slammed into the side of a major exhibition tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, officials said.

Aquarium curators discovered the 5-foot, 6-inch male on the bottom of the Outer Bay exhibit tank Monday morning, said aquarium spokeswoman Karen Jeffries.

Upon reviewing a digital camera recording of the million-gallon tank, Jeffries said, curators saw the fish swimming closely to two other tuna and then suddenly smashing into the tank’s window at 5:34 p.m. on Sunday, less than three hours before the aquarium closed.

Curators who conducted an necropsy of the tuna told Jeffries that the impact of the silvery fish hitting the 13-inch acrylic window would have caused sudden death. A migratory species, bluefin tuna are known to swim up to 18 mph.

Although rare, Jeffries said it’s not the first time that a tuna in the aquarium has died as a result of slamming into tank walls. She said she did not know how many have died since the exhibit, which also features hammerhead sharks and sea turtles, opened in 1996.

Aquarium experts and researchers have worked for years to devise ways to prevent open-ocean fish like the bluefin from running into walls. In Monterey, the thick acrylic wall between fish and visitors is veiled with a “bubble curtain” at nighttime, a sensory and visual signal to prevent fish from hitting the window, she said.

In the wild, bluefin tuna are the giant marathoners of the deep, swimming thousands of miles to hunt for food and to return to the spawn where they were born.

Through its Seafood Watch program, the aquarium recommends that people avoid eating bluefin tuna, also called kuromaguro and used in sushi, because the species is severely overfished and the fishing gear used to catch the tuna can entangle sea turtles, seabirds and sharks.

The San Jose Mercury contributed to this story.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

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