{"id":3457,"date":"2024-03-26T17:31:24","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T17:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oceanrebellion.earth\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2024-04-04T11:11:31","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T11:11:31","slug":"tesco-dont-be-john-west-tuna-chumps-stop-selling-industrially-caught-tuna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oceanrebellion.earth\/nl\/tesco-dont-be-john-west-tuna-chumps-stop-selling-industrially-caught-tuna\/","title":{"rendered":"TESCO, WEES GEEN JOHN WEST TONIJN CHUMPS. STOP MET DE VERKOOP VAN INDUSTRIEEL GEVANGEN TONIJN"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u2b06\ufe0f John West is killing endangered species. Today John West killed and canned merpeople, tomorrow it will be whales, dolphins, sharks and turtles. Photo Guy Reece.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Today a giant John West tuna tin containing merpeople \u2018bycatch\u2019 was torn open in front of TESCO, Lower Regent St, London.<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All around the giant tin lay the evidence of the drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (dFADs)<\/a> which had ensnared the poor merfolk before they were cruelly canned by John West. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2b06\ufe0f John West and its parent company Thai Union is turning us all into Tuna Chumps by selling dFAD caught tuna at Tesco.<\/em> Photo Guy Reece.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The giant tin is labelled \u2018JOHN WEST, TUNA CHUMPS\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuna Chumps is a reference to the methods John West has been using to hoodwink their loyal customers \u2013 pretending they are creating a sustainable product while deliberately using cruelly caught tuna in all their product lines. We’re sure, while you a reading this, that the John West marketing team are cheerfully munching their \u2018John West lunch on the go\u2019<\/a> Tuna Pasta Salads and thinking about the next best way to lie (to you).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2b06\ufe0f The merpeople were caught up in the junk used to make dFADs.<\/em> In among the junk were the killer satellite buoys used to find the floating menaces. Photo S. Staines.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So what are FADs (or dFADs)?<\/strong>
Large parts of the Ocean are like vast deserts, places where the sun shines relentlessly on the water and there is no shade. Occasionally, in these vast deserts, there is some floating debris. It might be a raft of dead plant life washed out to sea, a fallen palm tree or even a dead whale shark. This debris drifts on the currents of the Ocean and beneath it sea life thrives \u2013 attracted by the shade and the small marine animals that take refuge there. And these marine animals attract predators, first small fish, then tuna, and with the tuna arrive sharks and dolphins. Endangered whales and turtles also seek the shade while on migration. These little islands are an oasis in an \u2018Ocean desert\u2019. Little pools of thriving life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now a lot of these floating oases are traps. Traps set up by the neo-colonial EU industrial fishing fleet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fishing vessels rope together their own \u2018floating debris\u2019 using any plastic rubbish they can find like old fishing nets and buoys, pallets, plastic drums \u2013 anything that floats. And in this junk they place a satellite buoy. The whole lot is then dumped overboard to drift in the Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each industrial fishing vessels is in fact a massive tuna freezer and each vessel is deploying untold numbers of dFAD islands of debris in the Ocean every year. These vessels constantly patrol the Ocean using the satellite tracking to visit the FADs they floated in the past \u2013 lurking until they\u2019ve collected a community of marine life beneath them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when the FAD has collected a rich and diverse community of marine life a large net is dropped into the Ocean and carefully pulled deep under and around the FAD. The net is like a purse with a string (it\u2019s called a purse seine net<\/a>) and once it\u2019s in place the top of the \u2018purse\u2019 is tightened by a crane so that everything beneath the FAD is caught in a massive bulging purse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2b06\ufe0f The massive nets used by the industrial fishing fleets crush and kill everything caught inside. These three ‘co-incidentally’ caught merpeople are just the latest victims of a cruel fishing industry. Photo Guy Reece.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n \n turtles, sharks,<\/span>\n \n \n dolphins,<\/span>\n \n \n whales<\/span>\n \n \n everything is<\/span>\n \n \n slaughtered<\/span>\n \n \n <\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n

The \u2018purse\u2019 is hauled onboard and all its dead and dying catch emptied out for sorting. The fishing vessel is only interested in tuna but everything else is slaughtered too, the turtles, sharks, dolphins, everything. Of course this isn\u2019t \u2018on purpose\u2019 so the fishing industry refers to the slaughter as \u2018bycatch\u2019 \u2013 a coincidentally caught (and killed) unfortunate byproduct of a lazy industrial fishing process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ocean Rebellion\u2019s Michael Collins says:<\/strong>
\u201cIf going to Tesco and buying John West tuna means you\u2019re supporting cruelty to whales, dolphins and turtles, and destroying Indian Ocean ecosystems into the bargain, then just opt out. Let\u2019s make Tesco a no-go, because time\u2019s up, and this has to stop right now. We can cut back on industrially-caught tuna, and go elsewhere for our weekly shop.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2b06\ufe0f John West, slaughtering since 1857. Photo S. Staines.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canned Tuna<\/strong>
John West sources their shark, turtle, and whale-killing canned tuna from Spanish fisheries in the Indian Ocean. This death-dealing tuna is sold by John West\u2019s parent group Thai Union<\/a> to supermarkets like TESCO, Iceland, Morrisons, Asda, Lidl and Aldi for their own-label tuna products, who then pass on this wasteful and cruel produce to their innocent customers. These supermarkets excel themselves in their double standards, because they know that Thai Union has a dreadful track record. This Bangkok-based company owns a giant tuna cannery in the Seychelles<\/a> that processes unsustainable drifting FAD-caught tuna from OPAGAC<\/a>, the Spanish organisation of frozen tuna producers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, Thai Union promised publicly in a joint statement with Greenpeace that it would halve by 2020 its sourcing from industrial tuna fisheries that use harmful drifting FADs<\/em>. Again, the world has waited seven years for Thai Union<\/a> to deliver on their commitment to Greenpeace<\/a>, but to date, no meaningful action has been taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n The fate of the Ocean depends on us all.
\r\nOur interventions depend on your support.<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n

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\n Support us<\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n Contact us<\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Unfortunately, this type of unethical behaviour is typical in the world of industrial tuna fishing. Time after time, again and again, unscrupulous suppliers of unsustainable industrial tuna continue to break their promises, hoping that everyone will simply forget about them.  Thai Union and Princes keep pledging to switch their sourcing to drifting FAD free purse seine fisheries, but they never do (and they never will do).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ocean Rebellion\u2019s Bridget Turgoose says: <\/strong>
\u201cTime and again, Thai Union and John West have broken promises to cut down on these horrifically cruel drifting slaughterhouses.  If you can\u2019t trust them to keep promises, can you really trust the tuna they\u2019re selling you?  You\u2019d really eat that? It turns your stomach.\u201d<\/em>
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Ocean Rebellion\u2019s Sophie Miller adds: <\/strong>
\u201cTrust the Spanish and French fishing fleets to indulge in this blatant over-exploitation of fisheries desperately needed by the hungry of poorer countries. Go West, John West.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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