There are a number of techniques used to fish for tuna. At Albacora, we use an age-old technique, called purse seine nets.
A purse seine net is a long surface of netting that is cast vertically into the water. The net is set around the school of tuna. It floats on the surface, with the bottom edge of the net left open until the fish are inside. The vessel can then tighten the bottom of the net using metal rings. Purse seine nets are recognised as amongst the most selective fishing equipment in the world. If you want to learn more about this technique, please read the ISSF report about purse seiners.
Using purse seining allows us to keep our ‘by-catch’ – the catch of fish species found around tuna such as Sea Bream, the Mahi-mahi and Wahoo – to a minimum. However, even these are not wasted. We use them as food onboard our vessels and make them available to local coastal communities at the ports where we disembark our catch.
We work closely with international scientific institutions, such as the ISSF (International Seafood Sustainability Foundation) to continuously improve our techniques and further reduce our by-catch. Our highly–trained, experienced crews also play an important role in making our fishing increasingly precise.
Videos
Hear how our vessels reduce by-catch to a minimum with our skipper Josu Bilbao.
Discover the difference between by-catch and incidental catch with our fleet manager Imanol Loinaz.
Learn about our discard policy with our fleet manager Imanol Loinaz so that no fish is wasted.