Wednesday, July 19, 2023, 12:35 p.m.
Researchers from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography of the Region of Murcia have managed to reproduce the coveted bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) in an onshore facility. This is the first time it has been achieved worldwide.
Since 2015, the Oceanographic Center has a unique facility for the control of bluefin tuna reproduction (ICRA), located in the municipality of Cartagena. This facility, together with the Mazarrón Farming Plant, located just one kilometer away, was declared in December 2018 as ‘Singular Scientific and Technical Infrastructure for Bluefin Tuna Farming’ by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.
The ICRA is equipped with four large tanks, two of 22 and 20 meters in diameter and 10 meters deep, and two smaller ones of 14 and 8 meters in diameter and 6 and 3 meters deep, respectively, with a total capacity of 7 million liters of seawater. In this facility, there are two bluefin tuna breeding stocks, one made up of 25 specimens born in 2017, and another with 8 specimens born in 2018.
On July 13, researchers Aurelio Ortega and Fernando de la Gándara carried out a procedure by which they implanted hormones that induce final maturation and egg laying in the second stock of bluefin tuna. Normally, this process is blocked by the stress that causes the animals to remain in captivity. However, in just 48 hours, they obtained hundreds of thousands of fertilized eggs, and after 72 hours, close to 3 million, with continuous laying in the following days.
It should be noted that the IEO had already achieved the closure of the biological cycle of this species in 2016, but in floating cages in the sea.
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