Balfegó kicks off the annual bluefin tuna fishing campaign

The Balfegó company has announced that the fleet they command, comprising around thirty boats, begins the bluefin tuna (Thunnus Thynnus) fishing annual campaign this Thursday in the western Mediterranean.

Specifically, the company will have a month and a week (from May 26th to July 1st) to capture the quota assigned to the entire fleet. Thanks to the commercial agreements reached this year, this amounts to 2,485 tons of the species, which will later be transferred to its marine facilities in L’Ametlla de Mar (Tarragona).

Nevertheless, the company has revealed that it forecasts the capture of its assigned quota in just a few hours, thanks to the great abundance of bluefin tuna specimens in the Mediterranean.

The fleet is made up of nine purse-seine vessels, two of which belong to Balfegó (La Frau Dos and Tio Gel Segon), a third under a Spanish flag, four under a French flag and two under an Italian flag, and which is complemented with sixteen tugboats and five auxiliary boats.

The three Spanish vessels contribute 58% of the quota and the French and Italian vessels, the remaining 29% and 13%, respectively. This year’s campaign will generate nearly 300 jobs directly.

During the campaign, the Balfegó protocol will be applied, a pioneer in security and digitization that facilitates manoeuvres and increases the quality ratios of the product, in addition to providing greater safety to sailors during fishing tasks and improving the welfare of animals.

Additionally, the digitization and automation of all transmissions between the ships in the fleet will optimize and speed up both the registration of catches and the custody of documentation and communications.

On top of this, the boats have a system that allows an adjusted forecast of the number of specimens and the average weight of the schools, before carrying out the fishing operation, thus avoiding the capture of excessively voluminous schools of tuna.