east coast of Sicily and around the 

 islands in the Sicilian Channel, in the 

 Adriatic Sea and in the northwestern 

 Aegean Sea. Sara (1973) said that 

 these fish are especially visible in 

 late summer and autumn, when they 

 chase prey relentlessly on the surface 

 near the coasts. 



Large tuna (over 150 kg) are 

 abundant, except in certain local ar- 

 eas, only from April to September 

 (Sara 1964, 1973). The principal ar- 

 eas of abundance indicated in Sara"s 

 (1 964) chart are off western Sardinia, 

 Sicilv, Tunisia and western Libva. 



Other occurrences are shuwn near 

 Gibraltar, in the Gulf of Lion, in the 

 Bosphorus, and off Bengasi. Sara 

 (loc. cit.) believed that the major oc- 

 currence of large bkiefin in the Medi- 

 terranean is the spawning run from 

 the Ibero-Moroccan Bay, whose vol- 

 ume and movements are greatly in- 

 fluenced by the inflowing Atlantic 

 Current. Occurrences in other sea- 

 sons consist of relatively small num- 

 bers offish which stay in areas where 

 food is plentiful, such as the Gulf of 

 Lion (off the mouth nf the Rhone), 

 the Tuscan Archipelago, the Aeolian 

 Islands, the Strait of Messina and the 

 Dardanelles. 



I'lie fisheries for large biuefin 

 were historically the mo.st important 

 in the Mediterranean, and laws pro- 

 hibited the capture of young fish in 

 Italian waters more than a century 

 ago. Catches of young biuefin have 

 increased since 1920, and this ten- 

 dency has accelerated after World 

 War II. Perhaps in consequence of 

 this, the landings of large biuefin by 

 the traditional trap method declined, 

 especially in the 1970s. The intro- 

 duction of longline and purse seine 

 fisheries for large bluetln in this pe- 

 riod, however, had restored the 

 catches of large fish to their earlier 

 level bv 1974. 



67 



