ARCHIVED - Major new tuna farm planned off the north of La Manga

Further environmental studies are needed on the part of the company which lost 9,000 tuna during the September gota fría storm

Ricardo Fuentes e Hijos, the major tuna farming and production firm based in Cartagena, has presented a project to create a new offshore farm close to the northern end of La Manga del Mar Menor, and is now setting about compiling a second environmental impact report after being requested to do so by the regional government.

If given the green light, the company intends to invest 1.6 million euros in the project, in return for which it is estimated that annual revenue of around 50 million euros would be generated through the sale of 4,000 tons of bluefish tuna. The farm would consist of 20 round cages, each measuring 50 metres in diameter, and the construction of these cages would necessitate the use of 2,000 square metres of walls, floors and ceilings.

The pens or enclosures would create a production area of 40,000 square metres, plus the space left for the transit of boats between them, meaning that a surface area measuring 1.2 kilometres in length and 400 metres in width would be occupied by the company in the Mediterranean. Within this area there would be a series of four parallel rows of five enclosures, each of them with a volume of 44,500 cubic metres.

Although in principle the pens would be occupied by bluefish tuna, Ricardo Fuentres e Hijos does not rule out the possibility of farming other species such as sea bass and gilthead bream depending on developments in the international market, where demand for tuna is currently high. This is especially the case in Japan, and if the current market value of 13 euros per kilo is maintained then the company forecasts that sales will rise from 53 million euros in the first year of operation to over 56 million in the fifth year, creating profits of 2.6 million euros per year from then on.

In the first year after hatching a bluefin tuna reaches a length of between 55 and 75 centimetres, weighting around 7 kilos, and by the time it is ten years old it can be 2.15 metres long and weigh in at 190 kilos. However, the growth does not end there, and by the age of 20 the fish’s weight can reach 530 kilos, or over half a ton, as it measures 3 metres in length.

In order for the tuna to grow, though, they are suited to water temperatures of between 17 and 22 degrees, making the coastline of Murcia a perfect location in which to rear them for a period of four or five months. At the farm in Murcia food for the tuna would be supplied by a boat moored alongside and equipped with a large freezer, and once slaughtered 90 per cent of the tuna would then in turn be frozen. The ship on which the fish would be cut can process up to 40 tons of tuna a day and has storage for up to 2,000 tons.

It is worth remembering that Grupo Ricardo Fuentes was a mong the businesses to suffer most economic harm during the destructive “gota fría” storm of 12th to 14th September this year, when severe damage was done to the tuna fish farm which already exists 4.5 kilometres off the coast of San Pedro del Pinatar and Pilar de la Horadada.

During the storm eight of the large cage enclosures in which tuna were being fattened broke open, allowing almost 9,500 bluefin tuna, each weighing over 100 kilos, a chance to escape into the open sea. Unfortunately many of the fish failed to survive, due mainly to their apparently being very nervous creatures and becoming over-stressed, and almost immediately dead tuna started to wash up on the beaches of La Manga. Carcasses were also recovered all along the east of the Costa Cálida and in the southern Costa Blanca, both from the coastline and from the water.

Only 800 of the tuna remained in their cages, leaving another 7,300 unaccounted for, and at the time it was expected that the losses to the company would rise into tens of millions of euros.

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