Abstract

CABELLO, Ana et al. Management of tuna resources in venezuela . Zootecnia Trop. [online]. 2003, vol.21, n.3, pp.261-274. ISSN 0798-7269.

ABSTRACT Venezuela is considered an important tuna producer because its fleets operate in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and land about 80000 t/year. This landing is oriented 65% towards export, 20% to the canning industry, and 15% for direct consumption as fresh fish. The fleet captures five species of tuna, among other smaller scombrid species. All tuna species are highly migratory and shared among several countries. Tuna is one of the fish items with higher demand among consumers. Because of its importance, several aspects of its exploitation, like fishery, bromatological characteristics, and processing have been studied. Because is a species of high commercial importance with large nutritional value. This paper studies the relationship among catch, commercialization, and sanitary aspects, which are involved in the use of tuna as a food source and as an item for export. Currently, the fishery shows a decreasing trend in the landings of all tuna species. The bromatological evaluation confirmed a protein content of 23.65 to 24.78 % and low levels of heavy metals like Hg, Cd, Cu, and Zn. Since the current legislation in Venezuela regulating tuna byproducts only establishes critical levels for Hg, its revision is needed to incorporate other potentially hazardous heavy metals.

Keywords : Tuna; management,; bromatology,; processing; nutritional value.