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Monday, Nov. 6, 2006 | Kelly Bennett‘s piece was a painful joy to read. On the one hand, it is a marker of the experience-poor age we live in when marketers of fish have to create a product that doesn’t taste like actual fish. On the other hand, her piece illustrates a little known San Diego tradition; this city’s fishermen were the first to develop tuna fishing on the west coast, the first to remake that industry with a modern, technology-driven face, the first to develop marine technology that made fishing much more productive and safer for the fisherman at sea, the first to use aircraft as spotters, the first to create new practices that saved the lives of porpoise that would have otherwise drowned in their nets; a method which, unfortunately, is not universally adopted to this day elsewhere and the first to make fishing a science based on the collaboration between the fishermen themselves, marine architects and boat builders, scientists charged with protecting the environment and ultimately, the consumer.
“When Serpekian describes his efforts to make sure the product is safe, his eyes light up.
“We were one of the first,” he says.
The same could be said about everything to do with tuna fishing here. Thanks for a great piece.