The question of animal rights in fisheries has become asked more and more regularly.  Clearly eating and killing fish or other seafood is not ethical if you believe eating a living being is not okay. 

Beyond that animal rights is about a) letting an animal exist in it’s natural state, b) wasteful or un-necessary kill and c) humane slaughter.  On point a) a wild fish is in it’s natural state.  On point b) by specifying only very targeted methods, with no discard, no by-catch, Fish4Ever is as good as possible.  On point c), we don’t think we can say that fish do not suffer or are not conscious beings – though it is a debate for better minds than ours.  But we consider this a fail for us. 

There are humane methods.   One is killing with a direct spike to the brain but that is only used in very expensive fish.  The other is electrocution sending an electric current through the fish.  This is practiced at scale in aquaculture and has been carried over, to our knowledge, into a few industrial boats.  It’s not feasible for the vast majority of fishing boats. 

We would say that one by one tuna is a better way of fishing from a quality point of view which may be slightly more humane.  The Japanese who know their tuna, have a term called YaKe Niku which basically translates as burnt fish: tuna which has struggled vigorously and for a fairly long time in nets trying to get out and been squeezed into ever smaller circles exhibits stress and this creates a reaction in the protein and affects the quality of the fish.  Of course it can’t be seen in a tin where the tuna is cooked and sterilized but it can be seen on fresh tuna.