An Albacore
During the 2002 school year, Lakeside students consumed 39 cases of Starkist Albacore tuna (234 43oz bags or 629 pounds or 3,978 sandwiches), at a cost of $70.65 per case for a total yearly cost of $2,755.
As a comparison, the total Albacore tuna caught for the major markets (United Sates, Canada, Japan, Spain) are about 225,000 metric tons (496,125,000 pounds) or 7% of all tuna species caught. Today's Albacore averages around 30 lbs (peak weight 85 lbs) - so that's about 16,537,500 fish.
40% of these fish are caught in the Northern Pacific, 27% in the Southern Pacific, 25% in the Atlantic Ocean + Mediterranean, and 8% in the Indian Ocean. The catching methods used include Pole and Line, surface trolling and long-line fishing.
The [wholesale] price of albacore is around $1,700 per metric ton (Feb 27, 2002).
Albacore, in general, are processed mainly in Thailand, Indonesia, the United States, and Japan. StarKist does most of their fishing around American Samoa (Polynesia) and processing in California and Europe.
Source of Albacore Information
Source of Price Information
The Samoan islands are located in the center of the South Pacific Ocean ... Samoa literally means "sacred center."American Samoa is "an unincorporated territory of the United States in the southern Pacific Ocean northeast of Fiji comprising the eastern islands of the Samoan archipelago. American Samoa has been administered by the United States since 1899. Pago Pago, on Tutuila, the largest island of the group, is the capital. Population: 32,279."
American Samoa's "economic activity is strongly linked to the US, with which American Samoa conducts 80%-90% of its foreign trade. Tuna fishing and tuna processing plants are the backbone of the private sector, with canned tuna the primary export. The tuna canneries and the government are by far the two largest employers. Other economic activities include a slowly developing tourist industry. Transfers from the US Government add substantially to American Samoa's economic well-being."
Source of America Samoa Information
StarKist Seafood is a division of Star-Kist Foods, Inc., a subsidiary of the H.J. Heinz Company.
Coming soon...
An AlbacoreThere are 8 commercial types of tuna, with Albacore, Skipjack, Tongol, and Yellowfin being popular in U.S. markets.
I created an ArcView shapefile using a subset of this atlas data. Click here to download the Total Tons of Tuna (by species) Caught in the 1990s Shapefile (45 KB). Then, I created the following images from that data:
Total Albacore Tuna Caught in the 1990s
Total Albacore, Bigeye, N. Bluefin, S. Bluefin, Skipjack, and Yellowfin Tuna Caught in the 1990s