A study led by scientists from Texas and Maryland has found that the bluefin tuna anglers are catching off the East Coast include a lot of trans-Atlantic travelers - tuna spawned in the Mediterranean Sea. 

It's a finding that should prompt fishery managers to rethink how they're going about rebuilding the badly diminished population of this sought-after fish, says David Secor, researcher at the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons.  You can read a press release summarizing the study here.

Until now, many experts had believed that the tuna in the western Atlantic and in the Medterranean were two separate stocks.  But after studying the chemical makeup of the ears of fish caught off the US and Canadian coast and in the Mediterranean, the researchers determined that young tuna from Europe evidently were swimming across the ocean to mingle with their western relatives before returning to the Med to spawn.

The study appears in the current issue of the journal Science (abstract only, subscription required). The findings ought to give pause to fishermen who love the thrill of catching bluefins off Ocean City.  It seems we've had an inflated notion of how healthy the stock is along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, since it's been spiced up with European immigrants. 

"Those fish we're catching depend on the health of the Mediterranean population," Secor said.  Recently that population has been declining because of overfishing, he pointed out, adding, "That doesn't create a very good outlook."

For more on bluefin tuna and how their catch is regulated now, go here.