Fisheries Official Concerned About Yellowfin Pacific Tuna Stocksff

Fisheries officials are increasingly expressing concern about possible over-fishing of yellowfin tuna in the Pacific.

Even as recently as two years ago, Forum Fisheries Agency officials identified only big-eye tuna as being in danger of over-fishing. Now, they are including yellowfin in the equation.

“Big-eye and yellowfin are at full catch capacity now,” said FFA consultant Tony Lewis, who is visiting the Marshall Islands, The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and Palau to assist in developing national fisheries activities that link to the new tuna management convention. This went into effect late last month to regulate fishing on the high seas. Action needs to be taken to reduce the catches of these two species of tuna, he said.

As the new high seas tuna convention comes into play, it’s critical for each of the island members to develop appropriate plans of action that support the new management regime, Lewis said.

The United Nations’ Global Environment Fund is providing $8.5 million over five years for fisheries management in support of the tuna convention. Lewis’ three-country visit is to assist each of the islands to develop plans to tap into the UN funding.

The UN funding will be used by island nations to develop programs for observers to be placed on board fishing boats, establish patrols of the high seas (outside the 200 mile exclusive economic zone), to assist with stock assessments and other conservation projects.

But as the mechanics of the new high seas tuna management convention slowly swing into gear, island fishing nations already have begun moves to cut back tuna fishing in the region.

New regulations
An arrangement known as the Nauru Agreement, which involves a group of FFA island members, has instituted new fishing regulations for foreign fleets with the aim of reducing fishing by 10 percent, Lewis said. He added, however, this move may in fact only serve to cap fishing at its current level.

In the early 1970’s, the catch of tuna was estimated at 500 tons annually. In 2002, it skyrocketed to two million tons, according to FFA.

The volume caught by purse seiners has seen the biggest increase — from just 100,000 tons in 1972 to 1.2 million tons in 2002, while tuna caught by longliners has remained virtually the same over 30 years at 200,000 tons annually. The new tuna commission, that is headquartered in Pohnpei, FSM and is the regulatory arm of the tuna management convention, faces the major challenge of getting control of fishing on the high seas — outside the 200-mile EEZs that surround Pacific island countries.

Right now, about 75 percent of the purse seiner catch is within the EEZs, but for longliners, half of their catch is from the high seas, Lewis said. “A lot of longliners never fish inside the EEZs,” he said. “They contribute significantly to the big-eye problem.” He noted that, at present, there is little control over the longline catches on the high seas, and the new tuna commission has “a large role” to play in this area. Although purse seiners target skipjack — a tuna variety that Lewis says is not anywhere near a danger level of fishing — they also catch yellowfin because the schools of both species congregate, increasing pressure on this resource.

This is why island nations and fisheries experts are expressing increasing concern over both the sophistication of the new generation of purse seiners — largely being built in Taiwan — and the size of the nets being employed, Lewis said.

“Purse seiners have greatly increased in numbers and efficiency,” he said. Bigger nets, sophisticated scanners, sonar-equipped fish aggregation devices, helicopters and other equipment is being used to locate and catch tuna in the region.

Red flags
One reason that the arrival of the Spanish fleet in the Pacific has raised red flags around the region (Spain has an agreement with Kiribati) is that its nets are much larger and increasing fish catches by 50 percent. The Spanish purse seiners are using nets that are about 1.8-miles long and 975-feet deep, Lewis said. “They can catch 45 tons of fish in one set, compared to 30 tons on average from other purse seiners,” he said.

The FFA countries already have in place, a scheme to limit purse seiner fishing by restricting the vessels to a certain number off fishing days per year.

The definition of a ‘fishing day’ is scaled up or down depending on the size of the vessel in an effort to exert more control over fishing. For the new generation of Taiwanese seiners, which are larger at about 1,500 ton vessels, one actual fishing day is calculated as two days because of the size. For smaller boats, each actual fishing day may only count as half a day toward their total fishing days limit, Lewis said.

But Japan and U.S. fishing officials want the limits to be based on the fleet, not fishing days, Lewis said. This is being discussed at a major regional fisheries meeting later this month.

The Pohnpei-based tuna commission aims to bring control and management to high seas fishing. “The tuna commission will fill the (high seas) gap,” Lewis said. “But realistically it will take a couple of years for it to be fully effective.”