Biggest Harvest To Date For Bluefin Industryff

In Australia this year’s bluefin tuna harvest is the biggest to date, with the last Port Lincoln company finishing its harvest Monday.

Tuna Boat Owners Association chair Brian Jeffriess said while the final figures had not yet been calculated, it was the highest tonnage ever produced. “My ‘guesstimate’ would be about 9000 tons,” he said.

Last year’s harvest was 8300 tons.

Mr. Jeffriess attributed the good season to good grow-out conditions, with the warmer summer weather lasting longer than usual. He said the fish also grew out for longer, going the full term to about four or five months instead of two or three months. The quality was also good this year. “Everyone is pleased,” Mr. Jeffriess said.

Future harvests would be further improved by research currently under way.

”There is a lot of research going on which will generally improve the quality,” he said. “A lot of the farmers are doing their own on-farm research.”

DI Fishing was the final company to finish their tuna harvest Monday, with some large fish being processed. Chief executive officer Stephan Schilling said the company had experienced a very good farming season, but the difficult market circumstances had negated much of this good work. He said DI had produced its best quality since it had started in the industry.

”It’s a credit to all the staff,” he said. “This year the whole operation ran smoothly, from catching through to the harvesting stage.  However we will need to continue looking at improving all aspects of our operations to remain very competitive on the global market.”

Mr. Schilling said the biggest fish this year weighed 115 kilograms, with the majority of the catch in the 30 to 40kg range as gilled and gutted tuna.