Environmentalists Praise Scrapping Taiwanese Tuna Longliners ff

The Taiwanese government has just announced that it will dismantle 120 tuna longline vessels, about 5% of its fleet. Environmentalists are praising this reduction in the largest longline fleet in the Pacific as a boon for sea turtles which are injured and killed by longlines in large numbers in the Pacific Ocean.

”Longline fishing is costly, inefficient and damages tuna fisheries. There are just far too many boats chasing too few fish and killing far too many sea turtles,” said Robert Ovetz the Save the Leatherback Campaign Coordinator.

It is estimated that more than 1.4 billion longline hooks are set in the world's oceans every year. Longline fishing is a technique in which thousands of baited hooks are strung on monofilament lines stretching as far as 60 miles. Taiwan has the largest number of longline vessels in the Pacific with an estimated 2,113 vessels in the Pacific alone. Japan, which has the second largest longline fleet in the Pacific, has also followed suit with reductions in recent years. This summer, The U.S. even banned fishing for Pacific bigeye tuna for the rest of the year because of overfishing.

”Fewer hooks means fewer turtles, sharks, seabirds, billfish and marine mammals will be killed. This is urgently needed if we are to turn around the descent of sea turtles and albatross seabirds into extinction,” Ovetz added.

Recent scientific reports warn that the 100 million year old Pacific leatherback sea turtles, whose female nesting population has collapsed by 95% since 1980, could go extinct in the next decade. Nineteen species of seabirds, including the black-footed albatross, are also threatened with extinction by longlines. An estimated 4.4 million turtles, sharks, seabirds, billfish and marine mammals are injured and killed every year by longlines in the Pacific. Other reports have pinpointed longline fishing as causing an 87-99% decline in large pelagic fish in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific.

1,007 international scientists from 97 countries are urging the UN to implement a moratorium on longline fishing in the Pacific Ocean to prevent the extinction of the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle. The scientists are joined by 281 non-governmental organizations from 62 countries. The list of signers includes famed primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, biologist E.O. Wilson, oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, and former U.S. astronaut Bernard Harris, Jr. M.D.

”While a good first step, a moratorium is needed in order to have time to put into place further reductions in fishing capacity and other conservation measures, such as time and area closures, reductions in subsidies, 100% observer coverage and controls on illegal fishing,” Ovetz said.

Source: Sea Turtle Restoration Project Press Release