Circle hooks will be required in long-line tuna fisheries by mid-year to reduce the number of sea turtle "by catch", or that which is discarded at sea, the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) said Monday.
A Fisheries Administrative Order will be issued by February or March requiring long-line tuna fishing fleets to use the circle hooks and by April or May, all long-line tuna fishers will be required to use the new fishing hook, BFAR Director Malcolm Sarmiento told Malaya Business Insight at the sidelines of the Coral Triangle Initiative Business Summit that opened in Makati Monday.
The Philippines endorsed the use of circle hooks yesterday, the final day of the summit, Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap said in a press briefing. Earlier, in a keynote speech opening the summit, President Aroyo said the Philippines will "streamline" the use of circle hooks in tuna fisheries.
Without compromising fishing efficiency, the new circle hooks (which actually resemble a semi-circle) are much less likely to be swallowed by marine turtles than traditional J-shaped hooks which cause suffocation or internal bleeding when swallowed. Thousands of endangered marine turtles were saved last year in the Coral Triangle region, which includes the Philippines, with the implementation of the Circle Hook and Turtle Recovery Program, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The WWF by catch reduction program saw more than 40,000 new circle hooks distributed in the Coral Triangle over the past year, which equips roughly 40 long-line vessels for an entire year. This translates into thousands of sea turtles saved from hooking during the fishing season.
The WWF says nearly half the world’s recorded fish catch is unused, wasted or not accounted for. In the Coral Triangle where fishing is highly unregulated, this translates into many millions of kilograms of marine life wasted.
Each year at least 38 million tons of fish, or at least 40 percent of what is taken by fishing, is unmanaged or unused and considered by catch.
The at-sea by catch of marine turtles is one of the greatest threats to the highly endangered animals in the Coral Triangle, which spans the seas of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The region is home to six of the world’s seven known species of marine turtles, including three listed as "endangered" and another three as "critically endangered".
In redefining by catch as anything fishers take from our oceans that is "unused or unmanaged," estimates go well beyond previous global estimates which focus mainly on catch which is thrown away and vary from seven to 27 million tons a year.
Between 1950 and 2006, about 27.5 million tons of tuna were caught by fishing fleets operating in Coral Triangle countries. Small tuna species such as frigate, bullet and the bonito also provide sustenance to millions of people and also serve as food for the larger tuna.
According to Jose Ingles, Tuna Strategy Leader of the WWF Coral Triangle Network Initiative, a single tuna long line has up to 3,000 hooks. "On a daily basis, hundreds of millions of hooks are lowered each year worldwide, he told Malaya."Canneries can help a lot by requiring suppliers to use circle hooks."
