By Atuna
Estimated data of tuna catches by purse-seine and pole and line published by the Inter American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) confirm lower catches in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) in most of 2010. According to a recently released report, the estimated catches went down to 440.500 tons from January to the end of November, while during the same period in 2009, catches reached 514.200 tons. The data confirms the strong decline of skipjack catch, which decreased by more than a quarter, from 217.800 tons to 157.100 tons.
According to this data, there was a slight recovery later in the year after very low skipjack landings that were reported from January to May. Levels fell back 32 percent over these first five months, with particular low landings in January (-/- 56 percent) and May (-/- 43 percent). This downtrend resulted in stronger skipjack price globally, as canneries in
Lower catches of skipjack in the EPO could not yet be explained by IATTC. The main problem exists in the scientific obstacles in assessing the skipjack stock. Due to skipjack’s high and variable productivity it is difficult to detect the effect of fishing on the population with standard fisheries data and stock assessment methods. According to scientists, there is no sufficient age-frequency and tagging data of the skipjack stock. Nevertheless, IATTC detected some trends like purse-seine catch being around the upper reference level since 2003 and a declining average weight and size of skipjack since 2000.
According to the data, the capture of yellowfin tuna was relatively stable on a level of 222.800 tons (226.900 tons in 2009). Bigeye catch fell back 15 percent to an estimated catch of 46.600 tons. Relatively strong downfall was registered in the bonito catch (down 63 percent to 2.800 tons) while bluefin catch did remarkably well with tripling its catch to 7.600 tons.
Tuna catches EPO, in metric tons
