Press Release For Immediate Release – 18 October 2013 Contact: Sylvia.spalding@noaa.gov or (808) 522-5341 or 383-1069
US Should Refuse Any Quota Reduction for Hawaii Bigeye Tuna, Fishery Council Says HONOLULU (18 October 2013) The United States should not accept a reduction in the bigeye tuna limit for the Hawaii longline fishery, according to the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which concluded a four-day meeting in Honolulu today. Authorized by Congress to manage fisheries seaward of State and Territorial waters in the US Pacific Islands, the Council noted that the Hawaii longline fishery operates several thousand miles from the equatorial Pacific, where nearly 90 percent of bigeye tuna fishing mortality occurs.
The tuna quotas for the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) are internationally formulated by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), of which the United States is a member. The WCPFC is scheduled to meet Dec. 2 to 6, 2013, in Cairns, Australia. The priority agenda item is the management of tropical tunas, particularly bigeye tuna, which has been experiencing overfishing for about two decades. A proposal developed by a WCPFC working group that met in August in Japan would have the Hawaii longline fishery quota for bigeye reduced by 45 percent. If approved and implemented, the measure could shut the Hawaii bigeye tuna fishery about July each year.
The Council noted that the WCPFC’s previous conservation and management measures (CMMs) have failed to prevent increases in fleet capacity, fishing effort and total catch of tropical tunas. Further, bigeye overfishing continues in the WCPO primarily from its incidental catch by the purse-seine fishery when fishing on fish aggregation devices (FADs). The Council noted its continued concern about the effectiveness of the proposed purse-seine measures to achieve effective reductions of juvenile bigeye fishing mortality. It said that the WCPFC’s treatment of purse seine and longline fisheries is inequitable and scientifically unjustified. The WCPFC has imposed bigeye quotas on the longline fishery and fishing day limits for the purse-seine fishery. The purse-seine take of bigeye tuna has increased under this approach.
The Council directed its staff to work with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to develop spatial management approaches for bigeye tuna for incorporation in future US CMM proposals to the WCPFC. The Council also recommended that the following research and education/outreach activities related to tuna management be undertaken:
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The University of Hawaii’s Pelagic Fisheries Research Program complete and publish its bigeye otolith stable isotope study, which helps to resolve spatial distribution and connectivity of Hawaii yellowfin tuna, and expand the bigeye study to include sampling of otoliths from the northwestern Pacific and other locations not yet sampled.
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Convene a workshop to design a collaborative study of bigeye movements in the Pacific and the data requirements to support such a study.
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Collect the reports of various Hawaii tuna tagging projects and summarize and disseminate the findings in an accessible format to the public.
The Council also made the following recommendations, among others:
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That a shark fishery resource assessment in the Mariana Archipelago be conducted to include the Council, NMFS and Mariana fishermen. Council members from Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) said shark depredation has escalated. Sharks are attacking artificial lures and are following vessels and waiting for fish to be hooked.
______________________________________________________________________________ A Council authorized by the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 1164 Bishop Street, Suite 1400, Honolulu, Hawaii • Tel (808) 522-8220 • Fax (808) 522-8226 • www.wpcouncil.org