Tuna Recovery and Equitable Quota
at Issue

by Fishermen’s Voice Staff

Cape St. Mary, Digby County, Nova Scotia, 1971. Cape St. Mary has long had a blue fin tuna tournament during tuna season. Red Boutilier photo

The rapid comeback of bluefin tuna (BFT) in the Eastern Atlantic is becoming part of the foundation for changes to the quota for fishermen in the Western Atlantic. Spain's two-day harvest that met its annual quota is being seen by fishermen in the U.S. as evidence that the BFT stock there is recovering.

The recent acceptance of the Large Pelagics Research Center's (LPRC) peer-reviewed scientific research, documenting the mixing of the East and West Atlantic BFT stocks, is seen by the U.S. BFT fishing industry as supporting evidence for claims that the West, too, should benefit from the quota increases that are expected to be made in the Eastern Atlantic this fall, said American Bluefin Tuna Association Executive Director Rich Ruais.

Ruais praised Dr. Molly Lutcavage, Director of the LPRC, for that group's production of new information on bluefin tuna spawning, biological life history and migration. He described the LPRC as the most prolific research group, doing very high-quality marine science on exceptionally small budgets. “They are operating on the cutting edge and bringing a new understanding of large pelagics”, said Ruais. (To read a June 9, 2014 LPRC document- “Comparative Assessment of the Reproductive Status of Female Atlantic Bluefin Tuna from the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea” http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0098233 – See link at fishermensvoice.com)

Ruais referred to a French scientific paper by Jean-Marc Fromentin which claimed the Mediterranean Sea bluefin stock biomass could be restored to levels that conservatively would allow catches there to be raised to 26,000 metric tons (MT), about double the current level, by 2022. In light of the established levels of mixing of these East and West fish, Western Atlantic interests – which include the United States, Canada, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Mexico, Bermuda (United Kingdom) and Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France) – believe the Western Atlantic should benefit from what is being described as inevitable quota gains in the Eastern Atlantic.

Ruais said, “The West has a right to benefit when tuna fishing is good in the East, since the entire North Atlantic is linked, cannot be separated and can only be managed as a single stock or metapopulations.” He said U.S. tuna fishermen have said since 1981 that the East and West are interconnected and cannot be managed as separate stocks.

The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has for years resisted acceptance of the one-stock science. This position is rooted in the failure of the Eastern Atlantic countries to have any effective bluefin tuna management policy in place. Spain, North Africa, France and the Mediterranean countries pretty much ignored the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

In response to the Eastern evasion of management efforts, NMFS drove U.S. BFT quota down as low as possible to compensate for the lack of effective management by the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean countries. The U.S. and environmental groups here and internationally pressured the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean rim countries to begin a conservation effort. But an infrastructure for this conservation effort was needed. By 2007 a reasonable infrastructure was in place and ICCAT began to be taken seriously in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea.

There will be two meetings this fall, one in September and another in November. The first is the ICCAT BFT working group. This group’s findings will be submitted, at the second meeting, to the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS).

From there, SCRS will forward advice to the politicians involved at a meeting in Genoa, Italy.

Ruais said he thinks the 26,000MT should be lower and that the West should be granted some portion of that reduced quota. If, for example, the 26,000MT were lowered by 3,000MT, the West might receive an additional 1,000MT based in part on the science that supports there being mixing of populations in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean.