Ruais points to the fisheries of the Mediterranean, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus, Morocco, Tunisia, Malta and Libya. “Unregulated and catching whatever they can,” Ruais said. “That’s hurting us in two ways. 1) They’re catching an unprecedented amount of the total quota. And 2) They’re putting illegal quantities of tuna into farms. Now that these fisheries know how to prepare the fish properly for the Japanese market, they have a year-round farmed supply. That’s a major disadvantage for U.S. fishermen.”

The Big Prize
   Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) has long been a prize catch by commercial as well as sport fishermen. One of the aspects of tuna that makes the fish so unique, aside from speed, size and market value, is a specially adapted internal self-heating system. This ability allows tuna to survive in a wide range of ocean temperatures (from Canada to Brazil in the western Atlantic and from Norway to northern Africa in the eastern Atlantic). Tuna can literally go anywhere that there’s food. The downside of this unique ability is that management has become an international nightmare. To solve the problem and protect the tuna stocks, ICCAT was created in 1966 as the International managing body.
   Currently ICCAT has 34 member countries. Its regulations are binding, but it is up to the member countries to enforce compliance, which, according to many within the U.S. fishery, is a big part of the problem. If a member does not comply, ICCAT may enact quota reductions, or as a last resort, authorize trade restrictive measures, a tool they seem reluctant to use.
   Through what many fishermen consider to be a political blunder in 1981, the U.S. was given less than three percent of the total Atlantic bluefin quota. In 1983, the U.S. was able to gain a bigger share of the quota (2,660 mt), but as Ruais points out, “We’re now stuck with a greatly reduced share of the total production because the quotas or limits placed on the eastern Atlantic fisheries are not enforced.”
   Much of the politics over tuna quota was based on the scientific belief that Atlantic bluefin tuna were comprised of two completely separate stocks, one large group on the eastern side of the Atlantic and a smaller group on the western side. Because of this split management boundary at 45 degrees W. longitude, the two stocks have been managed separately since 1982.
   For years, Godfried and others have claimed that there was really only one stock, because of the obvious highly migratory nature and mixing of fish between east and west. Ruais says that it turns out that Godfried and others were right. “We now have proof that there’s a lot of mixing,” Ruais said.
   In the 1960’s and 70’s, conventional tag returns placed by recreational and commercial fishermen showed what has become known as “bluefin highways” stretching across the Atlantic between the Bahamas and Norway, and from Long Island, N.Y. and the Bay of Fundy across to France and Spain. Now, through collaborative tagging research projects, including a major effort coordinated by Stanford University, Monterey Bay Aquarium and the National Marine Fisheries Service, as well as a program at the University of New Hampshire (under Dr. Molly Lutcavage), scientists have discovered that there is approximately a 30 percent stock mix occurring at the two confirmed breeding grounds (the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea).
   The new information on mixing throws a wrench in the logic of a two-stock program and the concept of a dividing line at 45 degrees W. longitude. But, it also suggests that as the western stock is beginning to rebuild through conservation efforts, more and more “western spawned” tunas may be going to fishing grounds in the eastern Atlantic. Once there — they are being fished heavily by the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean fishery, wasting the sacrifices made by U.S. fishermen. That image frustrates the heck out of guys like Ruais and Godfried, because not only is the current yearly quota for the eastern Atlantic more than 10 times greater than those of the western Atlantic, “they have several member nations that are known to be under-reporting catches, under-reporting sales, and continuing to catch incredible numbers of illegal baby bluefins,” Ruais said.

A transshipment of tuna from the Belize flagged pirate fishing vessel Jacky No. 11 to the refrigerated ship Hatsukari; visual evidence of unregulated and unreported fishing operations going on despite the stringent regulations set up by ICCAT. Japan has reduced the problem with improved controls on what comes into Japan, the world’s largest fish market.

Doing The Political Dance
   In 2001, Maine U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, along with Senator Kerry, urged the U.S. Senate to hold ICCAT’s member nations accountable. Snowe and Kerry said that because of the repeated violations of ICCAT member nations, the U.S. should make full use of all appropriate diplomatic mechanisms, relevant international laws and agreements, and other appropriate mechanisms to ensure compliance.
   Maine U.S. Senator Susan Collins has also been following the plight of the tuna fishery and the short-comings of ICCAT. “I am concerned about the effects of foreign tuna fishing on our fishermen,” Collins said. “I have strongly supported bluefin research, and requested that $850,000 go to bluefin data collection for this fiscal year alone. The data collected in bluefin tagging studies is already revealing new information on tuna behavior. More information will only strengthen our hand before ICCAT.”
   But Godfried is unimpressed with the rhetoric of the elected officials. “We never know what trade-off our government will do that will negatively affect the American working man,” Godfried said. “All in some effort to accomplish some special government need. I’ll tell you, I’m not very optimistic about the future of any American fishermen.”
   “It’s the pen-tuna projects that are going to eliminate our wild fishery,” Godfried predicts. And, the number of pen operations is growing fast. Godfried believes that foreign-farmed tuna could be the nails in the coffin’s lid for the U.S. tuna fishery.
   Godfried explained that the tuna farms are limited in the number of small fish that they can catch, “if they follow the regulations!” Godfried said. “And there’s discrepancies on a lot of what’s going on in the pen fishery, as to when they count them and the way in which they count them, and even in the size fish that they are putting in the pens.”
   Ruais says that the problem for U.S. fishermen is exacerbated by the fact that they have a very short season. “It starts in June with a very small production and gradually builds till September and October, and then it’s done with the U.S. tuna fishermen out of the marketplace. In the eastern Atlantic, they can continue year-round, especially with the pen operations.”
   The problem lies, he says, on the other side of the Atlantic, “Where all of the pop-up satellite and the tagging shows that our fish go.” “And the other side of the Atlantic is still refusing to conserve the resource,” Ruais said. “That’s a killer. Both in the market and in the fishery. We’re under heavy regulations and that’s primarily because the other side refuses to budge. The European community absolutely refuses to adopt any type of conservation ethic. They look upon the fishery as production, its a farming issue — how much can you get.”
   “We’ve taken the issues all the way to the highest levels of the Department of Commerce,” Ruais said. “We’ve told them it’s not fair. Our sacrifices are being wasted by the runaway production in the east. It’s hurting us. It’s hurting business. We could be a $30 million-per-year giant bluefin tuna fishery, like we once were. And, we’re not!”
   Ruais suggests that while the administration is focused on the “War on Terror,” they’re looking for allies wherever they can and they are not going to pay attention to a fish issue. “Fish becomes a chip to play,” Ruais said. “I’m convinced when our State Department is dealing with the European Community, and they’re pressuring the European Community to help us, the State Department can look the other way on fish, if that’s what it will take. Not that fish is the biggest chip in the game. There’s the steel industry and I’m sure there are other things to add into the mix, including foreign aid issues. I’m sure that the State Department has a wide array to choose from and we’re just one of the perks. Instead of asking the European Community to do what’s right in ICCAT, they should bring the catches down to 26,000 mt., and stop catching three-pound bluefin tuna. Instead, our State Department has been ignoring the issues and giving them fish.”
   Ruais said there are somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 General Category Bluefin Tuna permit-holders spread out along the U.S. eastern coast. “There are permit-holders from Carolina up to Maine, with the largest contingent in Massachusetts, Maine, New York and New Jersey,” Ruais said. “Plus another 12,000 to 15,000 angling fishing permits for tuna, and approximately 130 New England harpoon permits. All of whom are directly affected by what’s going on.”
   According to Ruais, that ICCAT acknowledges that Mediteranean farms are providing a “loophole/black-hole” which is distorting true catch/mortality figures and preventing reliable eastern Atlantic bluefin stock assessments.
   If it all sounds a lot more like politics than fishing to you, you’re right.  But, unfortunately for the U.S. tuna fishery, it appears that is what is impacting it most.
   The other threats, forage fish stocks in herring management, tuna pens, breed stock depletion and pirate fishing are ongoing. The political forces in the U.S. that leave the majority of the Atlantic tuna fishery virtually unregulated, while the U.S. is regulated, most concerns industry leaders.