*THE HULL TRUTH is the world's largest FREE network for the discussion of Boating & Fishing. Whether you're researching a new boat, or are a seasoned Captain, you'll find The Hull Truth Boating & Fishing Message Forum contains a wealth of information from Boaters and Sportfishermen around the world.
Welcome to the updated THT!
If you are having trouble signing in, please email feedback@thehulltruth.com with your username and we will help you. We thank you for your patience as we help you access the new site!
By Douglas A. Moser , Staff writer
Gloucester Daily Times
View as a multiple pages
Bluefin tuna fishing in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea should be banned for three to five years because overfishing there is affecting tuna stocks in American waters, according to the federal government.
Fishermen who harvest bluefin in the northwest Atlantic, including those from the United States, Canada and Japan, regularly adhere to quotas. In fact, the United States does not catch enough bluefin tuna to meet its quota, and allows other countries to make up the difference.
In contrast, European vessels routinely disregard quotas, and the rampant overfishing is threatening to cause a collapse of the stock, officials said.
William Hogarth, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, plans to ask the international body that regulates tuna fishing for a three- to five-year moratorium in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea next month.
"Basically that's where the situation is worse in terms of overfishing," said Monica Allen, a spokeswoman for Hogarth. "The concerns are that we've tried, but failed, to get the reasonable fishing needed to help rebuild the stock."
Hogarth, representing the United States, chairs the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the body that studies a number of tuna species and issues recommendations to its members regarding the health, strength and migration of the stocks.
The group is made of 44 countries and the European Union, according to its Web site. Many EU countries are also members independently.
Allen said studies are beginning to show the western stock, which spawns in the Gulf of Mexico, and the much larger eastern stock, which spawns in the Mediterranean, mingle much more than previously thought.
"The problem will affect the western stock because some of what our fishermen are fishing is coming from the eastern stock," she said. "If that one is overfished, it will have an echo effect off our coast. It'll have a bigger effect than vice versa because the Mediterranean stock is about 10 times the size of ours.
In a letter posted on NOAA's Web page, Hogarth said European quotas, which had been set at 32,000 metric tons per year, are consistently disregarded, and that European vessels have landed more than 18,000 metric tons per year over their quota.
This year, their quota is 29,900 metric tons.
"With such unrestrained fishing, it is no surprise that ICCAT's scientists are warning of stock collapse," Hogarth wrote.
Unless eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean tuna fishermen adhere to their quotas, western tuna stocks could be adversely affected.
"There is a very real concern that the long-term poor management in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery is negatively impacting the much smaller western Atlantic bluefin tuna stock due to mixing of the stocks," he said.
According to the European Union's fisheries Web page, the union adopted a 15-year plan for "the gradual recovery of bluefin tuna and, also importantly, for the sustainability of the fisheries, the fleets and the coastal communities involved." The plan includes a reduction in the allowable catch from 32,000 metric tons to 25,500 metric tons by 2010.
American tuna fishermen, however, believe the EU is unable or unwilling to enforce its quotas.
"I worked over there for 11 years and there's no government oversight over what is being caught in Italy," said Mark Godfried, a former fisherman and current adviser to fishing businesses. "It's a wide open fishery."
He said while he supports the idea of a moratorium, a better route would be to establish and enforce a workable quota system in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea.
"You can pass all the moratoriums you want, but do you think (Libyan ruler Moammar) Gadhafi is going to stop fishing?" Godfried said. "How is Hogarth going to enforce that?"
A recent study released by the University of New Hampshire, confirming fishermen's anecdotal observations, shows that the tuna caught over the last few years tend to be thinner and of lesser quality.
The study suggests several reasons, which many tuna fishermen agree with, that could be responsible for or could be combining to create the decline, including tougher competition from trawlers and from marine predators foraging for food in New England waters, changes in spawning grounds because of ocean temperature and current changes, and overfishing in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea that is sending some bluefin west.
Bluefin caught from September through the end of this month are supposed to be the fattest and most valuable, but the UNH study concluded, using catch data from the Yankee Fishermen's Cooperative in Seabrook, N.H., that the likelihood of catching a top-grade bluefin in September slid from 60 percent in 1991 to about 20 percent in 2004.
However, the probability of catching one of lesser quality, meaning it has less fat and oil, in September jumped from 15 percent in 1991 to almost 80 percent in 2004.
The minimum length of a bluefin tuna commercially landed is 73 inches, which takes a bluefin about seven years to achieve.
Recent studies have also found more tuna are migrating west across the Atlantic than previously thought. The UNH study noted that tuna swimming such long distances are bound to be leaner when caught.
The UNH study's authors found "highly significant declines in the fat and oil content and shape of northern bluefin tuna landed in the Gulf of Maine over the last 14 years, corroborating the observations of fishermen. Northern bluefin tuna arrive in leaner condition and are not increasing their fat stores on the feeding grounds as they did in the early 1990s. This was particularly true in late summer and early fall, when fish usually fatten and become more rotund."
Godfried and other fishermen also believe the introduction of midwater trawlers, large vessels that pull cone-shaped nets behind them to catch herring, mackerel and other pelagics, that year is at least part of the reason bluefin tuna have declined. Tuna, along with many other sea creatures, feed off herring and mackerel.
Tuna fishermen have been pushing for midwater trawling bans for years and recently succeeded in obtaining a summertime ban in a parcel of ocean stretching from Cape Cod Bay to the Canadian border known as Area 1A. Canada has an outright ban on midwater trawling, but does allow one research trawler.
Bluefin migration patterns may have shifted as well with the emergence of a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that tuna use for spawning. It is suspected that silt from the Mississippi River is responsible for filling in the area south of New Orleans and lowering oxygen levels, rendering it unable to support the life it previously could.
Spawning in different locations would likely change historic data and patterns, the UNH study noted.
William Hogarth is just going to get laughed at by the euro fishermen. I don't even need to read anything past the "he will ask.." This will change nothing.
Starrfish, I think we called this about 10 years ago right? Shoulda caught all we could when we could because it wouldn't have made a bit of difference in what is happening right now. You should check out some off the youtube videos showing the french boats ILLEGALLY driftnetting bluefin of all sizes. Yeah they have got a good handle on things over there, I got faith....yeah right!
godfried is full of sh!t and a huge part of the problem, guys-not unlike most of the "commissioners" on ICCAT, aka, The International Commission to Catch All Tunas. As he whines about the Itals and other eurotrash slamming small fish, he, ruais, leaonard, et al were all profiting from it! Big surprise there, huh? How about the Mexican fish farms, guys? Days, Starr, you're both right-the foxes have been guarding the henhouse for years and now, them thar chickens are coming home to roost. Molly sounded the warning bell over a decade ago, but few listened, never mind did a goddam thing about it. It's a goddam shame and now, the guys who had the $$$ and bully pulpit available to them are whining about the way things played out. It's phukking sickening...
Come on, CMP. You know as well as I do that Rich has been fighting to get the East/Med to comply as long as anyone. Molly has helped prove that fish cross the line, but she was certainly not the first one to fight that fight. A lot of people have tried to fight that fight. Not to mention fighting very hard years back to save what fishery we have had here over the last decade. There was and continues to be internal issues within the fishery that take time and resources, but the main fight has been at ICCAT.
The reason those ba$tards on the other side of the ocean are able to do what they do is because they governments are not only allowing it to happen, but often subsidizing their efforts and stopping any action against them for breaking the rules. The reason we cannot change anything is because high level people in our government dont have the will to really do what is necessary. Nothing short of high level sanctions, or something of that nature, will ever get those nations to even pay attention to what we say. You may not like some of the guys you mention, but they are not the reason things are as they are now. I blame our managers for blowing it all with the 2 stock theory, and our govt for not going after those nations overfishing.
You may not like Rich in terms of the seiner issue, but he has been one of the only guys fighting at ICCAT to save what quota we have in recent years. And he has been one of the only guys from any parts of the fishery here to be fighting the nations overfishing. And at the peak of the MW problems, he was barely even getting paid and he was still doing it.
I agree that a moratorium will never happen over there and this is not going to go far at all.
But I do not see the need for trying to blame what is happening over there on anyone in the US fishery.
ALso, good to see an article that explains all the aspects, unlike the crap that was coming out over the summer that made no mention of dogs or MW boats.
Kinda funny, G dubya is down in MD. "saving stripers" while Rome is burning (thanks Jim) and instead of protecting anything he pulls a publicity stunt.
If Dubya really had OUR resources best interests in mind, he'd tell the E Atlantic BFT countries to comply or face embargoes.
Right after he made an exec order to protect our forage.
Fisheries is not the hill any pol wants to die on-it's that simple and I've had several of them tell me this. How are you gonna explain to some effete dilletante in San Diego or Dallas that the reason he can't have his Loire Valley Chardonnay or his extra virgin olive oil is that the eurotrash are killing too many baby bluefin tuna and expect to be re-elected? That said, the failure of out fisheries management team from the top down is pretty damm pathetic. BTW, Chris, there were/are alot of things going on behind the scenes at ecta that led many of us to walk away and much of it had nothing to do with the net boats...
Like CMP and others have said, it’s highly unlikely there will be any effectual action taken to curb the blatant over fishing in the Med unless our politicians stop being spineless.
One of the issues that is particularly disturbing concerning the over fishing in the Med is the targeting of pre-spawn juvenile fish as well as the targeting of actively spawning fish. Even worse, it seems we have a similar issue going on here in our very own waters.
While it’s great that Hogarth is making a stand concerning the Med, I think he needs to address an issue here at home first, specifically the incidental bycatch/dead discards of spawning BFT by the pelagic Yellowfin Tuna longline fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.
Essentially there is a “breeding hotspot” for bluefin tuna located in the Gulf of Mexico. In this breeding hotspot, the pelagic longline fishery targets yellowfin tuna during the BFT spawning season resulting in the bycatch and dead discard of spawning BFT. This fishery (and it’s resulting bycatch) is being conducted in the very heart of the Western Atlantic Bluefin Tuna spawning grounds at a time when the bluefin are actively spawning.
Hogarth needs to deal with this issue here at home. This is a far more manageable situation than the one in the med and it’s one that won’t take sanctions to remedy...
Does anyone have any current figures on the amount of BFT being caught as bycatch by the pelagic longline fleet in the Gulf of Mexico? The only figures I’ve been able to find date back to 1999.
I have some info. What I think is interesting, is looking at some of the older calculations based on log books from longliners (that may have under reported?!) when compared to observer based trips during the same period and re-interpolated for the total of number of hooks/trips made. For instance in 1999 alone, log books reported 220 individuals and recent recalculations indicate 1602 individuals may have actually been discarded. Not all 1602 were Gulf discards though.
NMFS would not release recent data at the last AP meeting un till they have worked it up. The problem in the Gulf may be bigger than released in the past. And as Block has reported could be a factor in the continued decline of the Western Atlantic Bluefin.
The root cause is that the Japanese demand is too high. Remove the demand via legislation ($$s), and the fish stocks will recover. They are decimating large portions of the populations at the Straits of Gibraltar (among other such funnel points) on the breeding migrations - not to eat it in europe, but to sell to the Japanese. Yes, the fish of the Eastern and Western mix- this is proven fact now, though I have suspected it for 10 years. The same is true of the commercial catches in the US. Most of it is sold to the Japanese.If the Japanese do not stop eating the toro, the BFT will get killed off to the point that it will not be worth it to fish for them commercially anyway. The increasingly rare recreational catches are noise compared to the lucrative commercial killings that occur by, and on behalf of, the Japanese at the migratory funnel points.
Still many fish do not make it Japan, it's becomes a major source of protein for neighboring poor MED. countries. Controlling catches and protecting spawning areas are the building blocks to the recovery of Bluefin tuna. There is talk about a spawning sanctuary in the western Med., we should do the same.
If the Japanese demand is legally removed from the equation via self legislated limitations/elimination on gross national consumption of BFT, the BFT will recover. If not, the $20-30/lb that fishermen can make off these fish will cause the inevitable collapse of that fishery no matter what. Remove the $10,000/fish prize, and the fishing will relax. People are too greedy...you remove the $$s, and the incentives -> behavior change. Restricting fisherman on a country by country basis will result in the boats getting re-titled in other nation's that don't comply to the regulations. Think of how long its taken to limit (not even stop) whaling? BFT not being mammals, don't make good poster victims.Ecco-friendly restaurants that take BFT off the menu are not going to solve this problem, though it does raise public awareness which is good. If fishermen can't sell or can only get a $1.50/lb, for BFT, the commercial guys won't waste the time or effort.Look at how the Striped bass have come back since it was outlawed to be fished and sold commercially in NJ, NY, etc. Remove the monetary incentives/demand, and the pressure is relieved. I know that in the case of stripers that the Menhaden legislation helped the stripers too. This is a very localized, regional example of how demand effects pressure on a fishery.If you think poor "europeans" are eating a significant %age of the toro BFT, your math is faulty. Yes, some do get eaten in europe, but poor or greedy fishermen will not willingly pass up a $30/lb Japanese driven payday .Most consumers won't pay that for fish in the US or Europe. Nothing that costs $30/lb is part of my typical diet.The recreational limits serve to raise awareness, but do almost NOTHING to really solve the problem.
Feds seek eastern Atlantic bluefin moratorium 
