tuna never forget their home waters. JUST After LIKE years SALMON, of roaming the BLUEFIN depths and breadth of the north Atlantic, the fish journey thousands of miles from farflung foraging grounds to their traditional spawning grounds, returning to breed where they first swam as tiny larvae a decade before. Only now, the fish come back as giants, weighing in at 600-plus pounds of solid muscle, making them one of the ocean's most powerful hunters. But this majestic hunter also represents one of the most hunted species of fish on the planet, incessantly pursued by man wherever they roam. With its size, power, speed and beauty, the bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is an awe-inspiring fish. But of all its remarkable attributes, it is the bluefin's fatty flesh that matters most at this' point in the species' history. Throughout their lives, bluefin swim a gauntlet of hooks and nets set out to capture them for the modern-day sushi and sashimi markets, where it's not unusual for buyers to pay $50 and up per pound for high-grade meat. With such a high price on the tuna's head, the relentless, unbridled commercial pursuit could spell the species' doom. This is not a new story. If anything, it's a seemingly never-ending one that will stop only when commercial fishermen catch the last wild fish. Or, preferably, when.., the world cause and effect of overfishing, deciding once and for all to reverse the course of recent history and restore ~ the mighty bluefin to its oncesustainable numbers. Two The Stocks bluefin tuna Collide is a long-lived -~..,-:--:. 1 -,-. fish, with a natural life span of about 4~r 25it'syears. unlikelyeven that so, a ~ ~_ \ single, lucky /~ ~ bluefin, -;.C~.' " ~~ l.i;~l ' '!I'J'n ~ ~'-_~ ~'>~' i swimming,j _III!IJ!I"I:'::O=:::::-=: -~.-,- :::-~~.." -~,-~ '!"NC\; l 011,. Ifit,; t,-:tj1t:. -----. r/i~/iiir.) " - ---..... ", _. II.'!, - :;.-~\, I,'IIIQ. - [. ~.~~ t:t/i ~ -... ~ ~, - r. \.. ~ '; "''':''.!('"~~c.... \.. "'..."
Twenty-seven years ago, in response to' reports of rapidly shrinking fisheries in the western Atlantic, ICCA T drew a line down the center of the ocean and established regulations for fishing in the west, where the United States, Canada and Japan share the quota. Years later, following similar reports in the east, the 45-nation commission began setting quotas for fishing fleets hailing out of Europe and North Africa that target bluefin in the eastern Atlantic. Although the east-west boundary line is arbitrary, it does recognize various scientific studies that confirm the existence of two distinct populations of bluefin in the Atlantic.- one originating in the Gulf of Mexico and the other breeding in the Mediterranean Sea. ICCA T scientists perform a regular assessment for each stock, with only a limited accounting for any mixing between the two. The most recent assessment, done earlier this year, shows the western bluefin population at just 18 percent of the 1970 level (when the stock began its steep decline). Even more troubling, the Gulf-based spawning stock dropped by more than 10 percent since 1998, the year ICCA T officially adopted a 20 year "Rebuilding Program." With each new assessment, fears that the western Atlantic's breeding population is near or below critical mass appear more and more justified. When a species hits "critical mass," it means that population numbers have become so minuscule that the stock can no longer replenish itself.
Often called tuna farms, these large pens act more like feedlots. After commercial fishermen catch the wild tuna, they transfer the fish to floating pens and fatten them up for harvesting. The eastern stock is not as depleted as the western, but it is declining at a frighteningly rapid rate, plummeting into a free fall about eight years ago. The eastern stock represents a vastly larger and more productive population, but it has sunk to about one-fifth of what ICCA T scientists recommend for a healthy population. With fishing largely unregulated, bluefin mortality is currently three times the sustainable level, or the level that ~ould halt the decline. To make matters worse, fishery managers set the quotas for the eastern Atlantic bluefin much too high, and even then commercial fishermen universally disregard the limits. For the 2007 tuna season, ICCA T scientists recommended a catch of no more than 15,000 tons to ward off an eventual stock collapse. The European Union and other eastern fishing nations threw out the recommendation and agreed to 29,500 tons. But when you factor in unreported and illegal catches, assessors estimate the true amount of tuna harvested at more than 60,000 tons four times the amount recommended by scientists! Meanwhile, the United States and other participating fleets in the western Atlantic fishery have pretty much stayed within their ICCA T-recommended quotas, which have fluctuated between 2,000 and 3,000 tons since 1982 - but with little to show for their compliance in terms of rebuilding the stock. Beginning in 2004, New England fishermen, long complacent about the status of western Atlantic bluefin tuna populations because they were always able to catch their limit, suddenly 74 OCTOBER 2008 WWW.MARLINMAG.COM
_. bluefin tuna fishing in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, even though bluefin management did not appear on the agenda. This move helped highlight the complete lack of effective controls in this fishery; however, to repair bluefin populations in the big picture would take a moratorium on all commercial fisheries throughout the Atlantic. Stocks of Atlantic bluefin have deteriorated to Spanish fishermen haul blucfin tuna out of fish traps and nets used in the Mediterranean Sea. couldn't find any big bluefin. While effort continued at a high rate, the catches declined sharply - a scenario that continues today. The United States landed only 10 percent of its quota in 2006 and 15 percent in 2007. Many U.S. fishermen are pointing the blame at the out-of-control fishing to the cast for the lack of fish in their home waters. East ys. West We've long known that migrating tuna routinely cross the dividing line between the western and eastern stocks. New studies with high-tech, computerized tags - separate research done by Barbara Block, Ph.D., of Stanford University and Molly Lutcavage, Ph.D., of the University of New Hampshire have confirmed this, showing east-west mixing much greater than previously thought. Fish mix freely on foraging grounds throughout the north Atlantic, including the continental shelf off the United States. However, come spawning time, the tuna separate and head back to their respective spawning grounds in the Mediterranean or Gulf of Mexico. When a fisherman carches a bluefin tuna off New England or off the coast of Spain, he or she can't be certain whether it's one of their own or a visitor from the other side. Although the two populations do not interbreed, they do intermingle. So there's no separating what happens on one side of the ocean from what hap- Bluefin have all but disappeared from some traditional hot spots such as the Bahamas, but crews fishing the Northeast canyons and the Carolinas still find a few giants every year. pens on the other. What this means in terms of management strategy and what it means for the future of the U.S. fishery is that an unknown number of western-origin fish make their way to European fishing grounds and are caught in this unregulated fishery. By the same token, an influx of migrant bluefin from the eastern Atlantic have been inflating the number of bluefin in the western fishery, possibly masking an even more severe decline than assessments indicate. Finally, and most importantly, to conserve the western stock will require tough new measures on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2007, the U.S. delegation that attended the annuallcca T meeting called for a complete moratorium on such a point that a radical move is necessary to save both western and eastern bluefin tuna. The popular argument made by many in our industry - that the United States and its western partners have complied with ICCA T recommendations and the eastern nations have not - is correct, but beside the point. The answers to our problems here in the west do not lie entirely in the east. The recent collapse of our New England fishery for giant tunas underscores the fact that we've been relying more and more on eastern fish and that without them, the western population is far too small to support a viable fishery on its own. A Simple Solution? Although pushing for a moratorium at this year's ICCA T meeting (November 17-24 in Marrakech, Morocco) is the right thing to do and the right time to do it, we must be realistic about the chances of ICCA T voting to make it WWW.MARLINMAG.COM OCTOBER 2008 75
happen, given its long history of doing as little as it can get away with. If Plan A calls for a llloratoriulll, the United States better prepare a Plan B with three critical elements: 1) A binding agreement requiring that the total allowable catch (T AC) for all fisheries must be based on scientific advice. The most recent lcca T scientific assessment recommends up to a 30 percent cut in the western T AC and up to a 50 percent reduction in the eastern T AC. Using trade sanctions against any nation exceeding the science-based catch levels will help keep countries in check. 2) Establish a no-fishing zone in the central Atlantic (extending 10 degrees latitude on each side of the 45-degree west meridian line that divides the western and eastern stocks) until new boundaries are drawn that better account for mixing. Capt. Mike Rowell caught this 700 pound bluefin out of Orange Beach, Alabama, in the Mobile Big Game Fishing Club's 2008 Memorial Day Tournament. These big bluefin make the trek back to the Gulf to spawn. 3) A complete closure of bluefin spawning grounds in the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico to purse seines and longlines during breeding season - j une through j uly and April through june, respectively. Preserving the spawners of both stocks is crucial to the health of the fisheries. If ICCA T is not up to the task of doing what it takes to save this species, the next approach should include listing Atlantic bluefin tuna under Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which would close the global market that is driving bluefin to the brink of extinction. Barring an international, Atlanticwide solution, the United States must take action at home and do all we can to save what's left of our own population. Our relatively modest catches have not increased the number of adult fish above what it was 20 years ago when we hit a historic low. But we know that in the Gulf of Mexico, in the spring, every fish we kill represents a rare western breeder. With every breedingage fish we lose, we increase the danger of an irreversible stock failure. And hundreds die each year as bycatch in the commerciallongline fishery. ICCA T long ago recommended making the Gulf of Mexico a sanctuary from fishing targeted at bluefin. Unfortunately, a large fleet of U.S. longliners target yellowfin tuna and swordfish in the Gulf, and end up hooking spawning-size bluefin. As part of her tagging research, Stanford's Dr. Barbara Block and her team rode along on longline vessels in the Gulf; they found at least one bluefin was hooked per set with an extremely high rate of mortality because of the warm water temperatures. Based on Block's research, closing the northern Gulf to longlining, where and when the bluefin spawn, could do more than anything else to protect what's left of the western bluefin breeders and preserve a U.S. fishery for the future. Ask any angler who's ever fought a giant bluefin tuna, and he'll tell you that it's a formidable fighter. They can come back if given the chance. But time is not on their side. As the species' numbers dwindle, each individual fish becomes more important, carrying a heavier burden of survival for them all. In the bluefin's case, every fish counts. ~ 76 OCTOBER 2008 WWW.MARLINMAG.COM