New assessment shows all Pacific tuna species need catch limits

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Updated January 11, 2012 16:48:11

Overfishing of bigeye tuna in the Pacific needs an urgent response, according to the latest assesssment released by the region’s leading fisheries scientists.

The asessment, by the Secretariat of the Pacific community, shows the total tuna catch for 2010 was more than 2.4 million tonnes – the second highest on record. John Hampton is the lead author of the assessment and Manager of the SPC’s Oceanic Fisheries Program. He says it is now time to place limits on the catch of skipjack and albacore tuna as well as the more vulnerable bigeye and yellowfin.

Presenter: Jemima Garrett
Dr John Hampton, Manager of the Oceanic Fisheries Program at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community

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HAMPTON: As has been the case for a few years now, our assessments are indicating that the level of fishing mortality, the intensity of fishing on that particular stock is above the level that would support the maximum sustainable yield and that is the benchmark that is typically used in fisheries management around the world. So the 32 per cent figure is one that would be designed to bring the fishery back to a level that is consistent with taking of the maximum sustainable yield.
GARRETT: What is causing the problems for bigeye exactly?
HAMPTON: Well, it is a combination of things. Bigeye is taken as smaller juvenile fish in the purse seine fishery. Only about 5 per cent of the purse seine catch is bigeye but more than half the total catch of bigeye comes from purse seiners so its significant in terms of the bigeye stock, and the fact that they are juveniles adds another layer of concern in terms of optimality in the way we fish that species. The other fishery, of course, is long-line which targets the larger-sized, adult fish and this is a fairly high-priced product that ends up in Japan or other developed countries as fresh fish or sashimi. So it is a combination of levels of fishing by both those types of fisheries that need to be reduced somewhat.
GARRETT: You’ve been looking at all four off the Pacific tuna species – yellowfin, skipjack and albacore as well as bigeye – since the 1950′s. What sort of trends are you seeing in the total fishing effort?
HAMPTON: Well, certainly for the tropical tunas, that is skipjack and yellowfin, which are the big species in terms of production and the mainstay of the fishery, particularly skipjack, we’ve seen a continual increasing trend now over many years. And what we are now seeing in our assessments for skipjack and yellowfin is that whilst the stocks overall are still in an OK shape, we feel that the level of catches that are now being taken of those two stocks, has probably reached the limit of what those stocks can produce. So our suggestion is that those responsible for management through the Western and Central pacific Fisheries commission, the FFA (Forum Fisheries Agency) and the PNA (Parties to the Nauru Agreement) start to think about defining quantitative targets, so how they would like to see these fisheries managed into the future and start to design proper harvest strategies that will, in essence, meet those targets, so we don’t get, down the track, into a situation like we are now in with bigeye of overfishing occurring. The other species that you mentioned is albacore and that is also very important for countries in the South Pacific and we’ve seen quite a ramp up of catch of that particular species over the last couple of years as well. And it is in a similar situation to skipjack. The stock itself still appears to be reasonably healthy but the catch levels are such that if they are continued into the future, that they will likely reduce the stock down, certainly to levels where the fisheries themselves will start to experience difficulties in terms of catch rates and profitability.
GARRETT: Getting the powerful distant water fishing nations to agree to catch limits is difficult. How important is it that this issue is tackled sooner rather than later?
HAMPTON: Well, certainly the sooner it can be tackled the better. We are not talking about a situation that if this isn’t fixed tomorrow these stocks are going to collapse and the fisheries disappear. We do have a bit of breathing space because, for the most part, the levels of stock size are still in a reasonably good condition for those stocks, except bigeye. Bigeye is getting fairly low and it would be important that we act as soon as possible, certainly for bigeye tuna. Because these processes take so long to get agreed with complex international situations like we have with the commission, that involves the distant water fishing nations as well as the coastal states, we really have to start seriously working on that now because it will take a couple of years for all of the legalities to get finalised.

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