Countries increase protections for overfished Pacific bluefin tuna

During a meeting of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) this week, the United States, Mexico and Japan developed a joint proposal to reduce the catch limit of Pacific bluefin tuna in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) in 2015 and 2016. IATTC member nations adopted the proposal by consensus, taking a critical step in rebuilding the population of this overfished species.

“With this agreement we will see reduced impacts on juvenile bluefin, which will contribute to rebuilding goals,” said Barry Thom, U.S. Commissioner to the IATTC. “We can only achieve rebuilding of this important species by working together across the entire range of the species and by reducing both juvenile and adult catch.”

Pacific bluefin spawn in the western Pacific Ocean near Japan, and a portion of the population typically migrates to the EPO off of Mexico and the United States for a few years before returning west to spawn. The species is considered overfished and has declined to historic lows, with an estimated 3 to 5 percent of its historic spawning biomass remaining.

Approximately 80 percent of the fishing impacts on Pacific bluefin occur in the western and central Pacific Ocean (WCPO), with the remaining 20 percent occurring in the EPO. Japan’s fisheries account for the majority of the catch in the WCPO, while Mexico’s fisheries account for the majority of the catch in the EPO. Given the greater fishing impacts in the WCPO, reductions in the WCPO catch across all age classes will be critical in allowing the species to rebuild.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which manages fisheries in the WCPO, is expected to adopt additional Pacific bluefin catch reductions at its annual meeting this December.

The staff of the IATTC recommended a 20 to 45 percent reduction in Pacific bluefin catches in the EPO.  This week’s agreement by IATTC member countries limits the Pacific bluefin catch in the EPO to no more than 6,600 metric tons in 2015 and 2016 combined, for an effective annual catch of 3,300 metric tons. That represents a roughly 43 percent reduction below the average catch from 2010 to 2012, which matches the IATTC staff scientific recommendations.

“These reductions are not only in line with the conservation advice, but they’re also balanced reductions reflecting where the majority of the fishing impacts occur,” Thom said. “All nations need to do their part in rebuilding this stock and this agreement is a big part of making that happen.”

The agreement also calls for member countries to reduce the catch of bluefin tuna by sportfishing vessels by a proportion similar to the reductions in the commercial catch.

The United States is also considering steps to sharply reduce recreational bluefin catches from a limit of 10 fish per person per day, with possession allowance of 30 fish per multi-day trip, to a limit of two fish per person per day, with a possession limit of six fish total. The U.S. recreational catch limits are expected to be adopted by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council in November and to be effective for the 2015 fishing season.

Read original post: westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov

Coast Marine Mammal Survey Spots Unusual Whales, Dolphins, Turtles and Seabirds

When is a pilchard not a pilchard? When it’s a sardine and “sardine” sales are booming in England

Posted with permission of SeaFoodNews.com

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Independent] By Jamie Merrill – November 4, 2014

(The terms sardine and pilchard are not precise, and what is meant depends on the region. The United Kingdom’s Sea Fish Industry Authority, for example, classifies sardines as young pilchards. One criterion suggests fish shorter in length than 6 inches are sardines, and larger ones pilchards.)

Waitrose has reported a 19 per cent rise in sales of the once-forgotten fish, while high-end restaurants have put them back on the menu

Peter Bullock has been fishing the choppy waters off the southern tip of Cornwall for more than 20 years. It’s only relatively recently, though, that the skipper of the St Asthore has started taking the 46ft trawler out at night from Newlyn in search of sardines.

After decades of decline, sales of sardines are booming again; Mr Bullock and his two young deckhands have their work cut out. And it’s during the hours of darkness that the slippery, six-inch fish congregate off St Michael’s Mount in vast shoals.

Waitrose has just reported a 19 per cent rise in sales of the once-forgotten fish, while high-end restaurants from Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen to Duck and Waffle in the City of London and Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant have put them back on the menu.

“The chap that started it all about 10 years back was called Nutty Noah. He lived down the coast and bought an old ring net from France and set out to catch pilchards, which he re-branded as Cornish sardines. In the end, he caught so much he actually sank his boat under the weight,” said Mr Bullock, 39, as we left harbour.

Before Nutty Noah came along, the fish was marketed as the pilchard. It was salted and sold in vast quantities during the 19th century, however, tinned salmon imports from Canada and the arrival of Pacific tuna had all but killed the industry by the 1990s. The fisherman admits, though, that the two fish are “essentially the same”: a pilchard is just a sardine that is more than six inches long.

Either way, turning them into Cornish sardines was “a piece of marketing genius, pure and simple”, he says. It was a sales wheeze that would have delighted Charles Saatchi. A few years ago there were no sardine boats at Newlyn; now the St Asthore is joined by five rival boats as we set out to sea. This season is the seventh year he has fished for sardines, and he has often brought in as much as 20 tonnes of fish a night. The fishery is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council and backed by Greenpeace.

“It’s the rebranding that’s made pilchards really popular,” explains the skipper as he spots a shoal on his sonar and prepares his crew to “shoot” the ring net around them. “You just have to think of the romance of a sardine on the barbecue and think of the Mediterranean.”

Bringing in the fish, which come close to the surface at night to feed, is a frantic affair, during which Peter Bullock abandons the cockpit, puts on his waterproofs and joins his crew hauling in the nets. The reward, after 45 minutes of silent working, is a load of about four tonnes.

Watching is Jeremy Ryland Langley, the fisheries and aquaculture manager at Waitrose. He’s the man responsible for taking endangered Atlantic salmon off the shelves of the store in the 1990s. More recently he brought in a sustainability and fish traceability policy that has won plaudits from Greenpeace.

For him this fishery is ideal. “The oceans are vital to our existence as a species and, for most of us, fish is the last truly wild food we’ll eat, so getting this right is crucial. What we love about this fishery and Peter’s boat is that we know the fishermen, we know exactly where they are fishing and we know the fish stocks here are healthy.”

A hundred miles away on the north Devon coast, the story is very different. When the European Commission cut fish quotas, the Government’s Marine Management Organisation imposed a temporary ban on ray fishing which threatens to cost the area £100m a year. In Ilfracombe, a brand new £300,000 trawler has sat idle having never been to sea, while at Appledore the fish dock has closed until at least the end of December.

Newlyn has its problems, including an outdated fish market without an internet connection. But the sardine population has remained strong, as the skipper of the St Asthore explains, because the north Cornish coast “doesn’t have the harbours to support sardine boats”. This means there is a ready-made reserve which acts as a “breeding stronghold” for the species.

And last month an EU-backed study found that smaller fish such as sardines had benefited from the over-fishing of larger predator fish, such as sea bass, ray and John Dory.

For fish buyers like Ryland Langley, “part of [this] problem is that it is easy to buy cheap fish if you don’t care where it comes from. What’s hard for people like me and shoppers, is that it’s really hard to buy ethically sourced, high-quality fish that you can trace exactly to a single fishery. That’s what we have here and that’s what we should all be asking for at the fish counter.”

Read original post: SeafoodNews.com

Warmest sea temperatures in 30 years seen off California coast, but El Nino not a factor

Posted with permission of SeafoodNews.com

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Monterey County Herald] By Paul Rogers  Nov 3, 2014

Hawaiian ono swimming off the California coast? Giant sunfish in Alaska? A sea turtle usually at home off the Galapagos Islands floating near San Francisco?

Eastern Pacific bluefin tuna catch to be cut 40 percent to 3,300 tons

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Jiji Press] – October 31, 2014 — posted with permission of Seafood News.

The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, comprising a total of 21 countries and regions, has decided to tighten controls on bluefin tuna fishing in the eastern Pacific.

The decision was made at a special session of the commission in La Jolla, Calif., on Wednesday, according to Japanese officials.

Bluefin tuna catches in the ocean region will be reduced by 40 percent from the 2014 level to 3,300 tons in both 2015 and 2016.

The commission also set a nonbinding goal of cutting the proportion of young tuna weighing less than 30 kilograms in total catches to 50 percent.

The nonbinding goal was set as a compromise after Mexico opposed a Japanese proposal for halving annual catches of young tuna in and after 2015 from the average level between 2002 and 2004. In the central and western Pacific, including waters around Japan, the halving of young tuna catches has already been agreed.

Mexico has developed a tuna ranching sector dependent on capture of juvenile tuna used for growout.

Read original article: SeafoodNews.com