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.
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