The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service is holding a public meeting today in Belle Chasse to discuss the future management of Atlantic bluefin tuna. It’s illegal to fish bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico, the only known spawning area for western Atlantic bluefin, but part of an internationally set U.S. quota is used to cover bluefin caught accidentally by commercial boats trying to catch other fish.
While NOAA does not list bluefin tuna as warranting protection under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA officials have expressed concerns about the status of bluefin tuna and has listed it as a species of concern.
A sushi delicacy, the species often fetches astronomical prices in Japan. Earlier this year, a 593-pound bluefin tuna caught off northeastern Japan fetched about $736,000 at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. That’s $1,238 per pound.
The gathering at the Belle Chasse Auditorium from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. is the only meeting on the possible Gulf-related amendments to the management plan, officially called the Consolidated Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan. Meetings already have been held earlier this month in New Jersey and Massachusetts, and additional meetings will be held in North Carolina, New York, Orlando and Portland.
NOAA is exploring several potential management measures, ranging from tighter quotas to modified seasons and area closures.
Environmental groups at the meeting, including the Gulf Restoration Network, are expected to discuss better ways to protect the species’ Gulf spawning grounds, in particular focusing on ways to reduce bluefin bycatch on the longline fishing equipment that some fishers use to catch swordfish and yellowfin tuna.
The longlines can stretch 30 miles and include 750 hooks.
Led by the Pew Environment Group, some environmental groups have pushed for changes that would reduce the length and number of hooks on fishing lines used for yellowfin and swordfish.
Yellowfin tuna caught in the Gulf average 86 pounds, while the bluefin average 485.
Pew says that oil spill restoration funds from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill could help pay for a gear transition program that could phase out surface longlines, while keeping swordfish and yellowfin fishers in business.
Last year, NOAA did start requiring commercial fishers using longlines in the Gulf of Mexico to use hooks designed to straighten when grabbed by bluefin tuna, releasing the fish. Testing showed that the weak hooks would hold most yellowfin tuna, swordfish and other commercial species while cutting accidental bluefin catch by 56 percent, according to NOAA statistics. Before that introduction, about 285 bluefin were caught in the Gulf each year but bycatch numbers for bluefin tuna since 2010 were not immediately available.
Although bluefin tuna still alive when they reach the deck are released, many die from the stress of being caught and hauled to the boat, according to NOAA.
In 2010, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas voted to cut the bluefin fishing quota in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean by about 4 percent, from 13,500 to 12,900 metric tons annually. It also agreed on measures to try to improve enforcement of bluefin quotas.
The decision was strongly criticized by environmental groups, which hoped to see bluefin fishing slashed or suspended.
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