At least 1,815 authorized purse seiners fishing for tunas worldwide as of June 2017
August 17, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation:
The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) has issued an updated “snapshot” of Large-Scale Tuna Purse Seine Fishing Fleet as of June 2017. The purpose of the snapshot is to ensure that all management stakeholders have the best and most up-to-date information available when making management decisions. The number of active vessels on the water is particularly relevant when it comes to managing the global tuna fleet’s fishing capacity.
Purse seine vessels account for over 60 percent of the world’s tuna catch, but the exact number of operating vessels is not known. ISSF combed through information from the five tuna Regional Management Organizations (RFMOs) and other databases in order to aggregate and update data in the new report.
The analysis shows that at least 1,815 purse seiners were authorized to fish for tunas worldwide as of June 2017, with around 685 of those vessels being large-scale seiners targeting tropical tunas. Three of the five major commercial species of tuna are tropical tunas. These 685 vessels represent a combined fish hold volume or FHV — a preferred way to measure a vessel’s fishing capacity — of over 860,000 m3.
Of those 685 large scale purse seine vessels fishing for tropical tunas, 512 are registered on the ISSF ProActive Vessel Register (PVR), or 75% in number and 82% in fish hold volume (FHV).
View the updated report here.