April 18, 2014 — A meeting of over 20 stock assessment scientists from the Asia–Pacific region last week heard that the scientific assessment of tunas in the western and central Pacific Ocean continues to be hampered by some fishing states not making data available to scientists.
Dr Shelton Harley, head of the Stock Assessment and Modeling team within the Secretariat of the Pacific Community Oceanic Fisheries Program noted that “the most frustrating aspect is that the data have been collected and are just sitting on computers in countries and not contributing to the efforts to determine the health and safe harvest levels for the largest tuna resource in the world.”
The purpose of the annual meeting, hosted by SPC, is to review progress in assessing the status of bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tunas in the western and central Pacific Ocean. This year is critical as it will be the first time in three years that these tunas are being assessed and also the first assessment for bigeye tuna since the independent review of the previous assessment conducted in 2012. Bigeye tuna is the species whose health has been of most concern in recent years, with rising catches associated with purse-seine fishing around fish aggregating devices.
Read the full story at the Saipan Tribune