April 15, 2015 — The bluefin tuna is on the rebound a decade after it symbolized the failure of international fisheries management. Some scientists and Maine fishermen say the assessment by federal regulators is overdue.
U.S. fishery managers announced Wednesday that they are removing bluefin tuna from the list of species subject to overfishing, and plan to recommend to an international body that the catch quota for the U.S. be increased.
“That is one of the success stories,” said Alan Risenhoover, director of the NOAA Fisheries Service’s Office of Sustainable Fisheries.
There are about 30,000 metric tons – roughly 66 million pounds – of adult bluefin tuna in the western Atlantic, according to the 2014 stock assessment. Those population levels haven’t been seen since the early 1980s, said Lisa Kerr, a researcher who was involved in the stock assessment conducted by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna, the inter-governmental organization responsible for the conservation of tuna in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas.
In the U.S., Maine is second to only Massachusetts in the number of commercial fishermen who pursue bluefin tuna, the premium choice for sushi and sashimi in restaurants in Japan and, increasingly, other countries. Maine has more harpooners, the traditional way of hunting tuna, than any other state.
While the increasing abundance of tuna in the Atlantic is welcome news for fishermen, it’s unclear how increasing quota limits could help Maine fishermen because natural conditions, such as weather and the abundance of natural predators, are the biggest drivers of a fishermen’s success, said David Linney, who harpoons for tuna out of York.
Bluefin tuna roam the Atlantic and enter the Gulf of Maine in the summer to feed on herring and mackerel. He said he’s noticed increasing numbers of tuna in recent years.
Linney said he could catch more tuna if regulators would put tighter restrictions on the trawlers that catch herring.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald