COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 11
July 2007
’07 bluefin season starts on optimistic note
KENNEBUNK, ME – Fishermen began the first weekend of the 2007 bluefin tuna season with a bang. The fishery, which opened on June 1, saw four fish landed in Gloucester and 11 more landed in the southern Maine ports of Kennebunkport, Ogunquit, and York.
The bluefin were all stick boat fish. But rod and reel fishermen out of Cape Cod reported seeing all sizes of fish in mid-June.
“I’ve heard about a few fish trolled up – mostly small fish,” said Dave Mason at Tightlines Tackle Co. in Walpole, ME.
Joe Curcuru at Fisherman’s Outfitter in Gloucester said fishermen were seeing plenty of bait and different sizes of fish on the northwest corner of Stellwagen.
But after the first slug of fish, the weather turned windy and stirred up choppy seas all along the coast of New England, making it difficult for boats to get out.
“Everything looked good and then five days of wind,” said Robert Fitzpatrick of Maguro America Inc. in Chatham on June 18. “Right now it’s mostly harpoon effort, not a lot of rod and reel.”
Steve Weiner, an experienced tuna fisherman out of Ogunquit, said fishermen were seeing herring when they were out looking for bluefin.
“It’s too early to be making a judgment, but we are hoping that by putting some food (herring) back into the Gulf of Maine, we’ll bring the (bluefin) back,” he said on June 13. “It has only been a few days, but we are optimistic.”
Weiner heads up a group called CHOIR, which lobbied hard to convince the New England Fishery Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to ban midwater trawl gear from herring management Area 1A June 1 through Sept. 30 (see related story page 1C).
Quota specs
On June 18, NMFS announced the final rule setting the 2007 fishing year bluefin quota specifications, based on the 2006 International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) agreement. The final quota specifications and effort control measures are in effect through Dec. 31 because the fishing year will switch to a calendar year starting on Jan. 1, 2008.
The initial general category retention limit per vessel per trip is three bluefin measuring 73" or greater from June 1 to Aug. 31. Restricted days for the general category are all Saturdays and Sundays from Nov. 17 to Dec. 31 and on Nov. 22 and Dec. 25.
As of June 18, the NMFS Highly Migratory Species Division office in Gloucester reported coastwide landings of 0.1 metric tons (mt) for the general category out of its 643.6-mt subquota and 1.7 mt for the harpoon category out of its 53.3-mt subquota.
Japanese markets
In mid-June, the Japanese auction houses and markets were primarily being supplied by “farmed” bluefin – fish that are caught in the wild and fattened in pens around the world.
Some of the farmed product showing up on market reports was coming from Spain, Mexico (Pacific bluefin), Australia, and New Zealand (southern bluefin). Pacific and southern bluefin are considered a subspecies of the East Coast’s northern bluefin tuna.
The mid-June reports showed that auction prices for farmed fish from Spain and Mexico averaged about 2,500 yen per kilo. The average selling price for farm-raised southern bluefin faired a bit better with an average of 2,700 yen per kilo.
The exchange rate changes daily, but on June 18, $1 was equal to 123.54 yen. One kilo is equal to 2.2046 pounds. So, basically, a selling price of 2,500 yen per kilo translated into about $9.20 per pound in US dollars.
Market reports also showed wild-caught fish from Greece, Italy, Spain, and Morocco being sold in Japan. Wild-caught fish were averaging about 4,000 yen per kilo or around $14.70 per pound in US dollars.
But, on June 18 there was an upturn in the Japanese market as two wild-caught fish from Spain brought exceptionally high selling prices of 8,300 and 7,000 yen per kilo, which translated into around $30.50 and $25.70 per pound.
It is important to note that these amounts are the price the fish sold for in Japan and do not reflect any expenses such as catching, feeding, shipping, and selling the fish.
As of June 18, only one dealer reported shipping a US-caught fish to the Japanese market. Typically, early season fish go into the domestic market since they have not stored up the fat content or developed the meat color demanded by overseas buyers.
Green sticks
NMFS held four public information meetings June 19-25 on the use of green stick gear by tuna fishermen. The meetings were to address the issues relating to gear authorization, gear configuration and definitions, quota management, catch reporting, and other related topics.
Presently, green stick gear – depending on the configuration – meets the definitions for longline and handline gear and may only be used by vessels currently possessing those permits.
For more information on green sticks, contact NMFS’s Randy Blankinship at (727) 824-5399 or go to the NMFS Highly Migratory Species web site at <www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms>.
Canadians on hold
Canadian fishermen have had the upper hand with bluefin landings the last couple of years compared to US fishermen. The bite wasn’t on yet in mid-June but the signs were encouraging.
Walter Bruce, president of the Prince Edward Island (PEI) Tuna Fishery Advisory Committee, a Canadian ICCAT delegate, and a long-time bluefin tuna fisherman, said he had started to hear about mackerel showing up in fishermen’s catches offshore.
“When the big schools of prespawning mackerel begin heading toward shore, the tuna start following them in,” he said. “The mackerel come through the Cabot Strait and disperse as they come closer to shore.”
ICCAT reduced Canada’s quota at last fall’s meeting from 620 mt in 2006 to 546 mt for 2007 and 2008. The 546-mt quota is made up of an allocation of 496 mt from ICCAT and a 50-mt transfer of quota from the US to Canada this year and next, according to Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) web site.
This year’s total Canadian inshore and offshore bluefin quota is 571.0 mt, including an approximate 25-mt carryover of uncaught quota. The Atlantic Canada quota is divided among five provinces, including a small portion for Quebec.
Of that amount, 491.85 mt has been divided and set aside for the inshore fleet. If the quota is not caught in one province it can be transferred to another. PEI holds the largest share of the quota at 147.66 mt and also has the most licenses.
Bruce estimated that 60%-70% of the fish caught in Canada goes into domestic North American markets in the US and Canada.
“The boats here are still lobster fishing,” said Bruce. “Our season on PEI doesn’t start until July 30.”
Tagging updates
As has been the case for a number of years now, researchers are continuing to study the migration patterns of bluefin tuna.
The Tag-A-Giant program, led by Stanford University tuna researcher Barbara Block, continued placing electronic tags in giant bluefin. During tagging expeditions off the coast of North Carolina in January and March, Block and colleague Andre Boustany were able to place archival and pop-up satellite tags in 25 bluefin.
Boustany is using genetic techniques to examine the discreteness of the tuna being tagged, Block reported.
“Andre found he could distinguish significant genetic differences between the tagged fish that moved in the Gulf of Mexico vs. the tagged fish that moved into the Mediterranean to spawn using these genetic techniques,” she said. “This supports the hypothesis that we have at least two discrete populations of bluefin tuna in the North Atlantic.”
Tagging efforts also continued in the Gulf of Mexico this past year and analyses of the data from the Gulf of Mexico aggregation of bluefin have come to fruition with the publication of two new papers by Steve Teo on the biology of bluefin in the gulf.
To access the papers or follow the team, visit the Tuna Research and Conservation Center web site at <www.tunaresearch.org>.
Tag-A-Tiny
The Tag-A-Tiny program is designed to study the annual migration paths and habitat use of juvenile bluefin tuna and is expanding in 2007.
Molly Lutcavage of the Large Pelagics Research Lab at the University of New Hampshire and her staff, along with collaborators Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and Jon Lucy and Rich Brill of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, are implanting a new, smaller version of the familiar pop-up archival tags. The new version is known as the “X-Tag.”
The tagging effort began in late June in eastern Maryland and will continue to follow the juvenile bluefin up the coast of Maine. The Tag-A-Tiny group plans to tag over 100 juveniles with a combination of tags.
Fishermen finding X-Tagged fish are asked to retain the whole fish and call the Large Pelagic Lab at (603) 862-2891. They may be eligible for a $500 reward.
Opposite directions
The Large Pelagics Research Lab will continue this year to tag giant bluefin in cooperation with DFO’s John Nielson and Canadian fishermen from the Southwest Nova Scotia Tuna Association.
In 2005, program participants tagged two giant bluefin in the same location and on the same day in Canada. Both weighed about 600 pounds. The tags stayed on both fish for the full 11-month period. Then both fish returned to within 25 miles of the same place they were tagged, Lutcavage said.
“But what was interesting is that one fish traveled to Spain and returned while the other traveled to the Gulf of Mexico and returned,” she said, reiterating the importance of bluefin research.
The lab is continuing to do ecological studies on bluefin food habits, age and growth, and reproduction and other work to try and understand the links between bluefin and prey.
Lutcavage noted that the cause of availability shifts for bluefin tuna in the Northeast is probably not only due to the prey factor. She explained that other variables, including changing oceanographic conditions, are likely involved. She also noted that the abundance of giants has been declining off the Northeast US since 2003 while, at the same time, an increase in the number of juvenile bluefin has been seen.
In addition to local factors, Lutcavage said, “The overfishing that has occurred in the eastern and central Atlantic and the Mediterranean are a concern too.”
The Large Pelagics Research Lab is continuing its work despite the pressure of having to deal with last year’s abrupt cut in congressional funding.
“We hope to rebuild the funding,” said Lutcavage.
More information on the lab is available online at <www.tunalab.unh.edu>.
Rosanne Mizzoni
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
