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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 11
July 2008
CCA urges US to pursue bluefin CITES listing
HOUSTON, TX – The Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), one of the nation’s most powerful sportfishing organizations, is calling on the Bush administration to consider proposing a CITES listing for Atlantic bluefin tuna as a last-ditch measure for forcing eastern Atlantic countries to adopt effective and transparent conservation measures.
CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which is an agreement among cooperating nations to restrict and even completely end trade in wild animals and plants that are considered endangered or threatened.
In a May 13 letter to Commerce Department Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, CCA Chairman Walter Fondren III wrote, “The restoration of bluefin tuna and the US fishery can only be fixed if the US takes an aggressive approach to implementing a solution.”
The US should demand at this year’s meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in November that quotas for bluefin be based on scientific advice and implemented in a verifiable manner by May 1, 2009, Fondren said.
If that doesn’t happen, he added, “The US should prepare a petition for CITES asking them to list the Atlantic bluefin tuna as a Task 1 species prohibiting all international trade.”
And at the same time, Fondren said, “The US should close its directed and incidental fisheries for bluefin and prohibit the import of bluefin tuna.”
Industry reaction
The CCA letter provoked an extensive, unified response from the presidents of three US bluefin industry groups – Joey Jancewicz of the East Coast Tuna Association (ECTA), Mark Godfried of the North Shore Community Tuna Association, and Peter Weiss of the General Category Tuna Association. With the help of ECTA Executive Director Rich Ruais, the three sent a letter of their own to the commerce secretary on June 4.
They started off by explaining the long history of US participation in the Atlantic bluefin fishery, which ICCAT has acknowledged by granting the US 57% of the western Atlantic quota. And they pointed out that thousands of commercial and charter boat fishermen depend on the bluefin fishery for part or all of their livelihoods.
The industry reps further explained that US fishermen “do more to conserve bluefin tuna than fishermen from any other country,” not only by complying with ICCAT agreements but by fishing under additional conservation measures such as “extra large minimum sizes and closed seasons.” The industry also has financially supported and donated time to scientific work, including electronic tagging efforts that have demonstrated the importance of the mixing of fish stock components between the eastern and western Atlantic.
Complex reasons
The reality of stock mixing has made it clear that the utter failure of the eastern Atlantic countries to implement meaningful controls on bluefin fisheries has hurt US conservation efforts. The commercial bluefin tuna industry should not be blamed for the precipitous decline in US East Coast catches over the last three or four years, the letter said.
The industry reps pointed out that the bluefin situation is very complicated and, in addition to eastern Atlantic overfishing, there are many other factors that are likely contributing to the decline in catch in recent years.
The fact that the giant fishery in the Canadian Maritimes has skyrocketed and the Japanese, who fish the central Atlantic, also have seen an increase in catch rates “supports the suggestion that environmental changes may be altering bluefin migration and feeding patterns,” the letter stated.
Environmental factors also may be behind the shift in areas favored by small school and medium bluefin. Record numbers of these smaller fish have been observed in the waters between Cape Cod and Boothbay Harbor, ME over the last few years, and fishermen know from long observation that giants tend not to travel with the smaller fish.
Other factors in the declining catch include: restricted access of purse seiners to historic fishing grounds; hordes of dogfish that make trolling and chumming/chunking fishing methods for bluefin no longer effective; and dramatic spikes in diesel and gas prices that prevent fishermen from going out to fish as often as they used to.
“If there is little fishing going on for bluefin, there will be little catch!” the letter stated.
Minimum size
The industry reps further emphasized that the National Marine Fisheries Service’s unilateral decision “to implement the largest minimum size in the world for the commercial sale of Atlantic bluefin tuna” – 73" – is what currently prevents US fishermen from taking a greater percentage of their annual quota.
“We want you to be aware that there is no shortage of bluefin tuna in US waters,” the industry reps wrote. “We have massive amounts of large school and mediums that could easily fill the quota each year.”
Recommendations
Rather than shutting down the domestic fishing industry and showing the US’s hand at upcoming ICCAT negotiations by threatening a preemptive CITES petition, the industry reps urged the Commerce, Interior, and State Departments to work together to provide a unified and determined US front at ICCAT and demand that the European Community and other eastern countries adopt quotas in line with ICCAT scientific advice.
“These countries need to be aware that the (US) is serious about Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna conservation and that these countries’ failure to cooperate, conserve, and manage their fisheries for bluefin tuna will lead to serious negative implications to international relations with the US on many fronts,” the industry reps said.
“There is simply no justification to punish US fishermen further with a CITES listing as recommended by CCA for our outstanding conservation efforts the last 26 years,” they concluded.
Lorelei Stevens
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