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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 11
July 2008
Editorial
Bluefin research, advocacy need support
For more than 25 years, the bluefin tuna fishery has been a model for the power of industry advocacy and cooperative research. We need to sustain that, even though everyone in the fish business is struggling. Bluefin fishermen and dealers who hold any hope of having access to this precious resource in the future must find ways to pay for political representation and to support ongoing scientific endeavors.
As Commercial Fisheries News was going to press in late June, International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) scientists were beginning a critical stock assessment for bluefin tuna in Madrid, Spain. Concurrently, European Community countries were once again flagrantly ignoring directives to cease their intensive bluefin fisheries in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
The stock assessment is expected to indicate that the actions of these renegade countries are having a detrimental effect on the western Atlantic bluefin resource. And yet, the US, which has played by the rules all along, is likely to come out the big loser at the full ICCAT meeting in the fall.
Due to shockingly low catch rates – the general category took only 19% of its quota in 2007, the third straight year of quota shortfalls – the US fishery is facing a loss of its 57% share of the western Atlantic quota.
Without experienced, articulate representation at the upcoming meeting, this travesty could unfold virtually unopposed. That’s why it’s imperative that Rich Ruais, executive director of the East Coast Tuna Association (ECTA), attend upcoming ICCAT meetings to continue to monitor the situation and pressure the US ICCAT commissioners to stand up for this industry.
Recognizing this fact, a number of high-profile bluefin industry members sent a letter early in June to bluefin tuna fishermen explaining the severity of the situation and asking for financial support.
The letter authors, including Steve Wiener, Peter Weiss, Mark Godfried, Joey Jancewicz, and many more, represented the full range of US bluefin interests. There have been philosophical disputes and hard feelings among the different groups within the fishery over the years. However, everyone is now united in the belief that Ruais, who has been working essentially on a volunteer basis since October 2006, must attend the upcoming ICCAT meetings.
At the same time all this is going on, Molly Lutcavage, director of the Large Pelagics Research Center (LPRC) at the University of New Hampshire, received word that her lab will receive no 2008-2009 funding from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
This is devastating news to anyone who realizes how important Lutcavage’s work – first on aerial surveys, then pop-up tagging, and, more recently, archival tagging – has been to improving understanding of bluefin stock status and migration patterns.
In addition, the LPRC has funded and supported many other important bluefin research projects, including fat-content and reproduction studies. While the frugal nature of her management of the lab will allow Lutcavage to continue working this season with fishermen to tag juvenile and giant bluefin, the lab’s future is in serious doubt.
Everyone is strapped, but the very survival of the US bluefin tuna fishery is now at stake.
Industry leaders are asking anyone who can help send Ruais to ICCAT to make out a check to the bluefin organization of their choice – ECTA, General Category Tuna Association, or the North Shore Community Tuna Association – and mail it to PO Box 447, Salem, NH 03079.
To find out how to help support Molly Lutcavage’s efforts to secure funding for the important biological work she does, visit the LPRC web site at <www.largepelagics.unh.edu>, call her at (603) 862-2891, or e-mail her at <molly.lutcavage@unh.edu>. /cfn/
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