After a four-day meeting in Honolulu, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) said the U.S. should not accept a reduction in the bigeye tuna quota for the Hawaii longline fishery.
The tuna quotas for the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) are internationally formulated by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), of which the United States is a member. The WCPFC is scheduled to meet on 2 December to 6 December to decide on the quota.
According to the council, bigeye tuna has been experiencing overfishing for about two decades and a proposal developed by a WCPFC working group that met in August in Japan would have the Hawaii longline fishery quota for bigeye reduced by 45 percent. According to WPRFMC, if approved and implemented the measure could shut the Hawaii bigeye tuna fishery around July each year.
WPRFMC said that the WCPFC’s previous conservation and management measures (CMMs) have failed to prevent increases in fleet capacity, fishing effort and total catch of tropical tunas. The council also said it continues to be concerned about the effectiveness of the proposed purse-seine measures to achieve effective reductions of juvenile bigeye fishing morality.
“The WCPFC’s treatment of purse seine and longline fisheries is inequitable and scientifically unjustified.,” said WPRFMC. “The WCPFC has imposed bigeye quotas on the longline fishery and fishing day limits for the purse-seine fishery. The purse-seine take of bigeye tuna has increased under this approach.”
