The COVID-19 outbreak is resulting in growing demand worldwide for canned tuna as consumers prepare against the impact of the global pandemic, but the ongoing outbreak is also putting a dent in the U.S. tuna industry’s ability to stay in business.
NPR reported that tuna sales increased more than 31 percent last week compared to the same time last year. However in a press release on Tuesday, StarKist Samoa – which located in the U.S. Territory of American Samoa – said while it is trying to keep up with the demand, several restrictions imposed on the U.S. purse-seine fleet has been derailing its operation.
“We have seen an increase in sales that has been attributed to the COVID-19 impact, and we are doing our best to keep up with the demand,” Starkist Samoa said. “It’s important to note that the global impact of COVID-19 highlights the importance of keeping U.S. suppliers and producers in business to ensure we can sustain the tuna supply for U.S. consumers.”
The company said that the creation of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in 2009 and other international fishing restrictions, “has had a detrimental impact on both our U.S. tuna fishermen and the American Samoan economy.”
Under U.S. law, tuna fleets are to carry fishery observers. However, most Pacific nations have prohibited observers from boarding fishing vessels due to the travel restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus epidemic. The U.S. fleet primarily fishes in the waters around these island nations, creating a difficult situation, Bill Gibbons-Fly, executive director of the American Tunaboat Association (ATA), said.
“Most Pacific island countries that provide observers have pulled those observers off boats and called them home,” Gibbons-Fly said. “We expect others to follow. The increasing travel constraints throughout the Pacific are complicating efforts to get crew, repair parts, technicians, and supplies to boats in a timely fashion.”
He added that some ports where the boats would offload or transship fish are closed.
“This combination of factors not only puts the immediate operations of the fleet at risk, but also raises questions about the ability of this industry, along with many others, to overcome the broader economic and social disruption caused by the current pandemic,” he said.
The impacts aren’t limited to the fishermen, either. Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) CEO Ludwig Kumoru said COVID-19 will have a negative impact on the Pacific countries which rely on fisheries revenues as an economic driver.
The parties will be hit by decreased revenue “if the parties cannot sell all their vessel days as a result of travel bans and non-availability of observers,” Kumoru told SeafoodSource.
“Most parties have restricted their observers from boarding fishing vessels and vessels can't go out fishing without observers,” he said. “This means less need for fishing days and less revenue from [vessel-day scheme] days.”
Photo courtesy of Alena Veasey/Shutterstock
