Robert Evans, PlanetArk 21 Nov 07;
GENEVA - Worldwide stocks of bigeye tuna, a prime source for Japanese restaurants serving sushi and sashimi around the world, are on the verge of collapse from overfishing, a report released on Wednesday said.
The wildlife trade monitoring network, TRAFFIC, which is part-run by the conservation group WWF, said a collapse would have a profound effect on fishing fleets as well as on processing and trading industries in Japan and Taiwan.
Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Maldives, which have artisanal fleets and provide processing centres for large vessels, could also be affected.
"Science demands a sharp reduction in the catch of the bigeye tuna, but over the past decade this advice has been ignored," said Simon Cripps, director of the WWF's International Marine Programme.
He called on member countries of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to agree on a 14 per cent cut "before it is too late", ahead of their meeting in Guam next month.
Organisations which regulate fishing on the high sea have been generally slow to respond to scientists' advice and have failed to address the problem of overfishing of the bigeye, the study said.
Two days ago campaigners said stocks of the Mediterranean bluefin tuna, another staple of Japanese cuisine, were facing exhaustion because of overfishing.
Greenpeace and the WWF said a collapse of the bluefin seemed certain after the international supervisory body for the fish, ICCAT, failed to agree on cutting quotas at a meeting in Turkey last week.
A decline in bluefin stocks has increased demand for the bigeye tuna which is also excessively fished in the Indian and Atlantic oceans and the Western and Central Pacific, the report added. (Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Golnar Motevalli)
Bigeye tuna now threatened by overfishing
Paul Eccleston, Telegraph 20 Nov 07
Deliberate overfishing is threatening to turn a once-common type of tuna into an endangered species, conservationists have warned.
They say the Bigeye tuna will go the same way as rapidly disappearing Atlantic and Southern bluefin tuna if authorities fail to take action.
The bigeye (Thunnus obesus) is an important food fish and mature fish caught usually in deep waters can grow to be eight-feet in length and weigh in excess of 200lbs.
The deep-bodies streamlined fish is marked by an iridescent blue band running along each flank and is highly prized in Japan where it is thinly sliced and served up raw as sashimi.
But bigeye tuna stocks in the Eastern Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Western and Central Pacific Oceans are all suffering from excessive fishing and the Eastern Pacific stock is overfished. In the Eastern Pacific up to 60 per cent of the bigeye tuna catch are small, juvenile fish, meaning it has had insufficient time to breed and replenish stocks.
A new report from TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, and WWF warns that bodies set up to protect stocks are failing to meet legal obligations, are too slow to respond to scientific advice and have failed to halt overfishing.
The report calls for the setting of catch limits, the introduction of restoration programmes, improved collection of data on stocks and a halt to the harvesting of juvenile fish.
"Science demands a sharp reduction in the catch of bigeye tuna, but over the past decade this advice has been ignored," says Dr Simon Cripps, Director of WWF's International Marine Programme.
"Once again the high seas are being fished out, and unless global intervention is effective, important fish stocks will be lost forever."
Glenn Sant, TRAFFIC's Global Marine Programme Leader, said: "Removal of juvenile fish, before they reach adulthood and breed, compromises the sustainability of tuna stocks and reduces the availability of adults for the high-value sashimi markets in Japan," says Glenn Sant, TRAFFIC's Global Marine Programme Leader.
"Instead they end up being worth a few cents in a can, and tuna stocks are on the verge of collapse. The biological and economic future of the bigeye tuna fishery is at serious risk."
Publication of the report was timed to coincide with a meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) which is responsible for bigeye tuna management in the Western and Central Pacific.
WWF and TRAFFIC called on the WCPFC members to meet their international obligations and follow the advice of the Commission's Scientific Committee to reduce bigeye catch by 14 per cent before it was too late.
The bigeye is a highly migratory species with separate stocks in the Atlantic, Indian, Western and Central Pacific, and Eastern Pacific Oceans.
It is an important target for industrial longline tuna fisheries on the high seas and smaller-scale longline, purse seine - netting near the surface - and ring-net fisheries in national waters.
Increasingly bigeye are taken as bycatch in purse seine fisheries fishing for Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) and Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus albacares).
The mature fish taken by longline fleets attracts high prices on the sashimi markets of Japan and, increasingly, in Europe and North America.
The report warns that long-term depletion of stocks will hit industrial fishing fleets hard. There would also be economic consequences for small island states who took fees from the fleets to access tuna stocks.
By managing bigeye stocks sustainably it could fill the gap in the sashimi markets of Japan and north America left by tighter control of the stocks of atlantic and bluefin tuna.
The report also claimed that consumers were now far more concerned that they were buying fish from ecologically sustainable stocks recognised by organisations such as the Marine Stewardship Council.
Links
Turning a blind eye to bigeye tuna on the WWF website with a link to the report With an eye to the future: Addressing failures in the global management of bigeye tuna [pdf, 1.64 MB]
Related reports
Greenpeace slams 'unsustainable' new tuna quota
Yahoo News 18 Nov 07;
US wants freeze on tuna fishing
Anna-Marie Lever, BBC News 16 Nov 07
