Contact: Scott Smullen FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
or Gordon Helm 6/11/96
A 1996 Atlantic bluefin tuna quota of 1,306 metric tons and several improvements to federal regulations governing the fisheries have been approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Commerce Department announced today.
Atlantic bluefin tuna (ABT) fishing category quotas for the 1996 fishing year are: General category--541 metric tons (mt); Harpoon Boat category--53 mt; Purse Seine category--251 mt; Angling category--243 mt; Incidental category--110 mt; Reserve-- 108 mt.
The fisheries service completed ABT quota adjustments after receiving considerable public input during a 37-day comment period that included nine public hearings from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, numerous smaller meetings were arranged with constituents and their organizations. Finally, hundreds of comments were received by mail, fax, and over the phone.
As part of the 1996 ABT quota regulations, the fisheries service is also changing some operations of the ABT General and Purse Seine permit categories. In the General category, the fisheries service is lengthening the fishing season and aiding enforcement by revising the monthly quota percentages of total allowable catch and by changing restricted fishing days.
The fisheries service has changed the closed days to Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, beginning mid-July and ending late September. As suggested by fishermen, some Sundays will remain open to reflect strong recreational interest to fish during holidays such as Fourth of July weekend. These actions will help extend the season and improve management of the general category, which has exceeded its quota by 15 percent over the past four years.
Changes to regulations in the Purse Seine category allow individual Purse Seine permit holders to transfer their annual allocation, in whole or in part, to other Purse Seine permit holders. These permit holders were already authorized to transfer the total annual allocation among themselves.
To increase the likelihood that the Angling category remains open throughout most of the year, the fisheries service will transfer 95 metric tons of bluefin quota into that category from the Reserve. This transfer will also allow the fisheries service to reopen the large school-small medium segment that was previously closed. Whatþs more, the quota transfer will allow the agency to collect vital rod and reel catch data over a wider geographic area. While the Angling category exceeded its quota last year, over the last four years the Angling category has been under its quota by 33 metric tons.
Adjustments to the Angling category quota are needed because this categoryþs landings are monitored by a sampling program rather than a census of all landings. This makes monitoring recreational catch on a real-time basis very difficult. Quota adjustments are also needed in this category because of the unprecedented catches off North Carolina between January and March of this year, and the bag limits that went into effect in early 1996.
The fisheries service intends to improve the monitoring and management of the Angling category in the short term by making some technical improvements to the survey methodology. For the long term, the agency is working with industry to examine the possibility of using different approaches to monitoring, including using tags for retaining bluefin, mandatory self- reporting, and exploring the benefits of mandatory catch and release fishing for bluefin from January through May.
To lengthen the fishing season in the Angling category and to ensure reasonable fishing opportunities in all geographic areas without risking overharvest, the fisheries service will adjust the daily catch limit to one fish per angler, which may be from the school or large school size class, in addition to one per vessel from the small medium size fish class.
The fisheries service will also transfer 10 metric tons for a late year fishery in the New York Bight area and keep last yearþs boundaries that define this area. This set-aside is important to provide an opportunity for fishermen to catch bluefin in this area when the fish will be present there later in the year.
Finally, the fisheries service is increasing yellowfin and bigeye tuna minimum size limits to 27 inches (69 cm) according to the curved measurement method. This action establishes uniform minimum sizes for ABT, yellowfin, and bigeye Atlantic tunas. Increased catch of ABT below the minimum size in recent years has been attributed to misidentification of small tunas.
The regulatory amendments are necessary to implement the 1994 recommendation of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) regarding U.S. fishing quotas for bluefin tuna, as required by U.S. obligations under the Atlantic Tunas Convention Act, and to achieve domestic management objectives.
According to fisheries service managers, these final regulations bring the United States into compliance with the 1994 ICCAT management recommendations for Atlantic bluefin tuna and are expected to improve economic returns to fishery participants.
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