US Officials Frustrated Over EU & African Bluefin Approach ff

The National Marine Fisheries Service is sounding the warning on bluefin tuna stocks - only this time it’s not U.S. fishermen it's trying to rein in, but those in Europe and Africa.

“I think things are getting worse with bluefin tuna worldwide,” said NMFS director William Hogarth in a phone interview Friday.

Last week, European and African nations ratified a bluefin tuna quota of 29,500 metric tons for the eastern Atlantic Ocean, nearly double what scientists said was a sustainable harvest. By comparison, the United States cut its share to 2,100 metric tons, down from more than 3,000 metric tons last year, because American officials believe the stock is in trouble.

In November, Hogarth and the U.S. delegation pushed for a 15,000-metric-ton quota for the eastern Atlantic at a meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas in Croatia, but lost. They hope to try again at another international commission meeting this fall.

The bluefin’s red meat is coveted by the Japanese for sashimi - thin sliced fish, served raw. Fishermen can get $9 or more per pound, and with bluefin weighing from hundreds to more than 1,400 pounds, that means thousands of dollars per fish.

Cape fishermen hurting

More than 5,000 U.S. fishermen purchase licenses to catch bluefin during the migration along the East Coast from June into the late fall. The vast majority are part-time fishermen hoping to get a trophy fish, but full-time commercial fishermen increasingly count bluefin as an essential part of their yearly income.

Beleaguered Cape fishermen have come to depend on bluefin following the collapse of traditional fish stocks such cod, haddock and flounder. But East Coast fishermen saw record low landings in 2005 and 2006, when they caught just 14 percent of their quota.

That could be because an estimated 20 to 30 percent of the East Coast bluefin migrate across the Atlantic and can be caught off Europe and Africa, Hogarth said

“He’s frustrated, and so are we,” said Andy Baler, owner of Nantucket Fish Co. in Chatham and Dennis. In a typical year, Baler has exported 800 bluefin tuna to Japan. Last year, it was just 60.

Baler estimated around 40 commercial fishermen in Chatham and Harwich depend on catching tuna for most of their earnings. Many, he said, shifted to tuna when the cod fishery collapsed in the mid-1990s.

Poor fishermen in countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia also find the money appealing.
 

But overfishing overseas is so severe, Hogarth said, that the bluefin tuna population in the Eastern Atlantic could collapse.

Not all are believers

Others are skeptical of Hogarth’s position.

“I think he’s wrong,” said Robert Fitzpatrick, manager of Maguro, America in Harwich, a bluefin tuna exporter.
 

Fitzpatrick said overfishing by Europeans and Africans will mainly affect their stocks and not fish near U.S. waters.

The major reason for poor landings in the United States, said Fitzpatrick, are large vessels catching herring along the East Coast. The big boats have removed the tuna's favorite prey and scared them away from inshore waters.

This is the first year the big herring boats were banned from inshore waters.
 

The bluefin season opened June 1 and Fitzpatrick said fishermen have told him there is already one of the largest assemblages of tuna in 10 to 15 years gathering in the Gulf of Maine.