The EU has extended by one year the sustainable fisheries partnership agreement with Cook Islands. The current protocol allows for 7,000 M/T of tuna to be caught annually by four EU purse...
Fishing
Worries Over Yellowfin Being Ignored At IOTC November Meeting
The 24th Session of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) is scheduled to take place from November 2 to 6 via video conference due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. One of the hottest issues...
Chinese Captain Charged For Ordering Killing Of Four ‘Pirates’
A Chinese tuna longliner captain has been officially charged with the killing of four men who were shot at sea from his vessel in 2012. The fatal incident was made public through a video that...
Lukewarm Supply Making SKJ1.8:BKK Speculators Nervous
The Bangkok skipjack value benchmark is resisting the expected bearish trend by many buyers and holding steady in the month of October. Thai canneries are waiting to see how much more supply...
Immaculate First Trip For New Ecuadorian Seiner
The first trip of the Ecuadorian Grupo Jadran’s newly built tuna purse seiner ‘John Paul II’ – 92 meters long and 14 meters wide – went without problems. Towed by three tugboats, the vessel...
FADs Contributed To Success Of Pacific Tagging Expedition
A tuna tagging expedition of 50 days carried out by the Pacific Community (SPC) has just been completed. It managed to deploy a record number of tags, mainly due to the support of the fishing...
Grupomar Equips Seiner With Polymer Tech Bearing
Grupomar installed a state of the art polymer rudder bearing in its 1,174 M/T gross tonnage tuna purse seiner ‘María Luisa' while docked in Manzanillo. The technology was developed by...
When HCR Is Breached, Should Fishing Be Reduced Immediately?
The violation of the Harvest Control Rule (HCR) set by the IOTC for skipjack, and the overfishing of yellowfin, has raised a lot of eyebrows in the industry. NGOs have reacted negatively and...
Controversy Over Out-Of-State Tuna Gillnetters In Indian Port
The state government of Kerala in India has yet to allow gillnet boats from other states to enter the Kochi harbor due to COVID-19 restrictions. About 600 gillnetters from Tamil Nadu were...
La Niña Keeps EPO Catches At Same Level
EPO purse seiners and pole-and-liners in the first eight months of this year netted almost the same level of tuna as in 2019, according to the latest IATTC data. From January 1 to August 30,...
Fiji Longline Fishery One Step Closer To Certifying Its Bigeye
The quest to extend Fiji Fishing Industry Association MSC Group’s sustainable certification has been greenlighted by Lloyd’s Register, the third-party assessment body overseeing the case. The...
US Captain Arrested In British Territory Cleared Of All Charges
The US Captain of the tuna longliner ‘Rebel Lady’ accused of illegally entering the British Virgin Islands (BVI) during the COVID-19 border closure period has been cleared of all charges. The...
Maldives P&L Fishery Reduced IO Yellowfin Catches
Maldives’ major seafood exports association has said that the country’s pole-and-line and handline fishery reduced its yellowfin catches by five times the IOTC requirement last year, just as...
Good Skipjack Catches Press Seychelles’ Price Down Fast
In the past month, the Indian Ocean seiners strongly increased their skipjack catches. After some earlier setbacks due to bad weather conditions and fishing stopping because of COVID-19...
Princes Takes A Stand – Cuts 50% IO Yellowfin
UK-based international food and drinks group Princes is the latest to take a stand regarding the controversial overfished yellowfin issue in the Indian Ocean (IO). Today, the company announced...
New Law Cuts Indonesia’s Small Fishers’ Exclusive Subsidies
In Indonesia, small-scale pole-and-line and handline fisheries could have their subsidies snatched out of their hands by larger vessels after the country passed a new law. Since the bill was...
Maldivian Handline Vessel Busted With 130 Kilos Of Drugs
In the Maldives, a handline vessel normally used to target yellowfin was found with 130 kg of drugs. The boat was intercepted at sea by the country’s Police Service during an operation that...
Weather & COVID-19 Bash US Albacore Fishing Season
This year's albacore fishing season in the US has been one of the worst ever. Several local industry players are blaming the COVID-19 pandemic and dreadful weather conditions for this problem....
INFOFISH Webinar: Clock Is Ticking For Tuna Stocks
Today, the Tuna 2021 Virtual Prelude organized by INFOFISH took place with moderator Dr. Audun Lem, Deputy Director of FAO Italy. The interesting line-up of nine speakers, all experts in their...
Canary Islands Fishers Worried Over Moroccan Waters Catches
Tuna fishermen in Lanzarote in Canary Islands are puzzled over their daily catches being recorded electronically as being fished from the waters of Morocco when it is not the case. This week,...