On August 28, a group of armed pirates attacked the Ghanaian-flagged pole-and-line vessel ‘AP 703’ located 200 km south of Port Lomé, Togo. They kidnapped the only two South Korean fishers in...
Fishing
Seiner Helicopter Used In Evacuation After Storm
Due to tropical storm ‘Hernán’, 30 passengers of AeroMexico were stranded at the Playa de Oro airport in Manzanillo, Mexico. A helicopter from one of the purse seiners of the fishing and...
Australia’s First Tuna Seiner ‘MFV Tacoma’ In Virtual Show
Australia’s first tuna purse seiner boat, ‘MFV Tacoma’, which changed the course of commercial pelagic fishing in the country, will be displayed in virtual form via the 2020 Port Townsend...
FADs Direct Threat To EPO Skipjack Stock Health
In a report, scientists have said that skipjack and bigeye in the EPO are heavily impacted by purse seiners fishing on FADs. Catches for skipjack are at historically high levels while the fish...
Mexican Fishing Industry Wants Veda In The Gulf Of Mexico
The Veracruz tuna fishing sector in Mexico is once again asking the government to speed up and approve an agreement to establish a veda. According to Juan Ramón Gánem Vargas, a tuna...
Ghana Boat Owners Ask Again For Fee Reduction
The spat between the Ghana tuna industry and the country’s government regarding fishing licenses has not dissipated. The country’s tuna association (GTA) is once again asking for the fee to be...
EPO Seiners Bring In Record Catch, Despite COVID-19
Tuna catches in the EPO keep breaking records. IATTC figures for the first half of 2020 (H1) revealed the highest levels ever registered for this period. The peak can be almost entirely...
NGOs Tell Court Not To Let Big Three Off Class Action Hook
Three public advocacy groups have asked the Ninth Circuit to uphold the class certifications in the multi-district canned tuna price-fixing case against the US Big Three. They argue that class...
Should Countries Be Allowed To Expand Their EEZ?
In 1994, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) established that a country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) would extend for up to 200 nautical miles from the coasts of...
Atuna Readers Split On FAO Code On Tuna Cans
Atuna readers are divided on whether mentioning the FAO area code on tuna cans is useful for consumers, according to the results of our latest poll. A total of 44 percent of respondents...
Maldivian P+L Premium Raw Material Losing Value In Bangkok?
Pole-and-line skipjack has historically been traded at premium values compared to purse seiner catches. One-by-one fishers from the Maldives and Indonesia supply the vast majority to Bangkok,...
COVID-19 Guidelines Introduced For Entire Pacific Tuna Fishery
Since yesterday, there are new COVID-19 Operating Protocols for the Tuna Fishing Sector in the Pacific region. Until now, there were no common rules, often leading to discussions and...
Gabon Moors Albacora Seiner For Alleged Shark Bycatch
A tuna purse seiner belonging to the Spanish Albacora Group was taken to the port of Libreville by Gabonese authorities for allegedly catching shark. The vessel in question, ‘Albacora Caribe’...
Chinese Captain Arrested For Killing Four Men, Recorded On Video
A 43-year-old Chinese longliner captain linked to a six-year-old murder case has been arrested in Taipei, Taiwan, after entering the Port of Kaohsiung on Saturday. He is suspected of ordering...
Massive Turnaround Triples Vanuatu’s Seiner Catch
About 15 years ago, the Vanuatu fleet used to be one of the largest within the Pacific Ocean. Since then, the number of vessels and their catches have declined to an insignificant level....
Bumble Bee’s New TV Ads Promote Healthy Tuna Protein
US tuna brand Bumble Bee has recently announced a new creative marketing campaign – YES! BUMBLE BEE! – to promote the many health benefits of its tuna products. The campaign kicked off...
Can Blue Bonds Financing Create Tuna Stock Recovery?
On Thursday, Planet Tracker, a non-profit financial think tank, published a briefing paper regarding blue bonds and how it will finance the recovery of fish stocks. In the study, the NGO...
Philippines Skipjack Landings Surge In Q2
Skipjack catches by large and small seiners flying the Philippine flag surged in the second quarter of this year (Q2 2020) with overall tuna fisheries volume increasing by 6.8 percent. Most of...
Ecuador Wants 350 Miles EEZ To Keep Chinese Longliners Out
For several weeks, the Ecuadorian fishing industry has been complaining about the presence of a Chinese longliner fleet near the nation’s EEZ around the Galapagos Islands, saying that this...
Chris Lischewski Reported To Arizona Prison
After further investigations on the whereabouts of former CEO of Bumble Bee, Chris Lischewski, a reliable source has confirmed with Atuna that he reported to the minimum-security prison in...