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PACIFIC TUNA FACE REAL THREATS BY KARLI THOMAS D ecreasing catches of migratory tuna in New Zealand waters are a warning that commercial fishermen are seriously depleting the world's last relatively healthy tuna fishery in the Pacific Ocean. The Bay of Plenty was home to the best tuna sport fishery in the country in the 1990s, with over 2000 yellowfin being caught per year. This year, the annual yellowfin tuna fishing tournament run by the Whakatane Sportsfishers Club had to be renamed, removing the word "tuna", as the prized yellowfin have disappeared from the catch over the last two years. It gets worse. Earlier this year not one yellowfin was landed during the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council's national fishing tournament - an unwanted first in the history of the tournament, involving 1492 anglers representing 39 clubs around New Zealand. fewer and fewer fish. Urgent action is needed to reduce the number of vessels and reduce catches to sustainable levels. A typical FAD. Note the trapped turtle The yellowfin, bigeye, albacore and skipjack tuna found here during summer are from populations shared across the Pacific region. From their spawning grounds in tropical waters, the fish must run the gauntlet of 5925 vessels licensed to fish in the western and central Pacific, more than half of them from Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) and Japan. No wonder fewer and fewer yellowfin are being caught here. Changes in water temperature from El Nino and La Nina climactic patterns were a factor, but sheer fishing pressure and indiscriminate fishing methods undoubtedly contributed to the decline. As tuna stocks have been overfished globally – one species after another and one ocean after another – the Pacific has become the source of most of the world's tuna for fishing fleets from around the world. Bigeye and yellowfin tuna are already in serious trouble, and even skipjack, once thought of as virtually limitless, are now in decline and being caught at a rate that is not sustainable in the long term. In 2009 scientists advised that fishing pressure needed to be cut by up to half, to allow bigeye numbers to recover. More than 70 percent of the world's tuna now comes from the Pacific Ocean, and in 2009 almost 2.5 million tonnes of tuna (58 percent of the world catch) was taken from the western and central Pacific. And that was just the reported catch. Illegal fishing is a significant problem in the region, with international waters beyond the jurisdiction of any one country creating havens for pirate fishers. In recent years, Greenpeace has made three expeditions into the region, monitoring fishing activity and taking action against illegal and unsustainable fishing. In 2009, the Greenpeace ship Esperanza exposed a Japanese longline fleet fishing illegally in Cook Islands' waters, resulting in compensation of $1 million for the Cook Islands and a further $400,000 for Tokelau. It's tempting to lay the responsibility for the declining state of Pacific tuna stocks at the feet of illegal fishing. However, the truth is that the legal fleet itself represents far too many vessels chasing 66 Professional Skipper September/October 2011 Purse seiners account for more than 75 percent of the Pacific catch, mostly targeting skipjack, the smaller and more abundant of the region's tuna species. However, the methods being used to catch skipjack are placing other stocks, including bigeye and yellowfin, in jeopardy. The cause of this problem is the use of fish aggregation devices (FADs) by purse seine vessels. FADs are floating objects that lure in ocean life seeking protection and food, or for other reasons unknown to us land animals. This might not be a problem if the fishing method that followed was selective, but purse seiners' huge nets are set to catch everything in the vicinity of the FAD. As a result of this deadly combination, the catch of non-target species is five to 10 times higher when purse seiners use FADs than when they set their nets on free-swimming schools of tuna. The bycatch of endangered sharks, billfish, mahi mahi and even the occasional sea turtle is usually thrown back into the ocean injured, dead or dying. In addition to the bycatch of other ocean life, FADs also lure in juvenile tuna, particularly bigeye and yellowfin. The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation – a group that includes many of the world's major canned tuna brands – concedes that 15-20 percent of purse seine FAD catches is made up of undersized tuna. Research by Pacific fleets has shown the dramatic impact FADs have on yellowfin. The average fork length of yellowfin caught by purse seiners setting on tuna schools is 1.3m, a fish that has reached spawning size. But when caught around FADs, the average yellowfin measures a mere 501mm. Any fisherman will tell you that is a shamefully small yellowfin, and it has almost certainly not reached maturity. Greenpeace is running an international campaign to end the use of FADs in purse seine fisheries. In New Zealand we are targeting the main brands of canned tuna and urging them to stop buying tuna that have been caught using this method. Within a month of launching the campaign, the retailer Foodstuffs (the New World, Pak'n'Save and Four Square brands) announced it would shift most of its Pams canned tuna range to more sustainable methods – purse seine fishing without FADs and more selective pole and line fishing – by the end of this year. On the other hand, New Zealand's largest canned tuna brand, Sealord, has taken the opposite stance. The company has just released a new logo and is branding itself as the seafood experts, claiming to "respect and protect the ocean". Yet it is resisting calls from concerned consumers to change to sustainably caught tuna, and instead continues to fill its cans with tuna caught by purse seiners using FADs. The Greenpeace campaign in the United Kingdom has resulted in a major shift. All but one of the main tuna brands there have announced they have, or will, phase out FAD-caught tuna. Leading