Group seeks to curb bluefin tuna fishing in Eastern Atlantic

U.S. fishermen have been able to catch only about one-tenth of their bluefin tuna quota for the year, said Monica Allen, with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (the virginian-pilot file photo)

By Catherine Kozak
The Virginian-Pilot

In their heyday, bluefin tuna were so plentiful off the Outer Banks that fishermen needed only to throw out a few menhaden and swarms of tuna would swim over.

“You could hand-feed them,” said Steve Richardson, a Virginia Beach charter captain whose boat, the Backlash, hails from Hatteras. “It was like puppy dogs, throwing them a bone. I wish it was like that today.”

The glory days of hooking thousands of majestic giants off the East Coast are gone. And now, concerned that the once-lucrative bluefin stock has been dangerously depleted, an American delegation to the International Commission for the Conservation of Tunas this month will request a three- to five-year moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.

“The U.S. is really trying to make a stand for a species that’s really at risk,” said Monica Allen, a spokeswoman with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The agency’s head, Bill Hogarth, is chairman of the delegation of about 30 that includes representatives from government, conservation groups, and the commercial and recreational fishing industries.

Allen, who will attend the meeting in Turkey, said scientists with the international commission estimate that the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin stock is being fished at three times the sustainable rate and is at risk of collapse.

The international quota – the total amount of fish allowed to be caught by commercial fishermen – for the Eastern Atlantic stock is 29,500 metric tons, but for the past five years, Allen said, about 50,000 metric tons have been caught annually. The quota for the Western Atlantic stock, which spawns in the Gulf of Mexico and migrates up the East Coast to Canada, is a total of 2,100 metric tons for the United States, Mexico, Japan and Canada.

The U.S. fishermen, she said, have been able to catch only about one-tenth of their quota of 1,391 metric tons for the year.

“That’s because they can’t find them – the fish are not out there,” she said. “There is definitely a thought that the overfishing in the East is having an effect on the Western stock.”

Jeffrey Aiken, owner of Jeffrey’s Seafood in Hatteras, estimated that bluefin volume is about 10 percent of what it was in the 1990s.

“The catch numbers and the effort has dwindled in Hatteras significantly,” Aiken said “and that’s indicative of what’s happening up north as well.”

Many Outer Banks charter boats, he said, are having more luck finding bluefin further south off Morehead City. New England watermen, who once caught more than watermen in Hatteras, also catch few bluefin these days.

Richardson said that bluefin weighing 100 pounds or more still can be found in Virginia about 20 miles offshore in the fall and winter. But, he said, the high cost of fuel has made them hardly worth looking for anymore.

Now, charter boat license-holders can keep only one 72-inch or larger bluefin per year, per boat. In the summer months, the anglers can keep up to three bluefin per boat, per trip. One fish must be 27 inches to 47 inches, and the other two can be 47 inches to 72 inches.

At the fish’s peak in the 1990s, thousands of the giant bluefin greater than 300 pounds were caught off the Outer Banks in the winter months. Watermen were paid $10,000 to $40,000 per fish. But the last busy season was in 2002, according to fishermen.

In 1996, the Tag-A-Giant research program was launched in Hatteras to track the tuna. The joint effort between Hatteras charter boat captains, anglers and a team with the Tuna Research and Conservation Center involved insertion of an electronic tag that recorded behavior, location and body and water temperature.

Since then, there have been 976 electronic tags inserted into bluefin, said Shana Miller, science and policy coordinator for Tag-A-Giant, a program affiliated with Stanford University.

The world record catch is 1,496 pounds, she said, but the fish are known to grow as large as 1,800 pounds.

Although there were some big bluefin found in North Carolina waters last year, most seem to have moved north of New England.

“Fish that were tagged in North Carolina in the ’90s are now showing up in Canada, feeding in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” Miller said.

Canada’s annual quota is 500 metric tons.

Last week, 15 fish were tagged there, she said, and all weighed more than 800 pounds.

One fisherman caught a bluefin that weighed 1,142 pounds. It had been electronically tagged in North Carolina in 1997.

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711,

cate.kozak@pilotonline.com