Albacore Tuna, Bigeye Tuna, Pacific Bluefin Tuna, Southern Bluefin Tuna, Swordfish, Yellowfin Tuna
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Albacore tuna, Bigeye tuna, Pacific Bluefin tuna, Southern Bluefin tuna, Swordfish, Yellowfin tuna Thunnus alalunga, Thunnus obesus, Thunnus orientalis, Thunnus maccoyii, Xiphias gladius and Thunnus albacares ©Monterey Bay Aquarium North, South, and Western and Central Pacific Drifting longline March 12, 2015 (updated January 8, 2018) Seafood Watch Consulting Researcher Disclaimer Seafood Watch® strives to have all Seafood Reports reviewed for accuracy and completeness by external scientists with expertise in ecology, fisheries science and aquaculture. Scientific review, however, does not constitute an endorsement of the Seafood Watch® program or its recommendations on the part of the reviewing scientists. Seafood Watch® is solely responsible for the conclusions reached in this report. Seafood Watch Standard used in this assessment: Standard for Fisheries vF2 Table of Contents About. Seafood. .Watch . 3. Guiding. .Principles . 4. Summary. 5. Final. Seafood. .Recommendations . 6. Introduction. 8. Assessment. 19. Criterion. 1:. .Impacts . on. the. species. .under . .assessment . .19 . Criterion. 2:. .Impacts . on. other. .species . .28 . Criterion. 3:. .Management . Effectiveness. .52 . Criterion. 4:. .Impacts . on. the. habitat. and. .ecosystem . .64 . Acknowledgements. 67. References. 68. Appendix. A:. Extra. .By . Catch. .Species . 82. Appendix. B:. Updated. January. 8,. .2017 . .112 . 2 About Seafood Watch Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch® program evaluates the ecological sustainability of wild-caught and farmed seafood commonly found in the United States marketplace. Seafood Watch® defines sustainable seafood as originating from sources, whether wild-caught or farmed, which can maintain or increase production in the long-term without jeopardizing the structure or function of affected ecosystems. Seafood Watch® makes its science-based recommendations available to the public in the form of regional pocket guides that can be downloaded from www.seafoodwatch.org. The program’s goals are to raise awareness of important ocean conservation issues and empower seafood consumers and businesses to make choices for healthy oceans. Each sustainability recommendation on the regional pocket guides is supported by a Seafood Report. Each report synthesizes and analyzes the most current ecological, fisheries and ecosystem science on a species, then evaluates this information against the program’s conservation ethic to arrive at a recommendation of “Best Choices,” “Good Alternatives” or “Avoid.” The detailed evaluation methodology is available upon request. In producing the Seafood Reports, Seafood Watch® seeks out research published in academic, peer-reviewed journals whenever possible. Other sources of information include government technical publications, fishery management plans and supporting documents, and other scientific reviews of ecological sustainability. Seafood Watch® Research Analysts also communicate regularly with ecologists, fisheries and aquaculture scientists, and members of industry and conservation organizations when evaluating fisheries and aquaculture practices. Capture fisheries and aquaculture practices are highly dynamic; as the scientific information on each species changes, Seafood Watch®’s sustainability recommendations and the underlying Seafood Reports will be updated to reflect these changes. Parties interested in capture fisheries, aquaculture practices and the sustainability of ocean ecosystems are welcome to use Seafood Reports in any way they find useful. For more information about Seafood Watch® and Seafood Reports, please contact the Seafood Watch® program at Monterey Bay Aquarium by calling 1-877-229- 9990. 3 Guiding Principles Seafood Watch defines sustainable seafood as originating from sources, whether fished1 or farmed, that can maintain or increase production in the long-term without jeopardizing the structure or function of affected ecosystems. Based on this principle, Seafood Watch had developed four sustainability criteria for evaluating wildcatch fisheries for consumers and businesses. These criteria are: How does fishing affect the species under assessment? How does the fishing affect other, target and non-target species? How effective is the fishery’s management? How does the fishing affect habitats and the stability of the ecosystem? Each criterion includes: Factors to evaluate and score Guidelines for integrating these factors to produce a numerical score and rating Once a rating has been assigned to each criterion, we develop an overall recommendation. Criteria ratings and the overall recommendation are color-coded to correspond to the categories on the Seafood Watch pocket guide and online guide: Best Choice/Green: Are well managed and caught in ways that cause little harm to habitats or other wildlife. Good Alternative/Yellow: Buy, but be aware there are concerns with how they’re caught. Avoid/Red Take a pass on these for now. These items are overfished or caught in ways that harm other marine life or the environment. 1 “Fish” is used throughout this document to refer to finfish, shellfish and other invertebrates 4 Summary Albacore, bigeye, Pacific bluefin, southern bluefin and yellowfin tuna and swordfish are caught by a variety of gears in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO), including the North and South Pacific regions. This report focuses on the longline fisheries within the WCPO region that target these six species. There are several broadly defined categories of longline fisheries. These include: 1. South Pacific albacore fishery, which is made up of domestic vessels from Pacific Island countries that operate in subtropical waters targeting albacore and distant water vessels from Chinese-Taipei, China and Vanuatu, that fish south of 20 degrees S and supply albacore to canneries. 2. South Pacific distant water swordfish fishery, which is mostly made up of vessels from Spain. 3. Tropical offshore and distant water bigeye and yellowfin tuna targeted fisheries. The offshore fishery includes vessels from Chinese-Taipei and China that are based in the Pacific Island countries and the distant water fleet is made up of Japanese, Korean, Chinese-Taipei, China and Vanuatu vessels. The offshore fishery supplies tuna to the sashimi market and the distant water to the frozen sashimi market. 4. North Pacific distant water albacore and swordfish fisheries, made up of vessels from Japan, Chinese-Taipei and Vanuatu. Pacific bluefin tuna are targeted by Japanese and Chinese-Taipei longliners and southern bluefin tuna are caught in longline fisheries operating in the South Pacific Ocean. In addition to these fisheries, there are a number of domestic tuna fisheries operating in the sub-tropical and temperate areas of the WCPO (SPC 2014). We have included in this report the North and South Pacific fisheries targeting albacore and swordfish, the North Pacific fishery for Pacific bluefin tuna and the south Pacific fishery for southern bluefin tuna. In addition, the tropical tuna fishery, which targets yellowfin and bigeye tuna is included in this report. Populations of swordfish, albacore, and yellowfin tuna are healthy and fishing mortality rates are currently sustainable, although swordfish in the South Pacific may be undergoing overfishing. Bigeye tuna populations have increased in recent years and they are no longer considered overfished. However, populations of Pacific bluefin tuna in the North Pacific ocean have been greatly reduced, as much as 96% over time and fishing mortality rates are currently too high. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) manages bigeye, and yellowfin tuna in the WCPO and albacore tuna in the South Pacific, while the WCPFC and Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission manage swordfish, albacore and Pacific bluefin tuna throughout the North Pacific Ocean. Both organizations have provided few management measures specific to these species and have been only moderately effective in enforcing them. Management of bluefin tuna has not been effective to date at maintaining population abundance. Pelagic longline gears typically have little to no contact with bottom habitats but do interact with ecologically important species, which could cause negative effects to the ecosystem. 5 Final Seafood Recommendations CRITERION 2: CRITERION 1: IMPACTS ON CRITERION 3: CRITERION 4: IMPACTS ON OTHER MANAGEMENT HABITAT AND OVERALL SPECIES/FISHERY THE SPECIES SPECIES EFFECTIVENESS ECOSYSTEM RECOMMENDATION Albacore Green (4.47) Red (1.00) Red (1.00) Green (3.87) Avoid (2.04) South Pacific, Drifting longline Southern bluefin Red (1.92) Red (1.00) Red (1.00) Green (3.87) Avoid (1.65) tuna South Pacific, Drifting longline Bigeye tuna Green (3.83) Red (1.00) Red (1.73) Green (3.87) Avoid (2.25) Western and Central Pacific, Drifting longline Yellowfin tuna Green (5.00) Red (1.00) Red (1.73) Green (3.87) Avoid (2.41) Western and Central Pacific, Drifting longline Pacific bluefin tuna Red (1.41) Red (0.95) Red (1.00) Green (3.87) Avoid (1.51) North Pacific, Drifting longline Swordfish Green (5.00) Red (0.95) Red (1.00) Green (3.87) Avoid (2.07) North Pacific, Drifting longline Albacore Green (3.83) Red (0.95) Red (1.00) Green (3.87) Avoid (1.94) North Pacific, Drifting longline Swordfish Yellow (3.05) Red (1.00) Red (1.00) Green (3.87) Avoid (1.85) South Pacific, Drifting longline Summary The overall recommendation for longline caught albacore, bigeye, yellowfin and Pacific bluefin tuna along with swordfish caught in the western and central, north and south Pacific Ocean is 'Avoid'. This is due to a combination of factors including the current status of Pacific bluefin tuna, bycatch associated with these fisheries and a lack of well focuses management plans. Scoring Guide Scores range from zero to five where zero indicates very poor performance and five indicates.