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The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) has recently announced 2009 annual catches of bigeye tuna by longliners. The resolution C-09-01 from last June, which established the tuna closures in the Eastern Pacific Ocean for 2009, 2010 and 2011, has also established catches limits for the species by longliners over 24 meter length overall.
Even though 2009 catches level is within the authorized limit, it is reported to be 21% higher than the previous year. (See data below)
According to the resolution, China, Japan, Korea, and Chinese Taipei shall take the measures necessary to ensure that their total annual longline catches of bigeye tuna in the EPO during 2009 do not exceed 2.507 MT, 32.713 MT, 12.073 MT and 7.635 MT respectively.
Except for Chinese Taipei, all the other nations were far from reaching their quotas in 2009, even though catches have risen back to 2007 levels for most of them.
Previous speculations raised the fact that the purse-seine closure in the area for 59 days in August/September and another 59 days in December/January 2010 would be the responsible for the increase, leaving more mature fish for longliners. However, the monthly distribution of bigeye catches by longliners shows to be very uniform during 2009 and that could represent an increase in effort only.
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