by Brian Robbins MARSHFIELD, MA – If we wanted to, we could easily fill the available pages of this annual Tuna Focus with Kevin Scola stories. If you don’t know the Marshfield, MA-based Scola, ask some of his fellow fisherman. “Kevin? If there’s a fish to catch, he’s the guy that’s gonna catch it.” Or, …
Category: Bluefin
Guest Column: Move cautiously with Western Atlanic bluefin tuna
by Rich Ruais After the last complete Western Atlantic Bluefin stock assessment in 2014, Dr. Clay Porch (the lead bluefin assessment scientist for National Marine Fisheries Service) described the assessment results as follows: “This is the most optimistic assessment we’ve had in years, although it’s important to recognize the uncertainties associated with it.” Consistent with …
ICCAT adopts higher quotas for western, eastern bluefin tuna
GENOA, ITALY – The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) concluded its annual meeting here on Nov. 17 and adopted, with overwhelming support, increases in both the western and eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna quotas. At press time, neither the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) nor ICCAT had issued details about the meeting. …
Lutcavage team to use ‘hexacopter’ drones to survey bluefin tuna
GLOUCESTER, MA – Back in 1993, Molly Lutcavage, then a scientist at the New England Aquarium, launched one of the region’s first cooperative research programs, working with fishermen and spotter pilots to photograph Atlantic bluefin tuna schools from the air to get a sense of how many of the big fish actually were out there. …
New bluefin stock assessments show stunning reversal in abundance
by Rich Ruais As recently as 2009, the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS) to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) was warning that the eastern Atlantic stock of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea faced “a high risk of fisheries and stock collapse.” This implied terrible stock condition led …
Bluefin tuna harpooners doing well; hook bite getting a good start
HARWICH, MA – The bluefin tuna fishery was chugging along in mid-July. Dealers reported a somewhat slow though steady stream of landings. Most were coming from boats fishing off Maine, as well as “a few here and there” from around Cape Cod. The big news was that harpooners, for the first time in close to …
Harpooners get a jump on the ‘14 bluefin season
HARWICH, MA – The 2014 bluefin tuna fishery opened on June 1 and harpooners soon sprung into action. By midmonth, fish had been landed in ports from Maine to Cape Cod, although fishermen and dealers still characterized it as a relatively slow start due to cool water temperatures and strings of bad-weather days. “It’s quiet, …
Lessons from BP spill: Crude oil toxic to large pelagic embryo hearts
SEATTLE, WA – In March, researchers announced that the disastrous BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico four years ago had the same devastating effects on the embryonic stage of large pelagic fish, including bluefin tuna, as those suffered by Pacific herring and pink salmon after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in …
NJ bite stokes late-fall bluefin fishery
MANASQUAN, NJ – Bluefin tuna fishermen from Maine to North Carolina dropped everything and bolted for New Jersey and Long Island ports in early December as word spread that the big fish were biting in Hudson Canyon. In a stroke of good timing, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced the week before that it …
Industry pans draft bluefin Amendment 7
GLOUCESTER, MA – Many of the principal people involved in the bluefin tuna and swordfish fisheries got their first detailed explanation of draft Amendment 7 to the Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fishery Management Plan during a Sept. 4 public hearing conducted here by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Most were dismayed, mainly …
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