US Will Back CITES Listing of BF Tuna

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The Obama administration has decided to back the listing of Bluefin Tuna as an endangered species under CITES and will vote to do so later next month at a CITES meeting in Qatar. Should BFT be listed there will be no commercial or recreational fishing in US Waters for them. Here's a report from the New York Times:

U.S. Backs Proposed Trading Ban on Bluefin Tuna
By PATRICK REIS of Greenwire
Published: March 3, 2010

The Obama administration expressed support today for a proposed ban on the international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Monaco has proposed listing the tuna as an "appendix 1" species under the United Nations' Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), a designation that would prohibit its trade across international boundaries. The convention will take up the proposal at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, beginning March 15.

The United States issued preliminary support for the proposal in October but said it would reconsider if the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) adopted sufficiently strong fishing quotas and enforcement measures.

Today, Tom Strickland, assistant Interior secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, said the United States has determined ICCAT fell short.

For entire report, goto:

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/03...una-74803.html

You are talking about a fish that travels globally and is targeted world wide. This will do nothing but delay the inevitable .

Maybe Discovery Channel will make a show called Tuna Wars.

Hunting down, and firing cruise missiles at any and all vessels that come into our waters in an attempt to hunt these fish down,.. sounds like a perfect way to start this off.

Not that hard to figure out who are the ones that must be deterred.

Tunas Wars guess we`ll all be on it ...lol what gets me i know that we have to conserve our fisheries and yea we have rules on sizes and all guide lines thats great but i think we are the only country following then .. i was in jamaica and whatever was caught there the locals use it as food even turtles sames as when a couple of yrs back when i went to trinidad i mean so we follow all the rules to conserve the fisheries but other countrys arent doing crap about it huh...

This listing only applies to Atlantic bluefin tuna...there are two other species of bluefin in the world: Pacific bluefin and southern bluefin, and both occur in the Indo-Pacific. North Pacific bluefin do not appear to be overfished; however, southern bluefin have been extensively overfished.

I have to disagree with your comment about "delaying the inevitable". While Atlantic bluefin are heavily overfished, there still many fish up and down the east coast of the US. Last year was a phenominal bluefin season in the northeast. With proper management measures in place, Atlantic bluefin could recover. Reducing trade may be one of the measures that eases some of the pressure from Atlantic bluefin, given the fact that many commercially caught Atlantic bluefin are destined for Japan.

Japan's fleet and others will travel the world to find more bluefins. As bluefins beccome scare elsewhere they will move on to areas where they are plentiful. Right now they are hammering the Mexican coast for yellowfin and bluefin tuna.

JDL,
I have to disagree with you that last year was a goo year in the northeast. That's where I'm from and where my family still fishes for BFTuna. Last year was a poor year for commercial fishermen but a good year for recreational but; overall nothing like it used to be 10,15,20 years ago. BFT stocks in the northwest Atlantic have been on a downward spiral for over 20 years now.

I believe the measures drafted and announced by ICCAT would have done much to reverse that trend. However, O'Bama has chosen not to work within that framework and will go to CITES in two weeks.

I stand by my statement. While it was not as good as things were 25 years ago and stocks are certainly in trouble, but much better bluefin fishing than ten years ago. There were large schools of bluefin off NJ all summer and fall, and a huge body of fish off New England. I fished a few times off Massachusetts in the fall and saw hundreds of fish breaking water ranging from about 75-600+lbs. The fishing off Prince Edward Island in Canada was also great for giants up to over 1,000lbs.