BLUEFIN TUNA: SHOULD HAVE BEEN CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASKED FOR--BECAUSE YOU GOT IT

 

Before I begin getting into this post, let me make one thing completely clear:  There have been a lot of bluefin tuna swimming off the East Coast of the United States over the past few years. 

What that means with respect to the health of the bluefin stock isn’t completely clear, as bluefin tuna are an extremely difficult fish to assess, particularly because there are two recognized stocks, which spawn in the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, respectively, although but individuals from both stocks regularly cross the Atlantic to feed.

Because of the difficulty of assessing the two stocks, and the fact that the stocks intermingle on the feeding grounds, scientists at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas no longer manage the two stocks separately.  In 2022, ICCAT adopted a “Management Procedure” which

“links eastern and western Total Allowable Catch (TACs) under one management framework, providing joint management advice, and requires the Executive Summaries for the East and West [bluefin tuna]…to have common or closely related sections.  The [management procedure] frees the assessment process from having to provide annual TAC advice and allows the stock assessment process to return to its traditional strengths which are to provide a determination of relative stock status…”

Thus, the management procedure no longer attempts to determine whether either stock is overfished.  However, it does still seek to determine whether overfishing is occurring.  According to the 2024-2025 ICCAT report, overfishing is not occurring in either the eastern or the western stock.  However, because the stocks are of very different sizes, permitted eastern and western stock landings are very different as well.  Thus, the total allowable catch for the large eastern stock is 40,570 metric tons, while the total allowable catch for the much smaller western stock is just 2,726 metric tons, less than 7 percent of what may be removed from its eastern counterpart.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, often referred to by the acronym “ICCAT,” is empowered to assign bluefin tuna quotas to each member jurisdiction.  Because the eastern stock is so much larger than the western stock, some of the nations that fish in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and/or the Mediterranean Sea have been assigned quotas that are substantially larger than the entire total allowable catch for the western stock, which western stock quota must be shared among multiple fishing nations.  For example, Spain’s quota is 6,784 metric tons, nearly 2 ½ times the size of the whole western TAC, while France isn’t far behind with a 6,694 metric ton quota, followed by Italy at 5,283 metric tons.

Of the nations that fish on the western stock, the United States receives what is by far the largest quota, 1,316.14 metric tons, roughly twice that received by the nations with the next-largest quotas, Japan (664.52 metric tons) and Canada (543.65 metric tons).  

The United States then breaks its quota down into various categories, with 54 percent assigned to the commercial General Category, which fishes with hook and line or harpoons, 4.5 percent going to the Harpoon Category, 15.9% assigned to the Longline Category, and 0.1 percent to the tiny commercial Trap Category.  The Angling Category receives 22.6 percent, or 297.4 metric tons, of the overall quota, with that further broken down into 134.1 metric tons for the School Bluefin category (27 to 47 inches curved fork length), 154.1 metric tons for the Large School/Small Medium category (47 to 73 inches CFL), and 9.2 metric tons for the Trophy category of over 73 inches.  All of those subcategories are further broken down into regions.  In addition, the National Marine Fisheries Service maintains 2.9 percent, or 38.2 metric tons, of its overall quota as a reserve, to be assigned should any category exceed its quota.

But while all those details are nice, the important thing to remember is that if any nation, including the United States, exceeds its ICCAT-assigned bluefin quota, that nation must pay it back pound-for-pound in the following season.  And if the same nation exceeds its quota for a second consecutive year, then ICCAT can compel that nation to pay back not 100 percent of the excess poundage, but 125 percent, as an incentive to keep landings in line.

The United States went over its ICCAT-assigned bluefin tuna quota last year by nine percent.

Most, but not all, of the categories exceeded their quotas.  In the commercial fishery, the General Category was over by 8 percent, the Harpoon Category by 12.  The Longline Category was under by 33 percent, while the Trap Category didn’t land any bluefin at all.  But the Angling Category clearly had the biggest overages, with the overall category over by 52 percent, School Bluefin over by 14 percent, Large School/Small Medium bluefin over by 83 percent, and the Trophy subcategory over by a startling 102 percent.  

Thus, when the National Marine Fisheries Service has to allocate its pound-for-pound payback among all of the separate categories, which will happen later this year, the Angling Category naturally and deservedly will probably take the greatest percentage reduction, because it also had, by far, the greatest percentage overages in 2024.

But that put NMFS in a quandary because, as everyone agrees, there are a lot of bluefin swimming off the East Coast of the United States.

The agency had to put together a set of recreational regulations that struck a balance between providing anglers with a viable fishery, while at the same time preventing those anglers from exceeding their 2025 quota.

And with that understanding, I’ll get on with the primary point of this post.

When I attended the Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel meeting last May, NMFS had already announced that it would maintain the so-called “default regulations” that set a one-fish bag limit for all recreational vessels, including charter and head boats, and a size limit of 27 to 73 inches, curved fork length, for the 2025 fishing season.

In theory, those regulations were to stay in effect until the end of the year but, at the Advisory Panel meeting, NMFS’ fisheries managers made it very clear that, with the number of bluefin available, there was no way that the season was going to last that long.  

Based on the previous years’ landings, the managers predicted that the recreational season would probably be closed sometime in late summer, sometime between the very end of July and the beginning of September, depending on how quickly the Angling Category quota was filled, and also depending on how many bluefin had already been landed off the South Atlantic coast, a figure that hadn’t yet been calculated.

As I noted in an earlier post, a lot of people were unhappy with NMFS’ preferred bluefin tuna regulations.  That was particularly true of the charter and party boat operators, who argued that customers wouldn’t book any trips if the one-fish bag limit remained in place.  

That led to the managers asking a very important question:  Was it more important for the for-hire industry to be able to kill a second fish, or to maintain a longer season?

The question didn’t seem to generate much conversation during the Advisory Panel meeting, but maybe NMFS got a lot of comments once the meeting was over, because on June 3, it published a rule in the Federal Register that adjusted the Angling Category retention limits, limiting harvest to School bluefin (27 to 47 inches CFL), and prohibiting the landings of Large School and Small Medium tuna, while maintaining the one-fish bag limit for private vessels, but increasing the bag limit to two School bluefin for vessels in the Charter/Headboat Category.  NMFS clearly explained that it adopted the new rule because

“Given fishery performance in recent years and the high availability of [bluefin tuna] on the fishing grounds, it is very likely that under the default daily retention limits, which allows fishermen to land heavier-weight large school/small medium [bluefin tuna] the recreational fishery could reach the available 2025 Angling category quota and subquotas relatively early in the season resulting in a premature closure of the recreational [bluefin tuna] fisheries.  As such, NMFS believes adjusting the daily retention limits to the levels established in this action, which limits landings to lower-weight school sized [bluefin tuna], would assist in extending the time it takes to harvest the Angling category quota and subquotas…  [emphasis added]”

So, NMFS did what it could to extend the recreational season, while still managing to give the charter and head boats the second fish that they wanted.  And so, of course, the agency was excoriated for trying to do the right thing.

On the Water magazine ran an article that began,

“Is it worth the time—and the fuel bill—to run offshore to the tuna grounds if the most your crew can bring home is one small bluefin tuna?,”

which went on to quote Glenn Hughes, president of the American Sportfishing Association, the biggest tackle industry trade group, who complained,

“We’re disappointed in NOAA’s revised 2025 retention limits for the bluefin tuna Angling category because of its associated economic impacts.  These restrictions threaten revenue, jobs, and fishing opportunities for the sportfishing industry—affecting anglers, charter operators, and coastal businesses.”

Another article, which appeared in the publication Fishing Tackle Retailer, was written by Tom Fucini, the Northeast Sales Representative for the Folsom Corporation, a major fishing tackle importer/wholesaler.  Fucini whined that

“This [regulatory] update brings a major reduction in both the number and size of fish that recreational anglers can harvest,”

observed that

“In many parts of the region the Bluefin bite in recent years has consisted of predominantly 50-70″ class fish—these fish are ineligible for harvest in 2025,”

and warned tackle shop owners that

“Over the past few seasons, Northeast Anglers have seen a “Tuna Boom,” with many new anglers getting into the fishery…These new limits threaten to slow that momentum.”

He called the new bluefin regulations

“a dramatic step backward,”

and after leveling additional criticisms at NMFS, told readers that

“If you’d like to voice your concerns about how these changes will affect retailers, charter boats, and manufacturers in the fishing industry, you can contact NOAA directly, [emphasis omitted]”

Given NMFS’ clear warning that allowing anglers to kill the Large School and Small Medium fish would lead to a “premature closure” of the bluefin fishery “relatively early in the season,” such criticism of NMFS School Bluefin-only rule can only be viewed as the industry effectively saying that

“We would rather have a very short season, and the ability to harvest the larger bluefin, than have a long season but be restricted to only School-sized fish.”

The people writing those articles were certainly sophisticated enough to know and understand the regulations and, more importantly, understand the consequences of their decisions.

 And they must have made some convincing arguments to NMFS, and inspired others to do the same, because on June 12, just 9 days after the School bluefin-only regulations were released, NMFS issued a new rule stating that as of July 1, all recreational vessels, including for-hire boats, will be able to retain one 27 to 73-inch bluefin per day, and boats in the Charter/Headboat category would be able to keep a second, School bluefin as well.

The rule was even more liberal than the default regulations, because of the second for-hire fish, and thus assured that the fishery would be closed that much sooner.

Despite the certain early closure, the angling press embraced the June 12 rule.

The Cranston [Rhode Island] Herald blared that

“Bluefin tuna regs change for the better,”

and made the complimentary comment

“Hats off to Rick Bellavance, President of the RI Party & Charter Boat Association and Chair of the New England Fishery Management Council as well as Mike Pierdinock [President of the Stellwagen Bank Charter Boat Association] for advocating for a larger bluefin size.”

Similar sentiments were voiced by The Fisherman magazine, which announced that

“NOAA (Thankfully) Revises Bluefin Tuna Regs.”

But now that the bill for those revised regulations has come due, in the form of an early closed season, no one is making happy comments any more.

An article in Anglers Journal announced the August 12 closure, and quotes an American Sportfishing Association email that uses the same language it used to oppose the School bluefin-only rules last June:

“This closure threatens revenue, jobs, and fishing opportunities for the sportfishing industry—affecting anglers, charter operators, and coastal businesses.”

Apparently to the ASA, the closure was worth a pro forma whine, but not worth thinking up a new comment.

Salt Water Sportsman was resigned about the closure, but apparently didn’t care enough about the issue to research what was really going on.  It wrote,

“The closure should come as no surprise to anyone keeping up with the fishery.  During a banner 2024 bluefin season off the coast of the Northeast, scads of school-size bluefins (27-47 inches) podded up close to shore, where private anglers and charter captains experienced a blufin [sic] boom and over-ran the quota by at least 50 percent according to NOAA’s estimates.

“In response, NOAA revised retention limits.  For 2025, private vessels with a highly migratory species permit were allowed just one school-sized bluefin tuna; charter boats and headboats were allowed two.  No retention of fish longer than 47 inches was allowed without a commercial license…

“…Apparently reduced retention limits had little effect in deterring anglers from fishing.  The season has been shut down a little more than two months after it began.”

There was no mention of the Large School/Small Medium bluefin that were at the heart of the issue and the overage.  With anglers getting such flawed information from the hook-and-bullet press, it’s not surprising that they’re often confused about how the fishery management process works, and so easily manipulated by those with personal or organizational agendas.

One of the biggest red herrings are angling industry voices who place the blame on the United States’ ICCAT quota, arguing that it represents only a very small percentage of overall bluefin tuna landings.  

What such industry advocates—whether charter boat captains or representatives of the fishing tackle industry—don’t tell recreational fishermen is that when they compare, say, the Tunisian quota of around 3,000 metric tons with the US quota, they’re comparing two very different things.  Tunisia fishes on the eastern stock of bluefin, where a 3,000 metric ton quota represents far less than 10 percent of the total allowable catch, while the United States fishes on the western stock, where the total allowable catch—for every fishing nation—is, at 2,726 metric tons, and the United States' quota of 1,316.14 metric tons is about equal to the combined quotas of the other five nations that fish on that stock.

But somehow, being able to harvest half of the entire western stock is not enough for these folks, and they are holding out hope that the United States is going to go to the next ICCAT meeting and convince Canada, Japan, and/or Mexico to give up some of their fishermen’s quota, just so United States anglers can catch a little more.

The bottom line is that a quota increase just isn’t likely to occur.

About the best we can hope for is that, when a new stock assessment is released in 2026 or 2027, it will suggest that everyone’s quotas can be increased, and that such rising tide will float the United States’ anglers’ boat along with everyone else’s.

Or course, the next stock assessment might just as easily suggest that a reduction in quotas is needed.  We won’t know until the assessment is released.

In the meantime, there’s little doubt that some anglers, for-hire captains, and tackle industry figures will continue to complain about the early bluefin closure, and will blame NMFS, maybe ICCAT, and anyone else they can think of for the fishery being shut down.

But it’s pretty sure that the one group of folks that they won’t blame is themselves, even though they were the ones who insisted that NMFS allow anglers to target and land the Large School and Small Medium bluefin.

They’ll never admit that NMFS did just what they wanted—gave them just what they asked for—and that they failed to consider the implications of their request before they made it.

But when you get what you ask for, and then decide you don’t like it, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.