In recent years, fishermen have seen a resurgence of
Atlantic bluefin tuna off the United States coast, with 2024 commercial and
recreational landings some of the highest in many years.
In fact, as things stand now, 2024 bluefin landings, when
combined with dead discards, were a little too high. At 1,613.9 metric tons
(mt), they exceeded the 2024 base quota of 1,341 mt by 20 percent; even when
the 2024 quota was adjusted by adding the 134.1 mt of bluefin quota that was
left unharvested in 2023, 2024 catch exceeded the United States quota by about
nine percent.
Fishermen in almost all of the various
permit categories exceeded their bluefin quotas in 2024. On a strictly
percentage basis, the Angling
category, which is limited to people who catch their bluefin with rod and
reel or with handlines and don’t sell their fish (including fish caught
from charter
boats and headboats), had the most egregious overage, exceeding their
adjusted 2024 quota by 152 percent. That overage spanned every size category of
bluefin that could be legally harvested, with school bluefin (27 to 47 inches)
landings 14 percent over-quota, large school/small medium (47 to 73 inches)
over by 83 percent, and trophy (73 inches and larger) bluefin landings 102
percent above quota.
The General
category, which includes commercial fishermen who catch their bluefin on
rod and reel (including most bluefin over 73 inches caught from charter
boats and headboats), handlines, bandit
gear, or greensticks,
as well as some of the fishermen who use harpoons, is the largest single
category, having been allocated nearly 58 percent of the adjusted quota. It
exceeded that quota by four percent, while the commercial Harpoon
category, limited to fishermen who only use that one type of gear, exceeded
its quota by eight percent.
However, two commercial bycatch-only categories did fail to
fill their entire 2024 Atlantic bluefin quotas.
One was the Longline
category, which includes bluefin caught as bycatch while targeting
swordfish and/or yellowfin and bigeye tuna. Its landings were 33 percent under
the applicable quota. Longliners in the Atlantic Ocean actually exceeded their
quota by 12 percent, but that overage was more than offset by low landings in
the Gulf of Mexico, where longliners only harvested eight percent of their
adjusted quota.
The other category that came in under quota was the
tiny Trap
category, which is allocated only 1.3 metric tons of bluefin, and is
limited to fishermen who accidentally catch a bluefin over 73 inches long in a
pound net or weir. It reported no 2024 landings at all.
Now, the fisheries managers at the National Marine Fisheries
Service’s (NMFS) Highly Migratory Species Division must do their best to ensure
that the United States stays within its Atlantic bluefin tuna quota in 2025,
for if it does not, it could face sanctions from the International Commission for the Conservation
of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which describes itself as “an
inter-governmental fisheries organization responsible for the conservation of
tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas.”
ICCAT was created in 1969 by a group of nations, known as
“contracting parties,” which recognized that fish such as bluefin tuna, which
migrate across entire ocean basins, cannot be adequately managed by any one
country, but only by an international organization with the authority to adopt
rules that transcend national boundaries. It is currently composed of 54
individual nations plus the European Union (thus, 81 nations in all), which
have agreed to abide by ICCAT’s Basic
Texts, which include its founding document, the International Convention
for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Convention), plus other governing
rules, resolutions, and agreements.
ICCAT has adopted rules for the bluefin tuna fishery that
the United States, as a signatory to the Convention, is bound to follow. In
1975, Congress passed the Atlantic
Tunas Convention Act, which authorized NMFS to administer and enforce
ICCAT’s fishery management measures.
As part of the bluefin management process, ICCAT assigns
catch quotas to each contracting party participating in the fishery. Should any
contracting party exceed
its annual quota, it is required to repay the overage, pound-for-pound, in
the next year. If a contracting party fails
to catch its entire quota, the uncaught amount, up to 10% of the annual
quota, may be added to the following year’s landings.
Things get a little trickier if a contracting party exceeds
its quota for two consecutive years. Should that happen, ICCAT may reduce
that party’s quota in the following year not just by the amount of the
overharvest, but by 125 percent of that amount, as an incentive to avoid excess
landings.
That is the situation that the United States is currently
trying to avoid. To do so, it is going to have to substantially reduce both
commercial and recreational landings, compared to what they were in 2024.
In the commercial fishery, that’s relatively easy to do.
Quotas can be reduced, and as landings are reported in near real-time, it is
relatively easy for NMFS to shut down a fishery in time to prevent overharvest.
In the case of commercial fisheries, NMFS most difficult task is to set
seasonal harvest limits, and impose season closures, in such a way that they
have a more-or-less equitable impact along the entire coast, something that can
be hard to do, given that fisheries begin, peak, and end at different times in
different regions.
Regulating recreational fisheries is far more difficult.
While United States anglers are required
to report Atlantic bluefin tuna landings within 24 hours after they
occur, that requirement is largely honored in the breach; at the most recent
meeting of NMFS’ Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel (HMS AP), held during
the first week of May 2025 (May AP meeting), attendees were told that only
about 40 percent, or perhaps slightly more, of all recreationally-caught
bluefin tuna are actually reported to NMFS as required.
That leaves NMFS heavily reliant on its Large Pelagic Survey
(LPS) for recreational catch information. The LPS is a telephone-based survey
of Angling and Charter/Headboat category permit holders fishing out of ports
between Maine and Virginia, which runs from July through October in Maine, New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and June through October in the other
participating states. In 2024, about 73 percent of recreational bluefin
landings were estimated through the LPS, 11 percent through required angler
reporting, and the rest through catch cards that Maryland and North Carolina
required offshore anglers to fill out and submit (the North Carolina catch card
program was terminated at the end of 2024 and will no longer be used).
Collating and analyzing the LPS data, and calculating
landings estimates based on that data takes time; unlike commercial landings
data, recreational landings estimates cannot be produced in anything close to
real-time. As a result, those estimates released well after the landings take
place, which makes it far more likely that recreational seasons won’t be closed
until anglers have already exceeded their quotas.
At the May AP meeting, NMFS fisheries managers stated that
recreational retention limits, which provided two school bluefin and one large
school or small medium fish to private boats, three school bluefin and one
large school or small medium to charter boats, and 12 school bluefin and two
small mediums to headboats in 2024, would have to be slashed for the 2025
season. The most likely regulations would allow a single bluefin, measuring
between 27 and 73 inches in length, to all recreational vessels. The season
would nominally end on December 31 although, as a practical matter, it was
expected to be closed sometime in late summer, the exact date depending on how
quickly the Angling category quota was caught. Season length would also depend
on how many bluefin had already been caught by anglers in 2025, and how much
such bluefin had already contributed to the Angling category quota.
Not surprisingly, HMS AP members associated with the
recreational fishing and boating industries were not pleased with the proposed
harvest limits. LPS is generally well-regarded, and does not attract the
sort of criticism often leveled at the Marine
Recreational Information Program, which is used to gather data on many
other recreational fisheries, so some of those industry-connected members began
their comments by generally praising the survey, but then suggesting that
perhaps, just in the case of 2024 bluefin landings, LPS might have encountered
some sort of “data outlier” that caused it to overestimate Angling category
catch. However, such possibility was discounted by NMFS staff, with John
Foster, the Technical Branch Director dealing with recreational fisheries
statistics, calling such comments “speculation” and stating that, if the 2024
data was reanalyzed, there would “Probably not [be] a significant directional
change.”
There were just a lot of bluefin tuna available to anglers
in 2024, and recreational landings were high.
Representatives of the charter and headboat fleet also
objected to the proposed retention limits, although they seemed more willing to
accept the accuracy of the data and focused on obtaining special regulations
that would allow them to retain more bluefin each day than private vessels
(although, as one HMS AP member noted, those extra fish had to come from
somewhere, and the only possible source were private boat anglers). One NMFS
fisheries manager, acknowledging that all fisheries regulations involve tradeoffs,
asked what was more important to the for-hire operators: a higher bag limit or
a longer season, for they could not have both without exceeding the reduced
2025 Angling quota. But the question drew little response.
As the May AP meeting ended, a recreational boat limit of
one 27- to 73-inch bluefin seemed likely. While many HMS AP members were not
happy with that outcome, they generally recognized that the United States was
locked into an annual quota, that it had apparently exceeded that quota in
2024, and that Angling category bag limits had to be sharply cut back as a
result. They understood that the reductions in the retention limits didn’t
reflect any shortage of bluefin, which everyone agreed were abundant, but instead
reflected the need to keep recreational landings, and all United States
landings, within the quota set by ICCAT.
So, the revised Angling category retention limits released
by NMFS on May 29, 2025 probably caught both HMS AP members and most bluefin
tuna anglers by surprise.
Instead of allowing anglers to take one bluefin per day, so
long as it measured between 27 and 73 inches long, NMFS put large school and
small medium bluefin tuna completely off-limits to the Angling category.
Instead, recreational fishermen wouldmay only be allowed to harvest school
bluefin in 2025, with private boats ableallowed to keep one fish per day, and
charter boats and headboats allowed to keep two.
While anglers were undoubtedly disappointed that the 47- to
73-inch bluefin, which were so important to the recreational fishery in 2024,
may not be landed, 2024 data demonstrates that NMFS’ action made sense. Out of
an estimated 17,051 bluefin landed in 2024, 12,482, or about 73 percent, were
school-sized fish. But while the number of school tuna landed by anglers was
far larger than that of any other size of bluefin, when measured by weight,
they represented less than 34 percent of 2024 recreational bluefin landings. By
limiting recreational landings to the smallest legal category of fish (“small
school” tuna less than 27 inches long must always be released), NMFS could give
charter boats and headboats the extra fish that they sought, while extending
the length of the season and helping to ensure that the Angling category quota
would not be exceeded.
The recreational fishing industry quickly attacked NMFS’
decision to limit harvest to school bluefin. A
May 30, 2025 article in On the Water magazine quoted
Glenn Hughes, president of the American Sportfishing Association, the largest
recreational fishing industry trade association, as saying “We’re disappointed
in NOAA’s revised 2025 retention limits for the bluefin tuna Angling category
because of its associated negative economic impacts. These restrictions
threaten revenue, jobs, and fishing opportunities for the sportfishing
industry—affecting anglers, charter operators, and coastal businesses.”
Hughes went on to opine, “As the bluefin tuna stock
rebuilds, securing additional access is reasonable and necessary to reflect
improved stock health and to maximize the fishery’s value to America’s
sportfishing economy.” However, Hughes did not elaborate on why he felt that
Canada, Japan, Mexico, or any other nation with Western Atlantic bluefin quota
would be willing to give up some of that quota so that United States anglers
might land more bluefin and “America’s sportfishing economy” might thrive.
Another
article, which appeared in the trade publication Fishing Tackle
Retailer on June 2, 2025, sounded similar themes. Written by Tom
Fucini, the northeast sales representative for Folsom Corp., a New Jersey-based
fishing tackle manufacturer and distributor, it noted 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.”
Fucini went on to call 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]” while providing the necessary
contact information.
Neither the On the Water article nor the
piece in Fishing Tackle Retailer provided NMFS’ perspective on
recreational bluefin tuna management, and there was no indication that any of
NMFS’ bluefin tuna managers were even contacted before the articles were
written.
However, the industry’s concerns seem to have struck a chord
with someone at NMFS, or perhaps with someone at the Department of Commerce,
NMFS’ parent agency, because on June 12, 2025, NMFS issued a third set
of bluefin tuna regulations, which are the most permissive of any rules
issued this year. Pursuant to the newly-issued rule, beginning on July 1, 2025,
all permitted Angling category vessels (including for-hire vessels fishing
under Angling category rules) will again be able to retain one bluefin tuna
between 27 and 73 inches in length, while headboats and charter boats will also
be able to retain a second bluefin between 27 and 47 inches long.
The new size and bag limits are supposed to remain in force
through the end of 2025, but there is little chance that will actually happen.
Instead, NMFS will almost certainly close the Angling category season early,
probably before Labor Day, as recreational bluefin landings begin to approach
the Angling category quota.
Because most bluefin tuna anglers don’t report their
landings, and because of the inevitable lag in calculating LPS results, there
is a very good chance that NMFS will be unable to close the Angling category
fishery before its quota is exceeded. Should that occur, the Angling category
will have to pay back its overage in 2026, when it will again face a reduced
quota. And, should commercial bluefin landings be high enough that, when
combined with recreational landings, the United States exceeds its overall bluefin
quota for the second year in a row, the Angling category may have to pay back
125 percent of its overage, rather than merely paying it back pound-for-pound.
Thus, the new rules could easily result in more hardship for
the Angling category. If anglers and the angling industry had accepted the
consequences of exceeding their 2024 quota, they would have faced a difficult
2025 season, but would have been able to enter 2026 with a clean slate and a
higher quota. Instead, the more liberal management measures sought by the
recreational fishing industry, and announced by NMFS on June 12, could easily
lead to exceeding the Angling category quota again in 2025, and anglers facing
paybacks, a reduced quota, and restrictive management measures in 2026, when
the consequences of exceeding the overall ICCAT quota could be more severe.
As is too often the case in fisheries management, it may
turn out to be one more example of a focus on short-term landings leading to
unnecessary and easily avoidable harm later on.
-----
This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog
of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at
http://conservefish.org/blog/
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