THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9607310671
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB HUTCHINSON
LENGTH: 35 lines
If you haven't caught and kept a bluefin tuna off Virginia or North Carolina this season, forget it.
Effective 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, the National Marine Fisheries Service banned recreational fishermen from landing bluefins south of the Delaware/New Jersey border. Technically, the boundary is 38:47 north latitude.
Recreational fishermen still may catch bluefins south of this line. They just can't keep them.
According to Dr. William Hogarth of the federal agency, the closure was ordered because the area's annual quota had been landed. East Coast anglers had a quota of 243,000 metric tons for the year.
Much of the quota was consumed during the tremendous mid-winter fishery that has developed off Hatteras, N.C., in recent years.
Still, that fishery was responsible for the federal government granting recreational fishermen an additional 95 metric tons, almost 210,000 pounds, just as the Virginia season was getting started.
So you win some and you lose some.
The bluefin, which migrates all over the North Atlantic, has been closely regulated throughout its range for more than 20 years. It was the first ocean-roaming fish to be covered by a multi-nation agreement, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT).
In spite of that tight regulation, the world's population continues to plummet. It is estimated at less than 25 percent of what it was 30 years ago, Hogarth said.
The problem is accentuated by a tremendous commercial demand. The Japanese, who make it into sushi, have paid more than $75,000 for individual fish, which can weigh in excess of 1,500 pounds. by CNB