For once Bluefin tuna fishermen in Atlantic Canada received good news from the government — but you wouldn’t think so by listening to the public airways and reading reports from the Ottawa media.

On August 29, the federal government decided not to list Bluefin tuna under the Species at Risk Act, thus enabling this small but important segment of the Atlantic commercial fishery to continue.

A 30-day period was allotted for response to the decision and no doubt the government will be flooded with concerns by this or that ecology or environmental group to change their minds on this matter.

In a televised interview, Julie Stuart, director of Ottawa’s species at risk department, said science and the importance of this fishery to Atlantic coastal communities won out.

The Ecology Action Centre cried foul and said the fact that the biomass was 50 per cent less that it was in recent years should have persuaded Ottawa to list the tuna under the Act.

The industry was elated.

This was a long fight in which the opposition included some in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans who had to be persuaded that things were on the mend with the Bluefin.

The major problem with the species is that it doesn’t stay put. It spawns in the Gulf of Mexico and it appears in the Sargasso Sea, it swims all the way to Newfoundland and Labrador waters, some of them heading across the Atlantic and mingling with the Eastern Atlantic stock.

While fishing by both Canadians and Americans have been strictly controlled and enforced for the past decade, such is not the case in European waters. Until the past year or so, quotas set by ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna) were more or less ignored, with twice the tonnage or even more being landed over and above these quotas.

The use of large purse seiners also meant that no tuna — big or small — escaped the net, with some of these harvesters operating under no flag.

It was only when the plight of the Bluefin, due to the fishing methods, was brought to the attention of European consumer that things began to change. Large seafood chains refused to buy Bluefins which was probably the most telling factor in quotas being slashed and adhered to.

In just two short years, Bluefins have begun to recover in waters of the Mediterranean and along the Spanish western coast.

The recovery has been ongoing in the waters of the Western Atlantic for years. While fishermen knew that, the pill was hard to swallow by government and environmental groups.

More exasperating was the fact that the Bluefins they were saving by having restrictive quotas were being caught across the pond.

A spokesman for the Bluefin sector in Nova Scotia said placing the species on the Species at Risk Act wouldn’t have done a thing in regards to saving the stocks because this quota — which is a mere 640 metric tonnes, worth $10-million to the Atlantic economy — would only have been caught by the Europeans.

While this fishery cannot begin to compete with the lobster or ground fishery in Atlantic Canada in terms of monetary gains, is serves as an important mix to license holders, mostly inshore fishermen, who depend on a number of fisheries each year to make a living.

The Bluefin tuna fishery has already begun. By early September, large amounts of fish had been spotted on the Hell Hole, located on the southern end of Browns Bank adjacent to the Fundian Channel and Georges Bank, German Bank and elsewhere in the Gulf of Maine, as well as off Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.

The fishery will really get underway when the fat content increases due to ingestion of herring which are plentiful this year off south western Nova Scotia.

The fatter the fish, the higher the price, although in recent years the market is also looking for a redder product.

There are 640 licenses in Atlantic Canada for the prosecution of this fishery which goes deep into the fall.

Tuna Quotas Remain Unchanged for 2016

When it comes to setting quotas and analysing stock assessments for the Bluefin tuna, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) based in Madrid, Spain, is the lead body.

The commission concluded in June that an assessment for this year would not be possible even after two data preparatory meetings.

Delays resulted due to challenges in getting information from multiple contracting parties, cooperating non-contracting parties or fishing entities.

Bluefin tuna stocks are rebuilding, both in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Mediterranean and are expected to be rebuilt by 2019.

This target date was a major factor in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans deciding not to list Bluefin tuna under the Species At Risk Act which effectively would have killed this industry in the Atlantic provinces.

The 2016 quotas will be the same for Canadian harvesters as it has been for the past few years — 450 tonnes — which is shared by 640 licensed fishermen from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island  and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The fishery is worth an estimated $10-million to coastal communities.

A major research project on the species is underway on this side of the Atlantic which will try to answer so far unanswered questions about their migration.

The accepted wisdom on the subject is that Bluefins spawn in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea.

There is inter-mixing of the two species as tagged Bluefins from U.S. and Canadian waters have shown up off Spain and in the Mediterranean.

Although Bluefin tuna have been under the scientific eye for the past 50 years, a large scale biological sampling program was initiated which included the collecting of otoliths, dorsal spines, gonads, muscle tissue and stomachs.

So far, only the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean have been deemed nurseries for the tuna but a year ago in The Navigator, it was published that Dr. Molly Lutcavage, director of the Large Pelagic Research Centre at the University of Massachusetts, identified the Sargasso Sea as another spawning area for the Bluefin. This is a non-government organization which works with fishermen on research projects and is heavily involved with the South West Nova Tuna Fishermen’s Association.

So far government scientists haven’t come on side with Dr. Lutcavage’s discovery, which is not hard to explain. There’s a wide-gap between scientists who are paid by governments to those employed by the industry as to what is going on.

For example, when fishery scientists bemoaned the absence of Bluefins in northeastern waters of the Atlantic, harvesters and Dr. Lutcavage were seeing schools with hundreds of fish in the Gulf of Maine. There was wide disparity between what the fishermen saw and the scientists said was what with their limited times at sea, which lead to mistrust between the two groups, which exists to this day.

Remember the collapse of the Northern cod stocks?

Fishermen had been bemoaning the state of the species for a few years, but were given the cold shoulder by the scientific community. By the time the scientists realized what was really going on they were over-ruled by politics which was the coup-de-gras.

Many still remember the then-Minister of Fisheries John Crosbie saying he wouldn’t have scientists dictate just how much fish harvesters could catch.

This error cost Newfoundland and Labrador over 30,000 jobs and forever changed the commercial fishery in that area and in other Atlantic areas like northeastern New Brunswick.