Coastal Conservation Association (CCA)

White Marlin Need International Solution

By Bob Hayes
CCA General Counsel

Much has been written in the last two years about white marlin and its Atlantic-wide decline. Today there is a suit pending in Federal district court in Washington D.C. challenging the determination by the National Marine Fisheries Service that although white marlin are eligible to be listed under the Endangered Species Act, adequate controls are in place to halt the decline of white marlin through the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Whether ICCAT can control the Atlantic-wide bycatch of marlin will be the focus of this litigation.

So, what is this thing and where is it going?

ICCAT was established in the late 1960s by the world’s tuna fishing nations as a way of allocating the take of tuna stocks to fishing nations and putting some controls on the decline of Atlantic bluefin tuna. It has grown to include 37 members representing more than 50 countries. The countries include Asian fishing fleets, such as Korea, Taiwan and China, developing nations, like Ghana, Morocco, Venezuela, and Brazil, island nations, including Bermuda, Iceland and Trinidad Tobago, and the largest seafood markets in the world – the EU, US, Japan and Canada.

ICCAT manages all tunas and tuna-like species, such as billfish, swordfish and tunas, in the Atlantic Ocean and all its related seas including the Mediterranean and gulfs, including the Gulf of Mexico. Its regulations transcend all 200-mile limits and all territorial seas to the extent they include tuna like species.

Once its members agree to a measure, that measure is implemented domestically.

Every year, the Commission meets and addresses the management of all tuna and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean. Increasingly, those meetings have resulted in regulations in the United States that regulate the take of marlin (250 fish limit and no landings from commercial vessels), bluefin tuna (small fish limitations and annual quotas) and yellowfin tuna (three fish bag limit and no-sale requirements).

In addition to direct conservation measures, ICCAT has adopted measures to enhance their enforcement. Some of these measures allow countries to control the flow of product caught in a manner inconsistent with ICCAT measures.

For white marlin, ICCAT has a measure that requires nations to reduce their landings of white marlin from the 1999 level by 67 percent. The same measure allows the United States to conduct a directed fishery for white marlin so long as the landings do not exceed 250 for both white and blue marlin. These controls, which only came into effect in 2001, are the primary conservation measures to retard the further decline of white marlin. NMFS, in its review to determine whether white marlin ought to be listed under the Endangered Species Act in 2002, concluded, it was too early to tell whether the ICCAT measures were adequate. By most accounts, member nations have reduced the landings of white marlin, but the effect of these reductions on the stock may take years to determine.

So why the lawsuit? There is a belief that placing further controls on the U.S. longline fleet will significantly improve the health of the white marlin stocks. This belief has little basis in fact. The decline of marlin can be directly linked to the increase of longliners fishing in the Atlantic. These fleets came mostly from Japan, China, Taiwan and Spain. There are about 1,800 longliners over 24 meters registered to operate in the Atlantic. Of these, only 211 are U.S. vessels and, by most accounts, only 75 of those vessels actually operate.

In addition to the registered vessels there are some 150 longliners fishing illegally, and thousands of longline vessels under 24 meters fishing in the Atlantic. Although many of these vessels fish where there is little bycatch, it is fair to say that thousands of foreign longline vessels do operate in areas where there is a bycatch of marlin.

The upshot is even the complete elimination of the U.S. longline fleet will not halt the decline of white marlin. International measures reducing bycatch are the ONLY way to achieve improvement in their numbers. Listing white marlin under the ESA will result in domestic measures to reduce bycatch. Those measures can only impact domestic fishermen, both commercial and recreational. It will have no direct impact on the real problem - foreign longline catches.

As a result, CCA supports the international approach to addressing the decline of marlins. We do not need to have white marlin listed domestically as an endangered species and endure the avalanche of domestic regulations that comes with that determination to compel us to work on a viable solution. The long-term solution is controlling foreign longline fleets in addition to our own. To do that, CCA is committed to the long-term success of ICCAT. CCA will continue its efforts to recover white marlin in a way that will produce positive results.