Earlier this year, you and more than 190,000 others urged the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to protect depleted bluefin tuna from wasteful surface longline fishing. In response, NOAA recently released proposed measures aimed at protecting this incredible fish. While the proposed rule is a start, changes are needed to better protect bluefin.Surface longlines, stretching up to 40 miles and strung with hundreds of baited hooks, catch target fish, such as swordfish, and more than 80 unintended marine species, such as bluefin tuna. In 2012, because of this uncontrolled catch, surface longline fishermen exceeded their bluefin quota and were required to throw back, dead, almost 25 percent of the entire U.S. bluefin allotment. Much of this waste occurred in important areas off North Carolina and in the Gulf of Mexico, the only known spawning ground for western Atlantic bluefin tuna.
NOAA’s bluefin protection proposal is a step in the right direction, but we need your help to improve it. Please join us in calling for greater bluefin protections in the Gulf of Mexico, fair bluefin quota allocations, increased monitoring of the longline fleet, and an end of the waste of this incredible fish. (PEW)
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