So....
 

Cites didn't pass.
this is a very good thing for many of us who fish for tuna recreational, charter and commercial.

Here is my question.
Everyone, including me, who was against the CITES listing, do you think that the tuna population is fine and status quo (as far as what we can enforce) is the way to go?

Unfortunately, they continue to over exploit in the Med and elsewhere, but I have an issue with the idea that just because we can't enforce them, we should do whatever we want... As a global pelagic fish, I don't see this as the last hurdle towards moving the stock forward as a healthy fishery.

What is the solution? Is there a problem?
I don't know. Just trying to start some dialog. Disclaimer: This is not meant to judge anyone or start any %$%$%$%$, just open some dialog.

Well, If we consistently don't catch our quota, then ICCAT may take some of our quota away from us. So we are kind of forced to keep trying to catch our ICCAT quota. Where the work needs to be done is at ICCAT, where the quotas have to be lowered and there has to be some kind of penalty for nation that exceed their quotas. Locally there isn't much that we can do, since MSA is overridden when it comes to fisheries managed by an international body.

Iccat needs an overhaul.They treat bft as an unexpendable resource.Last year they wanted to give half the US quota to nations who could fill it.If the whole world believes bft are in trouble,why does the international agency charged with their conservation want to kill more of them?Eff Iccat!

Doesn't matter. As soon as the public realizes that BFT is reported to have high PCB and mercury content, prices will fall and it won't be worthwhile for commercial guys to drop tens of thousands to fish for them. Then, there will be all the more fish for us recreational guys.:jester:

ICCAT will not be restructured as there is just toooooooo much controvers when it comes to international fisheries for enough countries to get on one page

The US can not bitch about over harvesting anything when we continued to overfish the %$%$%$%$ out of Cod for somehting like 15 years and when Canada shut down we laughed....not to mention what is going on with stocks like Sea Herring

However, people can and have bitched about a terribly managed system here that is essentially impotent in how it enforces the pittance of regulation that does get knocked around.

BP is right on Cod..IMO this should have been completely shut down for the past decade. Fishery managers are blind to reality. (BTW it was not the rec's who destroyed the cod fishing industry, or herring)
Frankly, I think some fishery managers in this country should be jailed for their non-protection of the species to only protect the income of the commercial fishermen. Makes me:yak4:

Tuna is complex because of their range. There is no way we can regulate Europe or anyplace else. We can only regulate ourselves (barely) and we do a poor job at this. There needs to be a global approach with HMS and there is none and most of the world does not want one and probably would not respect it even it it was created. Long term...Species is doomed. Catch all you can as soon as you can. Sad. but this has to be the new mantra.

Does the endless supply of dogfish have anything to do with cod stocks? ..... I can't wait for 4/16 .

As for the bft, same regs, but one fish per boat would be fine by me, that cuts the rec take.

That's what it "normally" starts off at. Then NMFS ups the limit, because we aren't going to catch our quota, and if we don't catch our quota ICCAT may take some away.

Didn't this happen with Cod somewhere in the country? Fishermen couldn't fill the quota so the government opened up previously closed waters?

I'm a business guy and not a marine biologist, but in business when quotas consistently can't be filled it's often due to one of two things: incompetence, or unacceptably high expectations.

If the US is consistently unable to catch their allotted quota of BFT, is it because of incompetence on the fishermen's part or because the regulatory body has unacceptably high expectations with regards to the health of the tuna population?

Sorry, you can't apply this kind of logic to fisheries. Fisheries management is more of a"fuzzy logic" kind of field, at least that is what it appears to the pragmatic population.

Also, and no offense, but I've seen some of the ivy league business decisions the wall streeters have made in the last few years, and quite frankly, I don't think that is anything to base decisions on.

Since I'm so far off base... then how do you explain why the US is repeatedly below their quota for BFT?

It's a bait issue - midwater pair trawlers have decimated all the inshore bait (macs and herring) to the point where most off the giants that normally summer in the gulf of maine keep moving north to canada (where they outlawed mid-water trawling and have ass-loads of bait).

Over the last several years the Canadians have had so many fish that they are filling their quotas in days (PEI lasted less than a week last year) - they are also getting smaller (presumably U.S. fish) earlier than they ever had. Canada was always huge fish late in the year (700 was small and it was all OCT/Nov).
Now they have 500lb fish in July.

If we fix our bait situation, we will fix our Giant fishery.

The overall #'s of fish haven't really changed, its the geographic distribution. Giants don't care about border lines, they just want something to eat.

Absolutely makes sense, but all of the above seems to fall into my second point: "the regulatory body has unacceptably high expectations with regards to the health of the tuna population" - in this case, it just happens to be a regional issue.

To get back to the core of RIROCKHOUND's initial post regarding the best interest of the fish...
Isn't the unfortunate reality of the situation that the Canadian quota (where the bigger fish intended to be caught for the US quota are) should be increased and the US quota (where the quota isn't being filled due to smaller fish) should be decreased?

RRH, Fishsmith... Dogfish are endangered too... The fact is there are some people here who dont fully get it and blame ONE EFFIN SIDE... Yes business is business.... But dont PUT ALL the blame on one side... I mean most companies that have 3 ceos resign to avoid a big issue ( destroying documents to cover their arse) and another one bagged on it so 4 heads destroying documents... ENOUGH SAID

Not by any definition of the word. Even NMFS/NOAA admits that there are more dogfish around than every before. They have been wiped out on the European side of the Atlantic but there are plenty of them on this side.

Anyone ever try dogfish? My understanding is that the Brits used to use them (or maybe still do) for fish and chips. We run into them so often when jigging, yet I've never seen or even heard of someone keeping them.

I did try to cook a dog fish and it was useless and nasty. My grandfather like it but he like everything....... Fish and chips with it seems gross!