Cooler September weather has helped maintain the quality of tuna with the 2010 harvest all but complete for another year.
Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Industry Association chief executive Brian Jeffriess said only a few companies still concentrating on the fresh market in Japan were left to harvest their tuna.
They are expected to finish in early October.
Jeffriess said Japan's decision to cut its local coastal pacific bluefin catch by about 20% in 2011 and move into quota management would further reduce competition for Australian southern bluefin.
"The moves by Japan are all part of a wider worldwide move to reducing tuna catches and managing by quotas," he said. "Southern bluefin has suffered the biggest cuts and now the fishery is recovering very fast.
"Because of the cuts to the illegal southern bluefin catch, the global catch has been cut by 70% in the last five years and this will also happen with Atlantic bluefin in the Mediterranean."
Meanwhile , the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna will meet in Taiwan in October to review the new catch documentation system introduced in 2010.
The system was introduced to eliminate illegal catch by improving traceability through tagging each fish with its own individual number tag. Quota rules for future years will also be decided using more accurate and current data.
[Source: Port Lincoln Times]
