The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) has released the latest version of its Status of the Stocks.
The report brings together the tuna stock records from each of the major Regional Fisheries Management Organizations, serving as a single resource for comprehensive information.
The report uses a colour rating system to grade three areas – stock abundance, fishing mortality and environment.
Notable changes in rating include an improvement in biomass rating from orange to green for Eastern Pacific bigeye tuna.
However, Atlantic Ocean bigeye tuna had a negative biomass rating change from green to orange, and a similarly negative change in fishing mortality from yellow to orange.
In accordance with ISSF guidelines, purse seine on tuna-dolphin associations changed from green to yellow. In the absence of data more recent than 2006, status of these populations in the eastern Pacific Ocean are uncertain.
Despite improvements in multiple fisheries, there is continued evidence that several stocks, notably Pacific Bluefin tuna, Atlantic Ocean bigeye and Western and Central Pacific bigeye continue to be overfished.
Globally 52% of stocks are at a healthy level of abundance, 35% are overfished and 13% are at an intermediate level. In terms of exploitation 52% of the stocks are experiencing a low fishing mortality rate and 13% need stronger management to end overfishing.
In terms of total catch, 87% comes from healthy stocks, owing to the fact that skipjack stocks contribute more than one half of the global catch and they are all in a healthy situation.
The report can be found on the ISSF website.
