Albacore Tuna

• Commonwealth Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery (ETBF: 1,021t in 2021)

Albacore tuna is a highly migratory species, fished throughout its range in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. The Australian catch of albacore tuna is less than 1% of the total catch in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean region, with the vast majority of the catch coming from other countries fishing on the high seas.

The stock structure of albacore tuna is complicated, as there are a number of different stocks in the Pacific and Indian Oceans that are targeted by a range of different countries. The albacore population fished by the Australian ETBF is in a declining state, and while this is from a point significantly above a seriously depleted level, there has been a significant increase in fishing pressure in recent years. It should be noted that catch from the Australian ETBF is only a very small proportion of the total catch from international fisheries on this shared population.

Albacore tuna are caught using longlines in Australian waters, which also catch a range of threatened species. Independent video monitoring across the fishing fleet was rolled out in 2015. This welcome progress provides confidence in reporting of wildlife affected by the fishery.

However, video monitoring has identified that fishers were significantly under-reporting how much endangered wildlife was killed in the past, which means that the impact of this fishery is substantially higher than previously thought. Since cameras have been installed on boats, the number of turtles, seabirds, whales and dolphins recorded as caught has significantly increased.

Despite this, most current management arrangements for the ecological risks of the fishery to endangered species is based on unreliable information collected before the implementation of cameras, though there is now seven years of reliable, recent data available to ETBF and WTBF managers. This does not represent sustainable management, and will result in the red-listing of this fishery in future if not urgently addressed.

The catch of turtles in particular has increased over the past decade. From 2018-2021, an average of 122  turtles were caught per year in the ETBF, compared to the 4-16 that were reported as caught annually in the three years before video monitoring was mandated on the fishing vessels. In previous years, a ‘trigger limit’ was in place which required fishery managers to take action if the rate of turtle catch exceeded a certain level. This trigger limit has since been removed, which means there are no measures in place to cap the number of turtles caught in the tuna fishery.

Of particular concern; the ETBF has reported bycatch of between 20-68 critically endangered leatherback turtles per year since 2018. There are only 1000 mature nesters thought to be left in the population impacted by the ETBF, and it is declining at around 6% annually. For context, and demonstrating adequate management, a US-managed longline fishery that impacts the same leatherback turtle population is closed when yearly bycatch reaches 16 leatherbacks. If not for lower leatherback catch since 2020, the fishery was likely to have been red-listed. Immediate implementation of measures to reduce leatherback turtle bycatch to safe levels is required to avoid a red-listing in future.

In contrast, better protection arrangements and obligations on the fishery to protect seabirds have resulted in additional management that should effectively reduce the impact of the fishery. This is welcome.

Turtles, whales, dolphins and seabirds are at risk from multiple threats, including fishing. Given the small scale of the Australian tuna fishery relative to international tuna fisheries, it is unlikely that this fishery is the major driver of on-going population declines in these species of endangered wildlife.

Commonwealth marine parks were established in 2018, but in a form significantly delayed and weakened following sustained Australian tuna fishing industry lobbying. As such they confer only a fraction of the protection for threatened and endangered species of original government proposals.