Chapter I Intro & Objectives - SPREP

PHOENIX ISLANDS PROTECTED AREA MANAGEMENT PLAN
Chapter III. Background, 5. Fisheries Resources
Draft 1 March 2007
tuna responded poorly to bait. The sighting of tuna schools was reported at 1.5 schools/hour
for the Phoenix Islands. This was generally higher than that reported by Waldron (1964) for
the Pacific Ocean Fisheries Investigation (POFI) cruises.
Kleiber and Kearney (1983) presented a map indicating the origin of skipjack tags that were
recovered in the Phoenix Islands portion of the Kiribati EEZ (see Figure III-5.1 below). It
appeared that most tags originated towards the southwest of the Phoenix Islands in Fiji,
Tuvalu, and Western Samoa. Similar information was provided in Kearney (1983) that
aggregated tag returns for the entire Pacific Islands region.
Figure III-5.1. Results of skipjack tuna tag returns to and from
The Phoenix Islands portion of the Kiribati EEZ
(source: Kleiber and Kearney 1983).
Skipjack tuna tag recoveries where the fish was recovered more than 200 nmi from point of
tagging were documented in Tuna and Billfish Assessment Programme (1993). These results
are provided below in Figure III-5.2 for skipjack, Figure III-5.3 for yellowfin, and Figure III-
5.4 for bigeye. Skipjack from the western Pacific were finding their way to the EEZ around
the Phoenix Islands.
Figure III-5.2. Skipjack tuna tag recovery more than 200 nmi from
tagging site (as of 31 July 1991).
(source: Tuna and Billfish Assessment Programme 1993).
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