Fisheries in the Pacific

Overview of tuna fisheries, stock status and management framework…
restricted to tropical waters. The substantial effort in the west of the region is primarily
carried out by Indonesian, Chinese Taipei and Vietnamese domestic fleets. The growth
in domestic longline fleets in the South Pacific (5°S-25°S) over the past decade is
notable; the most prominent fleets in this category are the Cook Islands, Samoan,
Fijian, French Polynesian and Vanuatu fleets (Williams and Terawasi 2014).
Figure 7: Spatial distribution of WCPO longline catch by species
in 2004-2013 (Harley et al. 2015)
35N
25N
15N
5N
5S
15S
25S
35S
Albacore tuna
Bigeye tuna
Skipjack tuna
Yellowfin tuna
max = 67,000t
120E 140E 160E 180 160W 140W 120W
Note that the data on the distant-water efforts of Chinese Taipei and other fleets targeting albacore in the
North Pacific is poor. The size of the largest pie corresponds to the maximum value of 67,000 t.
Pole-and-line fishery
Pole-and-line fishing consists of baiting schools of tuna visually spotted at the surface
of the water from the boat, and catching them at the surface, one by one, with poles
(fig. 2c). The boat is equipped with tanks to maintain live bait (i.e., small fish caught
in coastal areas). Each boat has a crew of 20-30 fishermen distributed at the bow and
stern of the boat on special platforms, catching fish with 2-3 m long poles with a
short line, at the extremity of which hangs a feathered jig mounted on a barbless
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