Freeport, Grand Bahama - The Bahamas National Trust has been inundated with calls from our members and other concerned citizens regarding a fishing vessel in Grand Bahama being outfitted to net tuna on a commercial scale. The BNT feels a moral responsibility to comment on this proposed commercial fishing enterprise.

For millennia, human populations have depended on the oceans for food, livelihoods and the very air we breathe. This dependence carries with it a responsibility to safeguard the living systems that support us. Numerous scientific studies show that despite the enormous size and scale of the Earth ’s oceans, they are increasingly affected by human activities. Most commercially important populations of ocean wildlife have been in decline for decades. Food webs are becoming less robust, and marine habitats are continuously being altered and degraded. While many human activities strain the marine environment, the primary factor in the oceans’ decline is our demand for seafood. The science is unequivocal and for the most part the news is not good. Through the combination of industrial-scale fishing and ineffective management, a significant number of major commercial fisheries are in need of rebuilding and many have collapsed. Other populations of ocean wildlife, from turtles to seabirds, are imperiled. As a result, total global landings of wild- caught fish have slowly declined over the past two decades,

It would appear that the fishing vessel currently in Freeport plans to target Yellowfin Tuna. Yellowfin tuna in the Atlantic Ocean are managed by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Yellowfin tuna fisheries under ICCAT do not presently have the detailed country-based quota systems found for Atlantic bluefin tuna. Stock assessments to date have determined that yellowfin tuna are fully exploited in the Atlantic with harvest levels near maximum sustainable yield. Concerns are growing over increasing catches of Yellowfin tuna, especially by longline fleets that are making unregulated harvests in the Atlantic outside the authority of ICCAT.

Some fisheries experts believe that with the Atlantic harvest of tuna near maximum sustainable yields that the warm waters of The Bahamas and the Caribbean may be the last stronghold of this important fishery species. Some scientists also believe that the southern end of the tongue of the ocean may be the breeding site for some Atlantic tuna stocks and should be considered as a marine no-take reserve.

BNT is additionally concerned over the purse seine net method which is reportedly being planned for use by the Freeport vessel. Purse seining establishes a large wall of netting to encircle schools of fish. Fishermen pull the bottom of the netting closed —like a drawstring purse—to herd fish into the center. This method is used to catch schooling fish, such as tuna, or species that gather to spawn, such as squid. There are several types of purse seines and, depending on which is used, some can catch other animals, such as dolphin, who often travel in the tuna schools. This method indiscriminately catches not only adult tuna but also immature tuna, thus dealing the fishery the additional blow of juvenile mortality.