The Council recommended that starting this year until 2011, Hawaii fishery will be limited to 3,763 metric tons of bigeye tuna for the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and 500 metric tons for this year under the Inter American Tropical Tuna Corporation (IATTC).
Pacific tuna catches are subject to the international measures of WCPFC and IATTC.
The CNMI, Guam and American Samoa are part of the participating territories of WCPFC.
The islands have a bigeye catch limit of 2000 metric tons each.
The Council, on their next meeting in October will consider amendments to the Pelagics FMP to maintain the continuity of Hawaii longline fishery but will retain catch measures of WCPFC and IATTC.
Their other recommendations are: determine that the limited entry program is not warranted at this time for fisheries operating at Cross Seamount; the American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources should consider establishing voluntary recreational fisheries logbook program for boat based recreational fishing, and; minimize sea turtle interactions focus on the impact of larger hooks and baits on catch rates
WPRFMC was established by the U.S. Congress to manage fisheries on offshore waters around Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, CNMI and the US Pacific remote island areas.
