Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) Tuna Fishery Yearbook presents annual catch estimates in the WCPFC Statistical Area from 1950 to 2010.

The presented tables of catch statistics cover the main commercial tuna and billfish species caught in the region: albacore (Thunnus alalunga), bigeye (Thunnus obesus), skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis), yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), black marlin (Makaira indica), blue marlin (Makaira nigricans), striped marlin (Tetrapturus audax) and swordfish (Xiphias gladius). Catches of other species are not covered explicitly, and discards are not considered.

The main industrial fishing methods employed in the WCPFC region include longline, pole-and-line, purse seine and troll. The domestic fisheries of Indonesia and the Philippines employ several other methods. Drift net fishing for albacore in the South Pacific Ocean ceased in 1991. Estimates for small-scale and recreational fisheries have been included where available.

Statistical tables covering individual fleets are followed by tables summarizing the numbers of vessels and catches by species and gear type in the WCPFC Statistical Area. Tables summarizing the catch by species in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) and the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO), and global catches, are also presented.

For the purse-seine fishery, recent studies using observer data (e.g. Lawson, 2007, Lawson, 2010, Hampton and Williams, 2011) show that the logsheet-reported catch should contain higher quantities of yellowfin and bigeye tuna that have been misreported as skipjack tuna. Purse seine catch estimates that have been adjusted with species compositions determined from observer grab samples corrected for size selectivity bias (see Lawson 2010) are presented in the summary tables of species catch for the WCPFC Convention Area and the WCPO. However, the estimation of purse-seine species catches by fleet using observer data is currently not reliable due to the limited data set available at higher resolution spatial levels, so species catch estimates by purse-seine fleet have been omitted from this year‟s Yearbook.

The tables of annual catch estimates for individual fleets cover those years during which the fleet is known to have fished; the lack of recent years in a table implies that the fleet has ceased fishing. The tables of annual catch statistics for individual fleets are accompanied by histograms showing annual catches. Maps showing the distribution of species catch by gear and decade are provided.

The sources of the estimates are available from the SPC Oceanic Fisheries Programme.
 

WCPFC Tuna Fishery Yearbook, 2010 ( 2.28 MB)

WCPFC Tuna Fishery Yearbook 2010 - (Excel files - 170Kb) ( 166.22 KB)