100,000 tuna tagged in Pacific

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s Pacific Tuna Tagging Program (Phase 1) has just passed a significant milestone: 100,000 tuna tagged since the project started in Papua New Guinea late in 2006.

“The success of Phase 1 of the tagging project has been an outstanding achievement, and full credit goes to our cruise leaders Tony Lewis, Bruno Leroy and David Itano, other regular cruise participants Brian Kumasi and Thomas Usu, and others who have participated in the field operations,” said John Hampton, SPC Oceanic Fisheries program manager.

The Pacific Tuna Tagging Program is a large research project designed to provide new information on tuna movements, mortality and behavior. This information will result in more accurate assessments of the status of skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye tuna stocks and the impacts of fishing on them.

Phase 1 was originally planned to focus on PNG, but was subsequently extended to Solomon Islands following further funding availability. The six months of work in PNG resulted in more than 60,000 tag releases, approximately double the initial project target. The work was conducted from a chartered Solomon Islands pole-and-line vessel, Soltai 6.

For the final two weeks of the project, the larger and newer Soltai 105 was chartered to test its effectiveness for the longer-distance operations planned under Phase 2. This trial was a resounding success. Overall, more than 40,000 tuna were tagged in just two and a half months of fieldwork in the Solomons, bringing the total number of tag releases for PTTP Phase 1 past the 100,000 level in just over eight months of field operations.

“The management and staff of Soltai and the officers and crew of Soltai 6 and Soltai 105 deserve huge credit for their professionalism and work ethic in making Phase 1 a great success,” said Hampton.

“We at SPC are continuing to work hard to maximize the results of the work through promoting tag recovery from across the Pacific basin, and will soon begin the large job of data analysis. We’re also keenly looking forward to the Phase 2 tag release program, and to taking the project to other parts of the SPC region.”

Phase 2, which is expected to begin in mid-2008, will extend the existing work north into Micronesia and west toward Indonesia and the Philippines. NZAID and the European Community have made major funding commitments to Phase 2, pledging approximately $6 million of the $10 million budget. ([B][I]SPC)[/I][/B]