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I. DESCRIPTION OF THE FISHERY 



I. A. History of the Fishery 



Skipjack tuna fisheries began to develop in the eastern Atlantic 

 about 1955 when baitboats from France and Spain moved into the area off 

 Dakar (Figure 1) to fish for yellowfin tuna. This fishery expanded and by 

 1960 was operative year-round between the Canary Islands and Point Noire. 

 Purse seiners entered the fishery in the early 1960's. Carrying capacity 

 of the combined purse seine and baitboat fleets has increased steadily 

 through the 1960 's and 70 's and currently stands at more than 60,000 mt 

 (Table 1). Principal participants in the fishery are the FISM (French, 

 Ivory Coast, Senegal and Moroccan) and Tema-based baitboat fleets (the 

 latter including Japan, Korea, Panama and Ghana), and the FISM, Spanish, 

 and U.S. purse seine fleets (Table 2, Figure 2). These fleets, which 

 exploit yellowfin, bigeye, and skipjack tuna, have increased their combined 

 effort continually since 1968. 



Skipjack tuna catches in the western Atlantic are quite small 

 (less than 10% of the total) compared to the eastern Atlantic. Until 1980, 

 the principal participants in this fishery were baitboats from Cuba and 

 purse seiners from the United States (Figure 3) fishing in the Caribbean. 

 In 1980, catches by Brazilian baitboats off Brazil were estimated at 7,000 

 mt or about 80% of the projected 1980 catch for the western Atlantic. 



I.B. Trends in Catch and Effort 



During the period 1969-1979, catches of skipjack in the total 

 Atlantic varied between 60,000 and 117,000 mt (Figure 4). The 1980 catch 

 was projected to be 109,000 mt. 



I.B.I. Eastern Atlantic Fishery 



Catches in the eastern Atlantic fluctuated between 26,300 

 mt and 113,200 mt during 1969-1979. The carrying capacity of the combined 

 eastern Atlantic baitboat and purse seine fleets has increased steadily 

 since 1968 (Figure 5). During this period, the number of U.S. purse 

 seiners fishing in the eastern Atlantic has fluctuated between 9 and 40 

 ships, with 12 U.S. purse seiners fishing in the eastern Atlantic in 1979 

 (Figure 6). Fishing effort on skipjack tuna in the eastern Atlantic, as 

 indexed by data for the FISM purse seine fleet, increased markedly (Figure 

 7) from less than 30,000 standard days fishing (SDA) in 1972 to more than 

 65,000 SDA in 1973. Since then, FISM skipjack effort has fluctuated 

 between 40,000 and 60,000 SDA per year. The level in 1979 was about 58,000 

 SDA days per year. 



