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DESCRIPTION OF THE FISHERY 



Al bacore in the Atlantic Ocean are distributed from approximately 50° 

 N to 40° S latitude, although most catches come from temperate waters 

 (Figure 1) . 



I. A. History of the Fishery 



. The north Atlantic al bacore fishery developed as a surface fishery 

 (troll and baitboat) in the Bay of Biscay in the 1920's and continued as 

 such until 1956 when an Atlantic-wide longline fishery developed. Both 

 surface and longline fisheries have operated continuously from 1956 to the 

 present. 



Six relatively separate albacore fisheries (and participants) can 

 be identified in the north Atlantic: 



1) Surface (France and Spain) troll fishery - 2-5 year-old fish, 

 mostly juveniles in the Bay of Biscay to the Azores. 



2) Summer live-bait (Spain) fishery - 2-6 year-old fish, mostly 

 juveniles in the Bay of Biscay. 



3) Autumn live-bait (France and Spain) fishery - 5-12 year-old 

 adults, from Spain to the Azores since 1974. 



4) Year-round (Spain and France) live-bait fishery - 5-12 year-old 

 adults, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Canary Islands, since 1970. 



5) Winter (Taiwan) longline fishery - 4-7 year-old young adults, in 

 the northern Atlantic. 



6) Summer (Korea) longline fishery - 5-12 year-old adults in the 

 northern Atlantic. 



A total of 10 countries, Taiwan, Cuba, France, Grenada, Japan, 

 Korea, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Trinidad, have reported north Atlantic 

 albacore catches to ICCAT. The vast majority of the reported recent years' 

 catches have been made by France, Spain, and Taiwan in the fisheries noted 

 above (Figure 2) . 



I.B. Trends in Catch and Effort 



' Data on catch for the longline and surface fisheries by country, 

 gear, and year are available from and summarized by the International 

 Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). Trends in catch 

 by year are shown in Figure 3. The fishery began about 1920 with reported 



