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respecttvely. Korean effort is centered in the lower latitudes of the 

 South Pacific and in the equatorial region where a substantial part of the 

 catch is bigeye tuna and yellowfin tuna, whereas the Taiwanese vessels 

 concentrate on albacore grounds further south. 



I.e. Value of Catch 



Except for a decline in 1975, the mean annual ex-vessel value of 

 albacore landings in the American Samoa longline fishery rose from a low of 

 $426 per short ton in 1969 to $1,358 per short ton in 1978 (Figure 3). 



I.D. Current Management of the Fishery 



II. NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF U.S. AND FOREIGN 

 PARTICIPATION IN THE FISHERY 



In 1953, a California seafood company obtained a lease from the 

 Department of the Interior for a small tuna cannery in Pago Pago and began 

 taking deliveries of tuna from Japanese longliners under contract. This 

 marked the beginning of the tuna longline fishery in the South Pacific 

 (Otsu 1966), In 1963 a second U.S. firm began operating a tuna canning 

 plant in American Samoa. American interests are also involved in a joint 

 venture with French companies in operating a tuna transshipping base at 

 Tahiti . 



Albacore landed at American Samoa represented an estimated 78% of the 

 catch of this species in the South Pacific in 1970, but normally vessels 

 based at Pago Pago account for only 30 to 607o of the harvest (Figure 4). 



III. STATUS OF THE STOCKS 

 III. A. Stock Structure 



South Pacific albacore are considered to be a distinct 

 subpopulation confined to the current systems of the Southern Hemisphere. 

 There is no evidence of intermingling with North Pacific albacore stock(s), 

 and no evidence of multiple subpopulations within the South Pacific. 



