APPENDIX VI APPENDIX VI 
63 
From 1965 through 1973 the aggregate capacity of the international 
fleet fishing for tuna in the CYRA increased from about 47,000 to 
138,000 tons, and by the end of 1974 this had increased to 153,000 tons. 
During 1974 this fleet captured 189,450 tons of yellowfin and 84,000 
tons of skipjack from the CYRA. The catch of yellowfin was the largest 
taken from the CYRA in the history of the fishery. The 1974 skipjack 
catch was about 36,700 tons greater than that of 1973, and nearly 17,000 
tons above the average catch during the previous five years. In addition 
to the catch from the CYRA, purse-seine vessels fishing west of the CYRA 
and east of 150° West Longitude caught 41,700 tons of yellowfin, 2,850 
tons of skipjack, and 20 tons of skipjack and 831 tons of bigeye.* 
The Commission staff is of the view that the yellowfin tuna stock is 
probably capable of producing about 150,000 tons a year on a sustainable 
basis on the average. However, the high catches during the past few 
years plus other circumstantial evidence indicate that some overfishing 
of the yellowfin tuna stock has recently occurred. Nevertheless, the 
record of this international commission is very good indeed. Without the 
controls placed on the fishing for yellowfin tuna unquestionably the 
stock would have been depleted. The economic consequences of such deple- 
tion would have been horrendous. 
Skipjack tuna, the other major tuna species caught in the Eastern 
tropical Pacific Ocean, occurs in nearly all the tropical waters of the 
world's oceans. In recent years the world catch of this species has 
exceeded that of any other tuna or tuna-like species. This is also the 
case for the Pacific Ocean: in 1972, skipjack comprised 40 percent of 
the catch of the principal market species of tunas in that ocean. 
The scientific and management work of the Inter-American Tropical 
Tuna Commission has been exemplary and very successful. It has, never- 
theless, been plagued by political problems almost from its start. Com- 
prised of nations with a high degree of technology, such as the United 
States, Canada and Japan on the one hand, and developing nations such as 
Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica on the other, arguments in the Commission 
revolve around developing country concern over preponderance of the 
large United States fleet and its correspondingly large catch. Mexico 
has succeeded in getting special allocation for its fleet, and this has 
helped to increase its proportionate take of yellowfin to the present 
level of about 10 percent (Table 1). 
?Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. Annual Report--1974. 
La Jolla, California: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1975. 
pp. 24-25. 
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