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EAST COAST TUNA ASSOCIATION 



P.O. Box 447, Salem, N.H. 03079 



(603) 898-8862 FAX 898-2026 



URGENT FACSIMILE 



September 24, 1993 



Mr. Douglas K. Hall 



Assistant Secretary 



National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 



14th & Constitution Avenue. N.W. Room 5804 



Washington, O.C. 20230 



Dear Mr. Hall: 



This letter is to draw your immediate attention to an urgent situation involving the giant bluefin 

 tuna fishery in New England. Once again, the General Category tuna fishery has been shut down 

 in a manner that has needlessly imposed extra economic losses to fishermen, fish dealers and 

 other businesses that support the fishery. These additional losses result directly from the lad< 

 of timely notice of an impending closure to all fishermen and dealers. The closure at midnight 

 September 23 was announced only 30 hours before implementation. This is totally 

 inadequate notice given normal business demands of maintaining adequate 

 supplies of bait, tackle and iteeping the right number of people employed to 

 service the fleet and to handle, process and ship the product. 



On September 10 the NMFS released figures indicating that 372 mt of quota had been caught as 

 of that date and this figure provided most in the fishery with a false assurance that the quota 

 would not be reached until early October when the expected reallocation could occur. We now 

 have been told that this September 10 account of the status of the Qeneral Category was 

 incorrect because the Agency was substantially behind because of staff vacations and other 

 personnel matters. It is totally unacceptable that a 32 million dollar a year 

 fishery employing tens of thousands of people can be jeopardized by such 

 mismanagement. Bluefin tuna fish dealers have supported the implementation of a fax 

 reporting system to eliminate lags in quota accounting and provide for reasonable business 

 planning through proper managemem practices. 



We do not believe that the season for the General Category is over and any existing projections of 

 catch rates in the Angling Category are not valid. With the Genera! Category now prematurely 

 dosed we expect that the catch of small mediums and large schoolies will drop precipitously. 

 High catches to date of this size fish have resulted. In part, from thousands of tripe directed for 

 the valuable giants. As of September 13 some 120 mt of quota remained in this category. We 

 urge you in the stronoest ternw possible to dentand accurate tracking of the 

 Angling Category catches over the next several days and, at the earliest possible 

 date, that you make some of this unused U.S. quota svallable to reopen our 

 valuable giant fisheries. The Atlantic Tunas Convention Act requires no less under the 

 mandate to assure a reasonable opportunity for all U.S. fishermen to catch the ICCAT 

 conservation quota. 



This current crisis again points out the disproportionate burden that all U.S. fishermen share in 

 conserving Atlantic bluefin tuna. The U.S. accounts for less than 6% of the total catch of Atlantk: 

 bluefin, we have the highest minimum fish size in the Atlantic, we protect the bluefin while 

 they spawn in our waters and all of these painful economic consenratton sacrifices continue to 



