Bless the Hawaiian Tuna fishermen!
Apparently, they really, really don't want to by-catch Sharks.
The fishery is operated by three ethnic cliques, European-, Vietnamese- and Korean-Americans, with the former by-catching significantly less Sharks than the Asian-Americans. I would have thought this to be hardly surprising - but apparently, honi qui mal y pense!
Apparently, this got nothing to do with the Asian appetite for Shark fins but rather, with the lack of communication between cliques.
Really! :)
Really! :)
Not so for the Fijian Tuna long liners.
Fiji operates under a 5% fin-to body ratio = finning is illegal - and with that in mind a 35% finning rate, notabene on vessels with observers (!) can only be called totally brazen; and the finning coupled with carcass retention is a strong indicator for mixing-and-matching of valuable fins from one species with valuable carcasses from another which would again be illegal. Only positive development: the near-elimination in Shark lines after the national ban in 2012.
Finned species include one GWS along with many OWTs, Hammerheads and even Oceanic Mantas - and this, I repeat, on vessels with observers = we can only assume that compliance is even worse on the great majority of vessels with no observers aboard!
And those Blacktip and Whitetip Reefies and Grays and Silvertips: caught whilst targeting Albacore and Swordfish in deep waters far offshore?
Yeah, right.
And those Blacktip and Whitetip Reefies and Grays and Silvertips: caught whilst targeting Albacore and Swordfish in deep waters far offshore?
Yeah, right.
Sigh.
And so it goes!
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