Of the total commercial tuna catch worldwide, 87% came from stocks at healthy levels of abundance, according to the newest International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) Status of the Stocks report.
The downside is that 10% of the total tuna catch came from overfished stocks and 3% from stocks at an intermediate level of abundance.
This updated ISSF report reflects results of tuna RFMO meetings through October 2020, and the next version of the report will include results of RFMO meetings that have taken place more recently or are taking place now.
All skipjack tuna and most albacore tuna stocks are healthy.
Stocks considered to be subject to be overfished or subject to overfishing include The Atlantic Ocean bigeye, Indian Ocean yellowfin, Pacific bluefin, Indian Ocean albacore and bigeye.
Since the last ISSF report in March, a number of changes have been recorded as the abundance rating for Eastern Pacific Ocean bigeye has been downgraded from green to yellow, but the fishing mortality rating of that stock has improved from orange to yellow.
Both the fishing mortality rate ratio and abundance rating for Eastern Pacific Ocean yellowfin have improved from orange to green, primarily due to changes in the stock assessment methodology used.
ISSF publishes its Status of the Stocks report twice each year using the most current scientific data on 23 major commercial tuna stocks.
