On the eve of New Year people in Hawaii thinks that eating tuna will bring good luck and prosperity in the New Year. This year, the long tradition may get a little more difficult to observe. For the first time, federal regulators are expected to prohibit the catching of bigeye — Hawaii’s favored tuna variety — in waters west of the islands once the fishermen hit their annual catch limit.
Brooks Takenaka, assistant general manager at United Fishing Agency, which runs Honolulu’s fish auctions, said that they may not have as much fish. In terms of quality, I don’t know how it’s going to compare to what we normally have. Clarence Gonsalves said he’s never had a New Year’s without tuna before.
According to environmentalists people are catching so much bigeye in the Western Pacific that the fish are close to the point where they won’t be able to reproduce fast enough to replace what’s caught. Last December, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, an international body that regulates commercial fishing from Indonesia to Hawaii, concluded the bigeye catch must be slashed 30 percent in its waters.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is monitoring the fleet’s logbooks to keep track, said Tom Graham, a fisheries policy analyst with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu. Hawaii’s longliners hope to limit any market upheaval by staggering their return to port once the fishery is closed, said Sean Martin, Hawaii Longline Association president. This will prevent all their tuna from landing on the market all at once.
