It is fact that the tuna are born near Indonesia and migrate down the coast of Western Australia and to the Southern Ocean in summer season. CSIRO Researcher Alistair Hobday has been studying the juvenile tuna for the past seven years. He has strictly tracked their distribution and movements. Dr Hobday said that recently he discovered only part of the tuna population migrates past Albany in summer, when the CSIRO monitors the fish.
According to him the main challenge now is to discover where the rest of the population of bluefin tuna goes. Dr Hobday explained that they released fish in WA near Fremantle and also near the Chattum Islands and then around Albany, and so far, none of the fish from the Fremantle region migrate around the corner into Southern Australia and that’s a very interesting result.
According to Peter Westerberg, commercial fisherman, he sold his tuna fishing licence in the 1980s when the Federal Government slashed quotas because it feared tuna stocks would collapse. He told that if scientists prove there are more tuna in the sea, he would like his quota back. He says if the quotas were incorrect when they were handed out I suppose we’d love to have a bit back.
