According to the information the ban would slow illegal fishing and improve compliance the catch limits of Atlantic bluefin tuna. The Centre for Biological Diversity has requested that the US seek protection for the tuna under an international treaty that would ban cross-border trade of this imperiled fish. Bluefin tuna has been listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which would allow countries to shut down the black market that has fueled much of the tuna’s dramatic decline.
Catherine Kilduff, a Center staff attorney Kilduff said that it is very true that illegal fishing is a scourge on bluefin tuna which undermines any attempt to recover healthy population levels. Any hope of pulling bluefin tuna back from the brink of extinction depends on unprecedented global cooperation to reduce overfishing.
Compliance with catch levels is critical to preventing the extinction of Atlantic bluefin tuna in part because, in June, the National Marine Fisheries Service denied Endangered Species Act protection to the enormous, warm-blooded fish in response to a Center for Biological Diversity petition.
Kilduff said that they simply have to have trade restrictions to curb the widespread exploitation that threatens the future of this magnificent species. The next CITES meeting will occur in 2013. At the most recent meeting, in March 2010, a proposal to list Atlantic bluefin tuna was overwhelming voted down despite US support.
