Could yellowfin tuna be making a comeback in South Carolina? - Charleston Post Courier
Not the behemoths of a few decades ago when South Carolina’s 241-pound, 12-ounce catch was made out of Charleston by Tommy Lewis, but much smaller ones, yellowfins that don’t even meet the 27-inch federal minimum size limit. Still, any news about yellowfins being caught off the coast of South Carolina is good news considering the decades-long drought. Jenkins said DNR biologists have been trying to collect yellowfin tuna tissue samples for research purposes for five years and so far have only one sample. Recreational anglers out of Oregon Inlet, N. C. , are landing 30,000 yellowfins a year, but a decade ago they were landing 300,000 annually, Jenkins said. The yellowfin tuna is a highly migratory fish, making management (done by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or ICCAT) difficult. There is a western Atlantic stock and an eastern Atlantic stock, and the two stocks mix. Jenkins said purse seining (where fish of all sizes are gathered in a large net) that takes place on the west coast of Africa and northern part of South America affects the abundance of yellowfin tuna off the coast of the U. S. Jenkins said he... Source: www.postandcourier.com
