August 8, 2022 — The 100th meeting of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) ended on 5 August with agreements on transshipment and compliance, and a commitment to adopt a harvest strategy for north Pacific albacore at next year’s meeting.
IATTC members followed the lead of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) by adopting stronger oversight for transshipment at sea. Transferring catches from a fishing vessel to a larger carrier vessel which takes fish to port is a common practice, but according to a statement by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which holds observer status at the IATTC, there were loopholes in the data collection requirements that allowed for the misreporting of catch, or in some cases, no reporting at all. The latest decision by the IATTC closes those loopholes.