Closure year: 2024

Resolutions C-21-04 and C-22-05 on Tuna Conservation establish that:

1. Each purse-seine vessel of over 182 metric tons carrying capacity (IATTC size classes 4, 5 and 6) that fishes for tunas in the EPO shall cease fishing from either (1) 29 July to 8 October 2024; or (2) 9 November 2024 to 19 January 2025.
2. Each IATTC Member or Cooperating Non-Member (CPC) shall ensure that every one of its vessels ceases to fish during one of these two periods. (*)
3. For 2024 , CPCs shall ensure that vessels that exceeded during the previous year the annual catch limit of 1,200 metric tons of bigeye tuna shall increase during the following year by 10 additional days the closure period established above.

If during this same period a vessel exceeds the annual catch limit of 1,500 metric tons of bigeye tuna, they shall increase the closure by 13 days; if it exceeds the annual catch limit of 1,800 tons of bigeye tuna, it shall increase its closure by 16 days; if it exceeds the annual catch limit of 2,100 metric tons, it shall increase its closure by 19 days; and if it exceeds the annual catch limit of 2,400 metric tons, it shall increase its closure by 22 days.

The additional days of closure pursuant shall be added, as appropriate, to the beginning of the closure for vessels observing the first period and to the end of the closure for vessels observing the second period, so that the closure of the first period shall always end on October 8 and the second period shall always begin on 9 November of each year.

The CPCs will be responsible for estimating the catch of bigeye tuna of each vessel flying its flag at the end of each trip, to the extent that one or more data sources are available to the CPC in the days immediately after the conclusion of the trip and discharge (e.g., observer estimates, ship's log data, well sampling, cannery data). The duty to estimate the catch of the vessel will be the responsibility of the flag CPC.

In 2024, any vessel that in the previous year had to apply the extended closure indicated above, and in that same period had caught less than 1,200 metric tons of bigeye tuna, shall apply only the closure days indicated in paragraph 3 of Resolution C-21-04.

The IATTC Secretariat shall send to the CPCs by 1 March 2024 the names of the vessels that must observe additional closure days in accordance with this paragraph.

A list of the vessels subject to these closures, and of the closure period that each one will observe, is available here (deadline for the notification of the closure period: 15 July 2024).

(*) Since November 2018, the practice of the Commission and its Secretariat concerning the observation of period closures by “new vessels “has been clarified and publicized.  A “new vessel” is a vessel that is included for the first time in the IATTC Regional Vessel Register or is re-included after their previous removal from the Register. If its inclusion occurs during or after the first period of closure, it will be considered as having observed that closure when:

• It replaces a vessel that has already observed the first period of closure; or
• It is entered in the Register with the necessary allocation of capacity and starts fishing only after the end of the first period of closure. 
• (**) Memorandum ref. 0484-410