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The population of another species, the Southern Bluefin, which swims in the southern Pacific, has plunged to 3-8 percent of its original levels. Stocks of bluefin caught in the Atlantic and Mediterranean plunged by 60 percent between 1997 and 2007 due to rampant, often illegal, overfishing and lax quotas. Although there has been some improvement in recent years, experts say the outlook for the species is still fragile. In November, the 48 member nations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or ICCAT, voted to maintain strict catch limits on the species, although some countries argued for higher limits. The quota will be allowed to rise slightly from 12,900 metric tons a year to 13,500. Quotas were as high as 32,000 tons in 2006. A total catch limit on the Pacific Bluefin has been imposed only recently in the eastern part of the Pacific near the United States and Mexico, but not by the intergovernmental group that oversees the western Pacific, Nickson said. So-called effort limits in place now
-- restrictions on the number of vessels and days fishing allowed -- are not effective, she added, and fisherman also are targeting juvenile populations and spawning grounds. "This poor species is being hit from every angle," she said.
[Associated
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