Large bluefin tuna have been overfished around the world, fetching high prices for high quality fish.  For years the southern bluefin tuna stock was very low and several years of poor recruitment in the early 2000s was particularly alarming.  Managing catch in international waters has always been difficult.  New quotas and a strict recording regime seems to be working for CCSBT and the southern blue tuna stock.  Details will be released later this month but indications are good for a sustained rebuild at last.  New Zealand is on the western edge of the  southern blue tuna distribution and there is a single spawning ground south of Java in the Indian Ocean.

Distribution of reported catch by decade:      1976-85

1986-95

1996-2005

2006-11