Schmidt Marine

Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT) were heavily fished in the past, with the annual catch reaching 80,000 tonnes in the early 1960s. Heavy fishing resulted in a significant decline in the numbers of mature fish and the annual catch began to fall rapidly. In the mid 1980s it became apparent that the SBT stock was at a level where management and conservation was required. There was a need for a mechanism to limit catches. The main nations fishing SBT at the time, Australia, Japan and New Zealand, began to apply strict quotas to their fishing fleets from 1985 as a management and conservation measure to enable the SBT stocks to rebuild.