The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) wrapped up their annual meetings in Spain just before Thanksgiving, agreeing to new Total Allowable Catch (TAC) rates for both western and eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna which come in at 3,081.6 metric tons and 48,403 metric tons respectively.
The total increase in TAC corresponds roughly to a 13% increase for the western Atlantic region which includes the United States, while our overseas counterparts received a 19.3% increase. The new TACs will be in place for the 2026 through 2028 seasons. For the U.S. commercial and recreational bluefin tuna fisheries, that means the annual quota for Atlantic bluefin tuna will increase by a total of 191 metric tons in 2026, whereas European nations will see their TAC increased by 3,661 metric tons.
“As expected, it was a contentious discussion on bluefin tuna,” noted John DePersenaire, Director of Government Affairs and Sustainability at the Viking Marine Group. DePersenaire sat through much of the online webinar portion of the ICCAT deliberations that wrapped up in Spain on November 24, noting that the U.S. delegation essentially faced a stacked deck with members from the European Union holding much of the eastern bluefin quota, which is greater than the entire Western TAC.
“The U.S. delegation made some of the firmest, most pro U.S. fishermen statements on the floor that I have ever heard,” said DePersenaire, adding “While the grand slam didn’t materialize, nor was it expected, such a firm position sets the stage for additional attempts to discuss redistribution and other controversial topics.”
Much of the American argument focused on close-kin mark-recapture (CKMR) studies being coordinated through angler sampling and U.S. university researchers. According to DePersenaire, there was acknowledgement during the ICCAT debate that greater mixing of bluefin between the east and west is occurring; in light of that, a transfer of 100 metric tons from the east to west will help account for dead discards in the U.S. and Canadian fisheries.
“This is an important development and helps the U.S. ‘free-up’ additional tonnage for the harvest categories,” DePersenaire added. He also noted that ICCAT members showed interest in the latest findings coming from on preliminary larval studies on the Slope Sea conducted by NOAA Fisheries over the summer which provides evidence of greater spawning activity in the western Atlantic.
“It was the discussions on these findings that moved what could have been a reduction for the west, to discussion about greater productivity, rebuilding success, reflections on mixing rates and a better overall lookout for the west,” said DePersenaire.
These improvements have not been fully maximized in terms of securing additional tonnage for the American bluefin fishermen, the U.S. delegation pushed to add the CKMR findings and additional Slope Sea larval research as an agenda item at the March 2026 intersessional meetings of ICCAT in hopes of addressing underlying Management Strategy Evaluation assumptions in the bluefin fishery.
“This will be an opportunity to highlight the new science and revisit some of the assumptions that have put western harvesters at a disadvantage for decades,” DePersenaire noted.
Some ICCAT members also pushed a concept to not count recreational landings towards their country-specific TAC, similar to an approach in Pacific bluefin management where all non-commercial landings are accounted for in a standardized mortality value, a concept which could provide increased angling opportunities on the Atlantic Coast.
In 2025, the annual catch limit for bluefin tuna on the Pacific Coast was 1,285 metric tons, which has allowed anglers there far better access to a robust bluefin fishery when compared to the Atlantic Coast which was completely shut down just prior to Labor Day of ’25.
While a nominal increase in quota is better than the decrease originally proposed by our European counterparts at ICCAT, as the stock itself improves along the Atlantic Coast and ushers in new anglers to the bluefin fishery, it’s hard to fathom now just what kind of angling regulations we’ll be looking at in the season ahead in terms of tuna fishing in the United States of America.
