Japan’s fisheries agency sets legal bluefin tuna catch limit, overfishing penalties

The Japan Fisheries Agency (JFA) will set a limit on Pacific bluefin tuna catches as early as fiscal 2017 and impose penalties for overfishing in a bid to better manage stocks of the endangered but highly popular fish, reports The Mainichi.

A voluntary annual cap on bluefin tuna catches was introduced in July 2016 on a trial basis.

However, the results of a bluefin tuna resource control survey, which the agency released on Feb. 3, showed that some fishermen violated the limit in eight prefectures, including Shizuoka and Kumamoto, in addition to Mie and Nagasaki prefectures where similar cases had been confirmed earlier.

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