Our concerns lie with the fact that allowing dead marlin to be sold will change commercial fishers’ behaviours. Currently because the regulation prohibits dead marlin to be sold, they aren’t worth anything to the fishers, giving them little incentive for bringing aboard dead marlin. If this regulation is revoked there is a strong incentive for commercial fishers to report more dead fish, which means they could land and sell them. 

Why do we know this? At the end of the Billfish Moratorium in 1991, broadbill caught as bycatch were allowed to be kept on the basis that they were dead. Since then, catches increased and the bycatch provisions were blatantly ignored. Broadbill is now in the Quota Management System with regular commercial catches from northern waters.

We are concerned that a similar outcome could apply to marlin. Will commercial longlining practices change to ensure more striped marlin are caught with an increase in the number that arrive on the boat dead?