Big catch 'disaster' for tuna season

The second half of the 2007 Island bluefin tuna season wrapped up Wednesday night with 239 tuna caught in just three days, but the big catch caused a big downturn in prices.

'[We] gave them away at dog food prices.' Walter Bruce, P.E.I. Bluefin Tuna Committee

Fishermen say prices were far too low and something has to be done to improve the situation next year.

"It was a disaster. I guess that's about the only way to describe it. We caught a lot of valuable fish and gave them away at dog food prices," Walter Bruce, chair of the P.E.I. Bluefin Tuna Committee, told CBC News Thursday.

"We probably only got 20 or 25 per cent of the value of them, so the rest was just given away."

With P.E.I.'s quota cut 20 per cent this year to just 147 tonnes, fishermen voluntarily closed down the fishery after a brief opening in August, in the hopes of getting better prices for fish that had some time to fatten up.

The fishery reopened Monday, and prices were good to start, but as the fish were landed prices dropped quickly.

"The fish were plentiful and we're too big a fleet. We just landed too many fish," said Bruce.

"It looks like we've got to divide the fleet up somehow and have them go at different times to ease the amount of fish and feed the market in a more orderly manner."

Bruce said prices weren't much more than $11 a kilogram, when they should have been $26.40 to $30.80 a kilogram.

Tuna fishermen will likely work on a new strategy over the winter to ensure a more lucrative fishery for the next season, he said.