Tuna tagging in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Village fishermen, particularly in the Manus, Morobe, North Solomons and Central Provinces, have traditionally relied on coastal tunas as a source of food and have developed special techniques to catch them. As canoes are used, fishermen rarely ventured more than a few miles offshore, and the abundant schools of tuna spread throughout the seas of Papua New Guinea remained unfished. To investigate the potential of this untapped resource, a tuna-fishing company, a Japan-Australia joint venture, was formed in 1970 and experienced good catches almost immediately. Soon after, three other companies began operations, and it was obvious that Papua New Guinea would soon have an important industry based on a type of fish about which very little was known in the Western Pacific—the skipjack tuna.