Report on tuna and billfish stocks advises complete ban

So here's a study of fisheries published in Science using the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) methodology.

Things are somewhat surprisingly better than I thought. But with regards to the tunas:

"In the current study, a review team of fisheries experts from the U.S., Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Peru, Spain, Switzerland, and Taiwan first compiled a global database of information from fisheries reports and scientific publications. They then analyzed the data using IUCN Red List criteria. Their results showed that 7 of the 61 species studied (11%) were threatened (i.e., vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered), 4 species (7%) were "near threatened," and 39 species (64%) were of "least concern." Eleven species (18%) lacked adequate data and were thus classified as "data deficient."

The seven threatened species are southern bluefin tuna, Atlantic bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna, blue marlin, white marlin, and two species of Spanish mackerels. Graves says two main factors contribute to these fishes' troubled status: the tunas' high dollar value leads to heavy fishing pressure, and all the species are slow to reach sexual maturity, prolonging any recovery from over-fishing."

Not surprising at all, given what the news has reported over the last couple of years.

What to do, what to do??

"Graves and his co-authors write that the quickest road to recovery for the most-depleted stocks -- Southern and Atlantic bluefin tunas -- is to ban harvesting of these fishes until their populations can rebuild to healthy levels. They recognize that this would cause economic hardship and increase the incentive for illegal fishing, and thus call for strong deterrents such as controlled international trade through a listing of these species on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)."

Yeah, I figured that would be the logical answer. At what point do the concerned parties actually listen and react positively and responsibly to these recommendations? I can guess: the point at which it's too late.