144th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society

August 17 - 21, 2014

Fisheries for highly-migratory large pelagic species present unique challenges for sustainability. Many large-bodied tunas, sharks, and billfishes are apex predators that are captured in commercial and recreational fisheries. While the economic importance of these fishes and elasmobranchs is substantial, scientific understanding of population dynamics is hampered by issues of stock boundaries, vast geographical ranges, multispecies and multinational fisheries in international waters, and limited information on life history and basic biology. This symposium describes current research on sustaining fisheries for and highly-migratory large pelagic species, including tunas, sharks, and billfishes. Symposium papers will address current research on bycatch mitigation, tagging, stock structure, basic life history, stock assessment, and national and international fisheries management of large pelagic species worldwide. The relevance to the theme of fisheries research act and think locally and globally is clear with the severe depletions of stocks of Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) and Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) along with sustainable fisheries for North Pacific swordfish, Pacific blue marlin and some other billfish stocks. Due to the unique nature of these wide-ranging apex predators, the Symposium will be of general interest to AFS members and meeting participants, including recreational fishermen.