Before the decree, says FECOP’s director of science Moises Mug, 44 foreign tuna boats were catching 25,000 metric tons of tuna annually, with just 36 percent of that going to local ports; the remainder was delivered to foreign ports.

This year, only seven to nine licenses to seine tuna are being sold to foreign fleets (there are no Costa Rican-flagged purse seine vessels), with a quota limit of 8,000 to 9,000 metric tons, and all going to local canneries. This measure should continue to “reduce the bycatch impact that tuna purse seiners have on marine mammals, billfishes, sharks, dorado and wahoo,” Mug says. He adds that “This is great news also for spinner and spotted dolphins, which have a symbiotic relationship with yellowfin tuna in the eastern tropical Pacific. Dolphin are often netted during the process of catching tuna; they are later released, though not without injuries.”

Legislation is pending to make that restriction in purse seining in Costa Rican waters permanent, Staley says.

FECOP is currently investing more than $100,000, working with two government agencies, in a technical learning institution where fishermen will be trained and certified. Staley says the training will include the use of green sticks — a selective method for tuna that entails virtually no bycatch (which will still further reduce billfish bycatch) — and proper handing of the product to receive optimal market value