science

Tuna and tuna industry depend on Achotines

The Achotines Laboratory is one of the few research facilities in the world designed specifically for studies of the early life history of tropical tunas.

The data collected by scientists associated with the Lab is used to advise more than a dozen countries on how to manage their marine resources.

LA PRENSA

At a glance: Yellowfin tuna live in tropical and subtropical seas worldwide. The fish can grow to over seven feet in length and weigh over 400 pounds. Its second dorsal fin and anal fin are bright yellow.1044272

The future of the tuna fishing industry, not to mention the very survival of some species of tuna, may well depend on research conducted by scientists working in association with the Achiotines Laboratory on Panama's Azuero Peninsula.

The Lab was inaugurated in 1985 and for the next 8 years dedicated itself to the study of the early life stages of near-shore tropical tunas.  Laboratory studies focussed on the ageing, growth, nutrition and development of vision in early-juvenile tunas. Field studies in the open sea described the distribution and abundance of larval tunas in the northwestern Panama Bight. 

In 1992, scientists from the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) began working with Japanese scientists in Japan on the rearing of larval tunas. Their collaboration led to the founding of a joint project initiated by the IATTC, the Overseas Fishery Cooperation Foundation (OFCF) of Japan, and the government of the Republic of Panama. The project was anchored at the Achotines Laboratory, and its objective was to investigate the culture and captive spawning of yellowfin tuna, snapper, and corvina in land-based tanks in order to provide larvae and juveniles for research purposes. When the joint project concluded in 2001, the facilities and equipment installed as part of the project became the property of the Government of Panama.  In 2002 it was agreed that they would remain at the Laboratory for use by the IATTC staff in its research.

The data collected by scientists is used by the IATTC to advise its 16 member countries on how to manage their marine resources, explained Ernest Altamirano, an IATTC scientist. Recommendations are based on mathematical models for prediction, studies of climate conditions, fleet movements, fishing techniques, and tuna mortality. The United States, Japan, France, Panama, Colombia, and Vanuatu are some of the organization's members.

The tuna mortality studies conducted at the Achotines Lab, for example, are “virtually unique in design and execution,” according to Altamirano. They're based on investigations of such things as the early stages of tuna development, the factors that affect the fish's growth, estimates of their population, and their movement in the open sea. Data collected at Achotines is integrated into the statistical program of the Eastern Pacific fleet, according to another IATTC scientist, Osvaldo Alexis Silva.

Located on the Bahía de Achotines, the Lab site “is like a natural loading platform,” says the facility's director, Vernon Scholey, in that the sea reaches depths of more than 200 meters only five to eight kilometers from the coast, facilitating fieldwork and the transportation of live samples to the laboratory. There is an almost constant availability of eggs and larvae, which are otherwise difficult to come by since tuna are a pelagic species, meaning they dwell in the open sea, and are difficult to study

Scholey explained that there are few research facilities in the world designed specifically for studying the early life history of tropical tunas, and that currently the principal programs at the Laboratory focus on breeding and rearing yellowfin tuna and skipjack.