Establishing a recreational fishery for bluefin tuna consultation

Views sought on the design of UK permitting regimes for the recreational fishing of Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) is consulting on proposals to introduce permitting regimes to enable the establishment of
Catch and Release Recreational Fisheries (CRRFs) for bluefin tuna (BFT) in each of the United Kingdom’s four Administrations.

In 2021, after leaving the European Union, the UK established its own BFT quota for the first time. UK Administrations have initially taken a cautious and measured approach to managing their BFT quota, running catch and release tagging programmes (CHART) in 2021 and 2022.

These programmes demonstrated that BFT can be caught and released with a very low incidental mortality rate and have provided data on the social and economic benefits associated with recreational access to BFT. Defra is now progressing the introduction of a small, UK-wide, trial commercial fishery alongside the development of a legislation to underpin new recreational fisheries across the UK.

Defra wants to hear the views of all interested parties on the proposal for new secondary legislation to set up permitting regimes to enable the establishment of CRRFs for BFT in each of the UK’s four Administrations.

Find out more about the Defra consultation and how to respond.

First published 23 August 2023