Fishing Restrictions for Tropical Tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean for 2026 and Beyond

NOAA Fisheries is issuing regulations under the Tuna Conventions Act (TCA) of 1950, as amended, to implement Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) resolutions C-25-01 (Conservation Measures for Tropical Tunas in the Eastern Pacific Ocean During 2026 and 2027-2028), C-25-07 (Amends and Replaces Resolution C-24-06 on Fish-Aggregating Devices), and C-19-04 (Resolution to Mitigate Impacts on Sea Turtles). Fishing restrictions continue to apply to large purse seine vessels of class sizes 4-6 (carrying capacity of 182 metric tons (mt) or greater) and longline vessels greater than 24 meters (m) in overall length that fish for tropical tuna in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The final rule maintains and extends fishing management measures for tropical tuna stocks in the IATTC Convention Area. These include purse seine time and area closures, fish aggregating device (FAD) measures, requirements to stow gear during closures, requirements that all tropical tuna be retained on board and landed (with certain exceptions), and longline catch limits for bigeye tuna.

The rulemaking also reduces purse seine closure days from 72 to 64 and includes a provision for large U.S. purse seiners to pay a one time assessed contribution no later than June 30, 2026, to fund a tuna tagging project needed to complete the next skipjack tuna stock assessment.

Other provisions help facilitate FAD recovery efforts by requiring location data for FADs drifting in certain areas be shared with entities engaged in FAD recovery. Vessel owners and operators are able to consider these FADs “non-fishing FADs” that will not count against their active FAD limit so long as certain provisions are met. Furthermore, the rulemaking adds the ability for entities engaged in FAD recovery to report recoveries electronically as an alternative to existing paper forms.

The final rule requires purse seine vessels to carry onboard safe handling tools (e.g., a dip net) to release sea turtles, revise safe handling requirements, specifies recordkeeping and reporting requirements for sea turtle interactions, and removes an existing provision for purse seine vessels to have speedboats stationed near sea turtles since it was removed due to safety concerns.

Finally, the final rule makes technical corrections to outdated cross-references and hyperlinks in regulations for fishing under the Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program at 50 CFR 216.24 and in 50 CFR 300.24.