Last Sunday, the first bigeye tuna of the year was caught in Madeira. It was a 56-kilo specimen, which was unloaded yesterday at the Caniçal fish market.
According to Jacinto Silva, representative of the Madeira Shipowners, “Coopesca bought it from the fisherman at 17 euros per kilo and it was put up for sale on the Continent in São Martinho”.
Regarding the new rules that allow tuna fishing for longer, he said that “there was a management plan for this year of 2025”. Which means that “there is a maximum limit per vessel, and 110 tonnes cannot be exceeded”.
It should be remembered that the ordinance establishing the new rules for tuna fishing for shipowners in Madeira and the Azores was published in JORAM, which comes after agreements between the two regions.
However, the representative of Madeira Shipowners took the opportunity to address the issue of the problem of bait, the ruama, “which does not want to appear”.
For Jacinto Silva, these new rules are “an achievement”, whose “ideas came from Madeira”.
“It’s an achievement because they unloaded a lot of quantities per trip and last year’s quota ended on May 9th. We’re not interested in working for just two or three months. We’re going to continue this for seven or eight months, so that we have fresh tuna in Madeira almost all year round, thus increasing the value of the product”, he concluded.