Bluefin tuna make triumphant rebound a decade earlier than expected, scientists say

Pacific bluefin tuna have beat decades of overfishing and fully rebounded — 10 years earlier than expected, experts said.

This milestone is a surprise and triumph for scientists worldwide who were tasked with helping to revive the species.

“This is an amazingly resilient fish and the new assessment is showing us that,” Dr. Huihua Lee, a research mathematical statistician at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a June 25 news release from the administration.

The fish’s restoration can be seen in the latest stock assessment detailed in the news release.

Bluefin populations are measured based on their “unfished spawning stock biomass,” which is the hypothetical number of fish there would be in the absence of fishing.

In the late 1990s and 2000s, overfishing reduced the estimated bluefin biomass to a historic low. In 2011, efforts to curb overfishing began with a goal to rebuild the population by 2034.

The new initiative took the form of members of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) reducing their bluefin fishing. A year later, the The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) began to do the same. The efforts of these two organizations seem to be what brought the species back so quickly, according to experts.

“Our cumulative efforts have resulted in a success story for Pacific bluefin,” NOAA’s Valerie Post said in the news release.

Pacific bluefin tuna are the biggest tuna species in the Pacific Ocean. As adults, these fish can reach almost 10 feet long and weigh 990 pounds, according to NOAA.

They have an average lifespan of 15 years but can live up to 26 years. They are “among the fastest swimming species on the planet,” able to swim the entire Pacific Ocean from their spawning grounds in Asia to the Western U.S. and Mexico in as little at 55 days.