WHY the FAO-COPEMED/ Gigraltar'98
project is born?

The area covered by this project is the western Mediterranean (Sea of Alboran) and the Gibraltar Strait. As is well known, some tuna-like species, and bluefin tuna in particular, migrate on genetic grounds from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea across the Gibraltar Strait and back again to the Atlantic later in a postreproductive and trophic migration. This gives rise to seasonal fisheries that are exploited by Spain and Morocco. These two countries use various gear types. The area covered by the project is thus highly interesting for research purposes and offers the possibility to learn much about the population interchanges between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and about stock structure. However, as a result of the specific environmental, oceanographic and meteorological conditions of this area, the abundance of these species varies greatly and is differential in the Spanish and/or Moroccan waters. Therefore, research in this respect must be developed jointly by these countries pursuing the same objectives and applying a unified methodology, as recommended by the Standing Scientific Committee for Research and Statistics (SCRS) of the International Commission for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tuna (CICAA).

The Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO - Spain) and the Institut National de Recherche Halieutique (INRH - Morocco) are jointly developing a Fisheries Biology Research Project on Tuna and Tuna-like Species. The species on which the project focuses are Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus), Swordfish (Xiphias gladius), Atlantic Bonito (Sarda sarda), Bullet Tuna (Auxis spp) and Little Tunny (Euthynnus alletteratus).