Fishing industry in the Marshall Islands adjacent to the Marshall Islands Exclusive Economic Zone. The fishery is composed primarily of Chinese-flagged vessels, which are based out of Majuro in the Marshall Islands; there were 11 vessels participating in this high seas fishery in late 2012. There is limited information available on catch levels and rates of taxa that are vulnerable to overexploitation due to their life history characteristics and susceptibility to capture in pelagic longline gear, due to low onboard observer coverage rates. For seabird interactions, based on analysis of Secretariat of the Pacific Community-held observer program data, from 1995-2009, in 203 observed trips, one seabird
Fishing industry in the Marshall Islands Fishing industry in the Marshall Islands The Republic of the Marshall Islands has a commercial fishery that targets bigeye ("Thunnus obesus") and yellowfin ("Thunnus albacares") tuna using pelagic longline fishing gear. There were 55 longline vessels licensed to fish in the Republic of the Marshall Islands Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in 2011, of which 4 were Marshall Islands-flagged and 51 were foreign-licensed vessels, including 22 Chinese-flagged, 16 Japanese-flagged, 11 Federated States of Micronesia-flagged, and 2 Taiwan-flagged. The Japanese-flagged longliners land their catch in Japan; the other 39 vessels were domestically-based (i.e., based from the Marshall Islands seaport at Majuro, the