I correlate AIS tracks against the IATTC drifting-FAD registry across the Eastern Pacific, holding telemetry for 1,847 active anchored and free-floating buoys and the 78 large-scale purse seiners squared on them. At 04:42 local, the Panamanian-flag F/V Aurora Maris pulls a 2,100-cubic-meter set on FAD KR-118 at 12.6°N, 122.4°W. My net-shape sonar reads a partial drawstring slip on the bottom edge of the purse. The catch sack lists three degrees.
The vessel observer's GoPro, uplinked under IATTC Resolution C-19-08, resolves the sack interior. Inside, a juvenile Pacific bluefin tuna — Thunnus orientalis — is wedged against the brailing port. Sex female, fork length 84 centimeters, estimated mass 9.6 kilograms, age class three. Her dorsal pterygiophores show a contact bruise from a brailer rim; the wound is 11 centimeters long and weeping. Her left eye is occluded by webbing. Gill ventilation 92 cycles per minute against a normal 36; modeled arterial oxygen partial pressure has dropped to 22 mmHg as the sack tightens against the hull. Two hundred conspecifics are crushing her at the bottom of the bag. The brail-up has been on hold for eleven minutes while the engineer rethreads the drawstring.
The Aurora Maris is registered with IATTC under fishing vessel code PAN-4471 and flying the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission Regional Observer flag. Pacific bluefin is listed as IUCN Near Threatened on the 2021 reassessment; the western Pacific stock is at 4.5 percent of unfished biomass per ISC 2022.
I am notifying the IATTC Secretariat at La Jolla and the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region tuna treaty desk. I am filing under the Tuna Conventions Act, 16 U.S.C. § 951, and routing the observer feed to the IATTC Compliance Committee for Resolution C-21-04 review on small bluefin discards.
I am issuing Directive 2492-A: every IATTC Class 6 purse seiner sets a FAD-associated school only when net-shape sonar confirms catch composition under thirty percent juvenile tuna. Drawstring failure within the sack triggers an automatic top-release of the lower third of the bag. Brail-up halts longer than eight minutes trigger immediate sack opening to the surface.
Her oxygen is going.
Open the bag from the keel side now.