. Introduction
Distant water tuna longlining in the Asia-Paci"c owes much to the pioneering e!orts of Japanese companies [1,2]. Expansion of e!ort was constrained by the Second World War and by limits imposed by the US administration in the immediate post war period. In 1952, when the last of the &Macarthur Lines' creating "shing zones that restricted "shing to areas around the Japanese islands were lifted, Japan began expanding its distant water operations, "rst into the West Paci"c and then into the Southern Ocean [1]. This expansion was made possible by technological developments, in particular the development of super-low-temperature freezer technology. Introduction of cryogenic techniques for onboard freezing of "sh to !603C in the 1960s made remote areas viable for high value, sashimi-quality tuna. Frozen tuna sashimi attracted increasing demand as Japanese incomes expanded in the 1960s and 1970s
(see generally [3]).