Albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) comprise a discrete stock in the South Pacific (Murray 1994, Hoyle 2012). This highly migratory species, when mature, spawn in tropical and sub-tropical waters between latitudes 10◦S and 30◦S during the austral summer (Muhling et al. 2017) and appear to gradually disperse north from the southern latitudes as they grow (Langley n.d., Nikolic et al. 2017).

For the South Pacific Albacore fishery, distant-water longline fleets and distinct domestic longline fleets catch adult albacore over a broad geographic range in the south Pacific region (see map). This fishery presents an overlapping area between both the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), although management and compliance monitoring is attributed only to the WCPFC. The stock assessments for the South Pacific albacore are currently conducted by the Oceanic Fisheries Program of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).