Volume 58

Fishery-dependent Monitoring and Assessment of Reef Fishes that Aggregate to Spawn


Authors
Sadovy, Y.
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Other Information


Date: November, 2005


Pages: 275-280


Event: Proceedings of the Fifty Eighth Annual Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute


City: San Andres


Country: Colombia

Abstract

Reef fish species that aggregate to spawn pose particular data collection and management challenges in fisheries that are rarely monitored or managed. It is increasingly recognized that spawning aggregations should be viewed as ‘capital in the bank’, to be protected and allowed to generate the ‘interest’ that supports the associated fishery, rather than as fishing opportunities. However, this is often little understood by fishery managers or fishers who may have little knowledge of the vulnerability of aggregations; so fishing continues. An important tool for understanding and demonstrating current condition and fishing history of aggregating species is fishery-dependent information, especially landings, catch per unit of effort data and knowledge derived from fisher interviews. For aggregating species, landings and effort data should be collected both during and outside of the aggregation season because of the problem of hyperstability associated with aggregating behaviour. Fisher interviews, if properly conducted, cross-checked and validated, can provide powerful insights into fishery histories, and are excellent opportunities for information exchange that have yet to be widely applied in the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic. However, confidentiality of information on aggregation site locations obtained from fishery interviews should be respected.

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