Abstract

Small-scale fisheries in the Caribbean are important to coastal communities, but their effects on exploited populations are notoriously hard to quantify. We evaluated the effect of artisanal and recreational fishing on populations of a large tropical intertidal gastropod, Cittarium pica, in the British Virgin Islands. C. pica is argued to be the third most important marine invertebrate landed in the Caribbean following spiny lobster and queen conch. It is widely held that C. pica populations are in decline from overfishing, but fishers also believe that coastal development has impacted populations. The rarity and small size of C. pica on sheltered shore provides circumstantial evidence for overfishing, because sheltered shores are easy for fishers to access. It is, however, unclear whether C. pica are more common and larger on exposed shores because of reduced fishing pressure in these areas, or because C. pica is simply responding to a natural gradient in wave forces. By surveying sites that spanned gradients in both access by fishers and exposure to prevailing sea conditions, we found that fishing access is at least partly responsible for declines in abundance and body size on shores that are sheltered and/or easy to access on foot. Despite size-regulations and a closed season, chronic over-harvesting of C. pica is occurring at some sites, and we consider possible alternative management strategies for C. pica to ensure sustainable long-term exploitation

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