Tuna Longline Catch Rates in the Indian Ocean
نویسنده
چکیده
Myers and Worm’s recent letter to the editor raise serious concerns about the impacts of the industrial fishing on large predatory fish and the associated biological community in four continental shelf and nine pelagic oceanic systems. They suggest that in these systems industrial fisheries have removed 90% of the large predators and that these removals may compromise the sustainability of fishing and have widespread ecosystem effects. Their letter highlights the importance of taking into account the state of unexploited communities when establishing benchmarks for assessing the effects of exploitation. This is particularly true for the oceanic systems they examined in which they have used historical data going back to the commencement of any substantial fishery. This contrasts with many fishery stock assessments where analyses are limited to more recent periods with more complete or detail data and as such are unable to provide management benchmarks based on unexploited status. Nevertheless, we are concerned that for the nine oceanic systems, their analyses provide a misleading picture of the status of large predatory fishes in these systems. As discussed below, if the trends are accepted on face value, they would imply that the fisheries, by themselves, were unlikely to be the primary cause underlying the declines.
منابع مشابه
Short communication:The effect of depth of operation and soaking time on catch rates in the experimental tuna longline fisheries in Lakshadweep Sea, India
متن کامل
Short communication:The effect of depth of operation and soaking time on catch rates in the experimental tuna longline fisheries in Lakshadweep Sea, India
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