Paper: Management strategies for the fishery of red shrimp Aristeus antennatus in Catalonia (NE Spain)

Management strategies for the fishery of red shimp Aristeus antennatus in Catalonia (NE Spain). 

By: Giulia Gorelli, Joan B. Company, Francesc Sarda (Instituto de Ciencias del Mar, Barcelona). 

Abstract

Red shrimp (Aristeus antennatus) is the most important demersal resource in the Northwest Mediterranean. In Northeast Spain it is fished by bottom trawling and constitutes a large part of the income for local fishermen’s associations. In Palamos, the most important harbour or this fishery in the area, a management plan regulating this fishery was established in May 2013, aiming to reduce fishing effort and protect juveniles. We investigate whether the management strategy adopted in Palamos is appropriate, and how it could be improved according to stock status and fishery characteristics. For this purpose we analyze the trends of several historical series of data, including fishing effort, landings, catch per unit effort (CPUE) and size frequencies in the catches. We found that fishing effort directed towards this species has massively increased, starting from the second half of the last century, accompanied by a marked decline in CPUE. Overfishing of the stock has been evident since 1984. Given the results obtained during this work, we consider the management strategy recently established in Palamos will be appropriate to achieve the aim of sustainability for the red shrimp fishery.

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For further information on the paper, please contact Giulia Gorelli on: gorelli@icm.csic.es

 

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