Assessing the risk of alternative management strategies in a Mediterranean fishery: protecting the younger vs reducing fishing effort

Abstract

A stochastic age-structured population model was developed to explore biologically favourable levels of effort and closing periods within the sardine pelagic fishery in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Results suggested that the developed age-structured model captured the observed biomass fluctuations and catches reasonably well and represents the first comprehensive investigation of alternative management strategies for eastern Mediterranean sardine fishery that include stochasticity. The present study provided direct evidence for the importance of the correct timing of the temporal fishing ban. Significant benefits were found both in terms of biomass and catch from a corrective shift in the fishing closed period. The current findings suggested that protecting the younger age groups from fishing in the period October–December, by shifting the ban period earlier than December may profit, biologically, the stock and economically the fishing sector. Progressive reductions in fishing mortality/effort also yield significant positive biological and fishery benefits in the short term.

Keywords:

• sardine
• fisheries management
• stochastic model
• ecosystem approach
• technical measures

Acknowledgements

The research was partially funded by PEVE 2010 (Programme for the support of Basic Research in NTUA), Greece. Also, part of the research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement MYFISH number 289257. The authors would like to thank the referees for their useful comments and corrections on the manuscript.