The Spanish FADs fishery in the Indian Ocean

Abstract

Are presented the results of the analysis of catch data from three purse-seiner vessels operating at the Indian Ocean using traditional and non-entangling FADs to fish tuna. Skipjack was the main species in the reported captures, but also yellowfin (Thunnus albacares) and the bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) were target species. Twelve other species, considered as by-catch, were also caught during the fishing operations. Results showed that fishing on non-entangling FADs was more sustainable than that carried on traditional (entangling) artificial devices, particularly in relation to the number of sharks (and other marine animals in risk) entangled. However, the efficiency of fishing operations done on non-entangling FADs was not different to that reported on traditional ones. Moreover, the analysis of the by-catch data obtained from operations on different floating devices, showed that this was lower when using the non-entangling FADs.