Abstract
ABSTRACT Pirá, Conorhynchos conirostris (Valenciennes, 1840), a large migratory catfish endemic to the São Francisco River (SFR), is listed as threatened in the red lists of both Brazil and the state of Minas Gerais. Although fishing for pirá has been prohibited, it is still an important fishery resource, particularly in the middle SFR. We used historical and current occurrence and abundance data regarding pirá to determine if it meets the IUCN criteria of a threatened species. Pirá occurs in the main course of the SFR as well as in its major tributaries. Unlike the most well-known migratory fishes of the SFR, pirá does not use floodplain lakes as nurseries. In the first half of the 20th century, pirá occurred from the upper to the lower SFR. Currently, it is most abundant in the middle SFR, and is rare in the upper SFR and even rarer in the sub-middle SFR. Pirá has not been captured in the lower SFR since around the mid-1980’s. Despite the reduction in its geographic distribution, we did not find evidence to justify considering pirá as threatened. Thus, we recommend that it be removed from the red lists of Brazil and the state of Minas Gerais.
Highlights
Pirá, Conorhynchos conirostris (Valenciennes, 1840), is a large long-nosed member of the order Siluriformes (Fig. 1) that is endemic to the São Francisco River (SFR) basin in Brazil
We evaluated each International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criterion used to justify the inclusion of pirá in the 2004 and 2014 red lists of Brazil and in the 2010 red list of the state of Minas Gerais
We recorded total length (TL) and body weight (BW) of all pirá, except for those captured at Januária for which we recorded biomass and number captured per fisher per day-1 instead
Summary
Conorhynchos conirostris (Valenciennes, 1840), is a large long-nosed member of the order Siluriformes (Fig. 1) that is endemic to the São Francisco River (SFR) basin in Brazil. It is the third largest fish of the SFR basin, reaching 100 cm in total length and 13 kg in body weight (Sato, 1999). Fisher-1.day-1 in the late 1980’s, and to 3 kg. Fisher-1.day-1 in the late 1990’s (Godinho et al, 2007). In 2008-2009, fishery catches returned to values closed to those of the late 1980’s following two consecutive years of significant river floods (personal data)
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