Abstract
The small-scale common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) fishery in Galician waters (NW Spain) was studied using a model based on information obtained from fishers. The Gomez-Munoz model was applied using information obtained from the artisanal Galician fleet from 1998 to 2000. This information was used to estimate catches per unit of effort (CPUE) and total catch for the whole directed creel fishery. A total of 73 interviews were conducted in 22 ports in the west part of ICES division VIIIc and 75 interviews in 16 ports in the north part of ICES division IXa. The estimated total catch during the fishing season for the whole Galician fleet was 5214 t (2528 t in VIIIc and 2686 t in IXa), and the average CPUE for the VIIIc and IXa fishing grounds obtained from the model was 44.11 and 23.83 kg haul-1 respectively. To test the reliability of the model, the outputs obtained for a subset of 35 ports (19 in VIIIc and 16 in IXa), were compared with the official statistics of these ports. The average official catch from 1997 to 2000 and estimated total catch data were significantly correlated.
Highlights
The common octopus, Octopus vulgaris (Cuvier, 1797), is the most important commercially harvest*Received June 21, 2004
To ensure that the month with maximum catches coincides with the TABLE 1. - Values of the basic parameters required for input into the model for the common octopus creel fishery in both areas
73 interviews were conducted with fishermen operating in VIIIc waters, and 75 with fishermen operating in IXa waters
Summary
The common octopus, Octopus vulgaris (Cuvier, 1797), is the most important commercially harvest*Received June 21, 2004. Most of the studies published on the O. vulgaris fishery refer to time-series analyses of monthly catches (Quetglas et al, 1998), or trends in landings and effort over a long period of time (Sánchez and Obarti, 1993; Hernández-García et al, 1998; Tsangridis et al, 2002). Few studies have been made on fishery management, and these have generally been based on classical finfish models of population dynamics Bravo de Laguna, 1979; Jouffre et al, 2002), which are more appropriate for highly mobile demersal and pelagic resources and for managing industrial fisheries (Caddy, 1999), than for modelling the population dynamics of invertebrate species (Perry et al., 1999). New management measures and policies must be applied (Freire and García-Allut, 2000; Freire et al, 2002).
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