Abstract
ESR Endangered Species Research Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials ESR 27:95-111 (2015) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00643 Monitoring landed seahorse catch in a changing policy environment M. Yasué1,*, A. Nellas2, H. Panes2, A. C. J. Vincent3 1Quest University Canada, 3200 University Blvd., Squamish, BC V8B 0N8, Canada 2Project Seahorse Foundation for Marine Conservation, Gaviola Compound, Maria Theresa Village II, Barangay Guadalupe 6000, Philippines 3Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada *Corresponding author: maiyasue@gmail.com ABSTRACT: For many small-scale, tropical reef fisheries, landed catch may be the only data that can be monitored to assess the impacts of management. This is true for seahorses Hippocampus comes that are obtained as part of a multi-species fishery in the Philippines. Here, because seahorses are locally rare and depleted, it is difficult to attain large enough sample sizes to detect changes over time using underwater surveys. We assessed changes in seahorse sales at 2 sites, from 1996 and 2005 respectively to 2010. The study period covered local and national conservation initiatives that could affect seahorses and dependent fisheries: establishment of marine reserves (1998 onwards), a community-led minimum size limit (MSL: 2002 to 2004) and a national ban on seahorse fishing (from 2004). The MSL appeared to lead to increased sizes of seahorses in trade, as hoped, while the national ban led, perversely, to more fishers selling seahorses. Declines in overall take after 2004 or 2007 (depending on the site) is likely linked to declining seahorse populations rather than reduced effort, especially when one considers the increased number of fishers and the price per seahorse. It is notable that communities decided on the MSL, whereas the government imposed the ban on capturing seahorses. In this small-scale, multi-species fishery, monitoring a wide range of variables intensively over a relatively long time scale allowed us to identify key differences between small-scale and industrial fisheries management, and also to document the biological and social consequences of management action for a depleted, threatened species. KEY WORDS: CITES · MPAs · Marine reserve · Exploitation · Fishing ban · Philippines · Size distribution · Minimum size limits Full text in pdf format Supplementary material NextCite this article as: Yasué M, Nellas A, Panes H, Vincent ACJ (2015) Monitoring landed seahorse catch in a changing policy environment. Endang Species Res 27:95-111. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00643 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in ESR Vol. 27, No. 2. Online publication date: February 18, 2015 Print ISSN: 1863-5407; Online ISSN: 1613-4796 Copyright © 2015 Inter-Research.
Highlights
The biophysical and socioeconomic changes that occur over multiple and extensive spatial and temporal scales in the oceans make effective monitoring especially costly and difficult (Ludwig et al 1993, Norse & Crowder 2005)
We focus on the tiger-tail seahorse Hippocampus comes Cantor, 1850, a Southeast Asian species that has been assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and placed on CITES Appendix II, largely because of inferred overexploitation (Vincent et al 2011)
A total of 14 fishing grounds were cited as the source for more than 80% of the catch landed at Site A, and 12 fishing grounds were cited as sourcing 87% of the seahorse catch landed at Site B
Summary
The biophysical and socioeconomic changes that occur over multiple and extensive spatial and temporal scales in the oceans make effective monitoring especially costly and difficult (Ludwig et al 1993, Norse & Crowder 2005). Fisheries-dependent landed catch data is generally the most logistically feasible approach to monitoring changes in fish populations over time (Murphy & Jenkins 2010, Pauly et al 2013). Data such as fish number and size reflect. Fisheriesdependent surveys do have notable limitations, such as the inability to monitor fish that are not captured in size-selective fishing gear (Murphy & Jenkins 2010) or a tendency to confound increases in effort with changes in abundance (Gillis et al 1993) Still, such sampling of catch allow monitoring of a much greater number of individuals and over longer time scales than could be obtained with fisheries independent methods such as underwater visual surveys (Roberts et al 2001). Gaining sufficient sample sizes for the necessary comparisons of change before and after conservation interventions is a particular concern for species that are severely depleted and locally rare (Yasué et al 2012)
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