Chilean Fisheries Research Articles

Use of shell shape variation as an assessment tool in the southernmost razor clam fishery

Morphological variation provides a method for phenotypic stock differentiation at inter- and intra-specific levels. Various methods are used for the assessment of fishery stocks in mollusks; one of them is geometric morphometrics. We analyzed morphological variation in razor clams at ten fishing grounds, five from the Argentinean North Patagonian gulfs and five from Chile, and evaluated the occurrence of phenotypic stocks between Argentinean and Chilean fisheries, using geometric morphometrics methods. The Argentinean harvesting of Ensis macha is emerging, and represents a way to diversify the shellfisheries in north Patagonia. Nevertheless, fishing and aquaculture play important roles for the Chilean economy. Various multivariate methods were applied to describe the differences among and between fishing grounds. We found significant differences in the average shell shape of individuals from either ocean, and these differences principally describe changes in the robustness of the shell. The average shell shapes differed among sites from the Pacific while those from the Atlantic Ocean did not show statistical differences. This study shows that geometric morphometric techniques are appropriate for the identification of phenotypic stocks in E. macha. Our results could be used for future resource management and to determine the origin of the product in razor clams from South America.

Incidental capture of the short-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) in the industrial purse seine fishery in northern Chile

Incidental capture of marine mammals during fishing activities is a worldwide concern given the potentially drastic effects this can have on marine mammal populations. To assess the interaction between marine mammals and industrial fishery, an onboard observer monitored 8 purse seine fishing trips in northern Chile. He reported the incidental capture of 58 short-beaked common dolphins, 3 of which died, and one South American sea lion, which also died. The mortality rate of dolphins was 0.15 dolphins/haul and 0.3 dolphins/fishing trip, whereas for sea lions the mortality rate was 0.05 sea lions/haul and 0.125 sea lions/fishing trip. This study recorded for the first time the incidental capture of common dolphins in industrial fishery in Chile, and emphasizes the need to implement a specific monitoring plan to estimate bycatch rates of marine mammals.

Potential Synergies between Nature-Based Tourism and Sustainable Use of Marine Resources: Insights from Dive Tourism in Territorial User Rights for Fisheries in Chile.

Novel solutions to conserve biodiversity whilst allowing for resource harvesting are urgently needed. In marine systems, Territorial User Rights for Fisheries (TURFs) are promoted to enable sustainable use of resources. We investigate the potential for synergies between nature-based tourism and TURFs on Chile’s central coast. Of 135 recreational divers surveyed, 77% indicated that the fish species they preferred sighting were declining and 80% indicated that they would dive more often in TURFs, which have higher abundance of favoured species. Regression analysis shows that respondents that perceive that TURFs fulfil a conservation function are more willing to pay to dive in a TURF. However, respondents who understand the bureaucratic functioning of a TURF are less willing to pay, and there is diversity in how divers feel payments should be made. A participatory approach is required to navigate these complexities to achieve synergies between nature-based tourism and resource harvesting in TURFs.

ITQ markets with administrative costs: An application to the industrial common sardine and anchovy fishery in Chile

Using numerical simulations of the mixed common sardine and anchovy fishery of central-southern Chile, this article studies the effects of the distribution of administrative costs between the government and the fishing industry in an individual transferable quota system. Consistent with recent theoretical results, the analysis indicates that the presence and distribution of the administrative costs can have important impacts on the performance of an individual transferable quota system. The numerical simulations reveal significant and non-monotonic effects on the optimal paths of transferable quotas, biomass, quota price, size of the active fishing fleet, and the value of the fishery. While the effects of the distribution of administrative costs are complicated in the case study under analysis, the results suggest that it is likely optimal for the industry and government to share the administrative costs in this fishery.

Bacteriología asociada al cultivo de moluscos en Chile: Avances y perspectivas

Excessive fishing effort has led to overexploitation and depletion of major benthic fisheries in Chile, so it has been encouraged cultivation of major overex...

Risk and Sustainability: Assessing Fishery Management Strategies

We develop a theoretical framework to assess the sustainability of fishery management strategies, when the bioeconomic dynamics are marked by uncertainty and several conflicting objectives have to be accounted for. Stochastic viability ranks management strategies according to their probability to sustain economic and ecological outcomes over time. The approach is extended to build stochastic sustainable production possibility frontiers representing the trade-offs between sustainability objectives at any risk level, given the current state of the fishery. This framework is applied to a Chilean fishery faced with El Niño uncertainty. We study the viability of effort and quota strategies when catch and biomass levels have to be sustained. We show that (1) for these sustainability objectives, whatever the level of the outcomes to be sustained, quota-based management results in a better viability probability than effort-based management, and (2) the fishery’s historical quota levels were not sustainable given the stock levels in the early 2000s.

Using Taxes to Deter Illegal Fishing in ITQ Systems

We study the effects of different tax schemes used in fisheries management in combination with an individual transferable quota system. We focus on the effects of taxes on equilibrium quota prices and on violations under the assumption that enforcement to induce compliance is imperfect and costly. The use of taxes is motivated by the regulator’s need to recover costs for enforcement activities. We propose the use of a tax on the price of the processed products based on its impact on violations and the information that is required to implement it. We also show that this tax has a double pay-off for enforcement because it reduces the demand for illegal fishing and increases revenue for enforcement activities without producing a deadweight loss in the quota market. We present an application of our model to the case of the red shrimp fishery in Chile. In our simulation example, a tax of 7 % on the price of fish exports could sufficiently reduce harvest demand and generate enough funding to completely eliminate quota violations, which, in the absence of taxes, can be more than 100 % of the total allowable catch. At the same time, this tax could increase the equilibrium quota price by 19 %.

Hierarchical statistical framework to combine generalized depletion models and biomass dynamic models in the stock assessment of the Chilean sea urchin (Loxechinus albus) fishery

Generalized depletion models are useful for representing catch dynamics when biological compositional data are lacking but high frequency records of catch and effort are available. A shortcoming of these models is that although they estimate vulnerable abundance they do not provide direct information on the productivity of the stocks. Here we combine generalized depletion models with a biomass dynamic model of the Pella–Tomlinson type. The inference framework is hierarchical, with initial biomass estimates from generalized depletion models being used as input to the biomass dynamic model to estimate its hyper-parameters. Two hierarchical inference approaches are employed: the standard state-space framework and a new hybrid marginal-estimated approximation to the likelihood function, which make different simplifying assumptions. We apply this assessment approach to the first Chilean fishery with a Management Plan, the southern sea urchin fishery. Results from both hierarchical inference methods show a stock fluctuating between high and low biomass levels, for which maximum sustainable yield appears as a risk-prone annual harvest policy. Given this we propose an alternative annual harvest rate corresponding to the average latent productivity over the years of peaks and troughs of biomass fluctuations.

Share Contract Choices and Economic Performance: Empirical Evidence from the Artisanal Fisheries Sector in Chile

ABSTRACT Typically, crew members in fisheries are remunerated through a share of the total revenues. However, there is little empirical evidence on the mechanisms by which revenues are distributed to labor and capital, and how these distributions affect economic performance. Under an agency problem framework, we estimate a dose-response function to study the formation of contracts and identify the marginal effects of changes in crew profit shares on fishing returns in Chilean artisanal fisheries. The results support share contract choices based on bargaining power, monitoring costs, technology, state of fishing resources, and outside options. We find significant effects of increasing crew profit shares on vessel owner returns in the interval (0.25, 0.65). The results vary across fisheries, however. While the effects are not significant in the fish group, they are larger and robust for molluscs and crustaceans. The latter finding is expected given differences in the observability of effort across fisheries...

Otolith shape analysis of the austral sardine (Sprattus fuegensis) in the Patagonian inner sea of Chile.

Event Abstract Back to Event Otolith shape analysis of the austral sardine (Sprattus fuegensis) in the Patagonian inner sea of Chile. Sandra Curin-Osorio1 and Luis A. Cubillos1* 1 Universidad de Concepción, Oceanografía, Chile The austral sardine has an extensive distribution within inner and outer waters along fiords, channels, and the continental shelf of the Chilean Patagonia, from Puerto Montt to Tierra del Fuego and extending to southern Argentina. With the aim of determining differences in morphology and shape of sagittal otoliths of the austral sardine, samples were obtained from inner waters of Chiloé (42ºS-43ºS), Aysén (44ºS-46ºS), Punta Arenas (54ºS), and from Argentinian waters. Traditional morphometry analysis considered length, width, area, perimeter, and size-based shape descriptors of otoliths. Instead, geometric morphometry was an outline otolith analysis on the basis of elliptic Fourier descriptors through multivariate statistical methods. Both approached showed intraspecific variability in otolith shape of austral sardine, with otoliths from inner waters of Chiloé statistically differenced from the Aysén Region, but with an important degree of mix between zones. Otoliths from Punta Arenas were excluded from the study because they were smaller, without the outline characteristic of the adult specimens. The sagittal otolith from inner waters of Chiloé exhibited an elliptical shape, defined rostrum, and concave antirostrum, while otoliths from the Aysén Región showed rounded shape along the dorsal and ventral borders, without defined postrostrum and antirostrum. The otolith rostrum of specimens from inner waters of Chiloé was very well defined, being this the main morphological trait generating differences with the rest of the zones. Acknowledgements We thank to the support for this research, which was provided by "Fondo de Investigación Pesquera" (FIP) de Chile (http://www.fip.cl) (Chilean Fisheries Research Fund) through the research project FIP 2010-17. We thank to R Galleguillos (UdeC), who leaded the research project, and also to the technicians Germán Vásquez and Roberto Torres, who collected otoliths on board of fishing boats. Keywords: Shape Analysis, population structure, Patagonia, pelagic fish, Sagittal otolith Conference: XV European Congress of Ichthyology, Porto, Portugal, 7 Sep - 11 Sep, 2015. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Otoliths as a tool to study fish life cycles Citation: Curin-Osorio S and Cubillos LA (2015). Otolith shape analysis of the austral sardine (Sprattus fuegensis) in the Patagonian inner sea of Chile.. Front. Mar. Sci. Conference Abstract: XV European Congress of Ichthyology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2015.03.00050 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 09 Nov 2015; Published Online: 10 Nov 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Luis A Cubillos, Universidad de Concepción, Oceanografía, Concepción, Region del Bio Bio, 4070386, Chile, lucubillos@udec.cl Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract Supplemental Data The Authors in Frontiers Sandra Curin-Osorio Luis A Cubillos Google Sandra Curin-Osorio Luis A Cubillos Google Scholar Sandra Curin-Osorio Luis A Cubillos PubMed Sandra Curin-Osorio Luis A Cubillos Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

The complete validated mitochondrial genome of the yellownose skate Zearaja chilensis (Guichenot 1848) (Rajiformes, Rajidae)

The yellownose skate Zearaja chilensis is endemic to South America. The species is the target of a valuable commercial fishery in Chile, but is highly susceptible to over-exploitation. The complete mitochondrial genome was described from 694,593 sequences obtained using Ion Torrent Next Generation Sequencing. The total length of the mitogenome was 16,909 bp, comprising 2 rRNAs, 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs and 2 non-coding regions. Comparison between the proposed mitogenome and one previously described from “raw fish fillets from a skate speciality restaurant in Seoul, Korea” resulted in 97.4% similarity, rather than approaching 100% similarity as might be expected. The 2.6% dissimilarity may indicate the presence of two separate stocks or two different species of, ostensibly, Z. chilensis in South America and highlights the need for caution when using genetic resources without a taxonomic reference or a voucher specimen.

Reproductive ecology of the female pink cusk-eel (Genypterus blacodes): evaluating differences between fishery management zones in the Chilean austral zone

The pink cusk-eel (Genypterus blacodes), a benthic-demersal fish confined to the southern hemisphere, supports an important commercial fishery in Chile where it is exploited over an extensive geographic area. Although the fishery was originally divided into a northern (41o28′–47o00′S) and southern (47o00′–57o00′S) zone for the purposes of fisheries management, recent studies have reported significant differences in life history parameters between these zones. Individuals from the southern zone reached larger asymptotic sizes and possessed higher survival rates compared to the northern zone. We estimate and compare the gonadosomatic index (GSI), shape of the maturity ogive, and length at 50 % maturity (L50%) of female G. blacodes between management zones and across time using biological data collected from the industrial fleet between 1985 and 2009. Females in the northern zone had higher monthly mean GSI than females in the southern zone. Our analyses also revealed L50% to be significantly higher in the southern zone than in the northern zone from 1985 to 2009. The significant differences in life-history traits between fishery management zones agree with the trade-offs predicted by Charnov’s life history theory. Together these results provide additional support for the hypothesis that two separate stocks exist and suggest that females from the northern zone have developed a life-history strategy, which favours early maturation and a proportionally greater investment in reproduction than females from the southern zone.

Are the intertidal fish highly resistant to UV-B radiation? A study based on oxidative stress in Girella laevifrons (Kyphosidae)

Sea chub, Girella laevifrons, is a coastal fish that inhabits high intertidal rockpools along the coast of Chile. The intertidal pools where the juveniles live, are an extreme environment with high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation, becoming harmful to the organisms, due to oxidative stress generated by reactive oxygen species. For this reason organisms develop adaptations that allow them to survive in this complex environment. The search of biomonitor species, sensitive to UV radiation is very important in aquatic ecosystems, mainly in the southern hemisphere where depletion of the ozone layer and the consequent increase of UV radiation, have become an environmental problem. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of ultraviolet radiation in G. laevifrons and its possible use as UV-B radiation biomonitor specie in intertidal systems, which are very important for the Chilean fisheries. The effect of UV radiation exposure on juvenile G. laevifrons was measured through oxidative stress parameters. Catalase's activity increased with the time of exposure, unlike superoxide dismutase's activity which peaked at 2h, decreasing towards the 5th hour of irradiation. The superoxide dismutase activity in muscle tissue did not show significant differences. The lipid peroxidation and DNA damage increased in relation to exposition times. Tissue muscle's DNA damage was shown only at 5h of exposure. Significant differences between the two organs in the antioxidant capacity were observed, the liver of G. laevifrons exhibited the higher antioxidant capacity. It can be concluded that this specie exhibits effective protection mechanisms against UV radiation exposure and it is not appropriate specie as a biomonitor in intertidal systems.

Crises in the South African abalone and Chilean loco fisheries: shared challenges and prospects

Worldwide there is an increasing realisation that there is an inextricable link between the natural and human systems, and there is a need to integrate these into the governance of small-scale fisheries. The critical importance of adopting such an approach is argued in this paper by exploring the challenge of resource over-exploitation in the abalone fishery in South Africa and the loco fishery in Chile, both of which faced unsuccessful fishery closures and the implementation of Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURFs). By exploring similarities and differences in fisheries context and approaches, these case studies highlight that although management strategies have been progressive on paper, they are compromised, to different degrees, by a lack of understanding of the socio-economic and political factors that are influencing the fisheries system. We argue that unless a more integrated approach is adopted to understand the social-ecological system as a whole, few long-term benefits will be secured for both the resources and the livelihoods of fishers.

Exploring External Validity of Common Pool Resource Experiments: Insights from Artisanal Benthic Fisheries in Chile

We explore the external validity of a common pool resource (CPR) laboratory experiment. The experimental subjects were artisanal fishers who exploit benthic resources on the coast of Chile. A first set of subjects was recruited from fishers’ unions that comanage their resources through territorial user right areas. These unions differ in their performance, which is largely the outcome of the cooperative efforts of their members. A second set of subjects was recruited among nonunionized fishers who do not participate in the comanagement system. They fish exclusively in open-access areas and barely cooperate in their fishing. Membership of a union and the union’s performance in comanagement were related to the subjects’ behavior in the laboratory. In the CPR experiment, members of high-performance unions showed high cooperation with each other, while members of low-performance unions cooperated significantly less. Nonunionized fishers did not cooperate at all. We also explored how the weak external enforcement of an individual quota can trigger changes in behavior, what we refer to as internalizing the norm. Only the members of high-performance unions internalized the norm. They refrained from overfishing until the end of the game, even though the sanction for exceeding the quota was not strong enough to be dissuasive from the point of view of pure self-interest. This study provided insight on the experimental analysis of cooperation in artisanal fisheries and suggested that the capacity to internalize norms is important to the sustainable exploitation of artisanal fisheries common pool resources. RESUMEN. Exploramos la validez externa de un experimento de laboratorio con un recurso de uso comun. Los sujetos del experimento han sido pescadores artesanales que explotan recursos bentonico en la costa de Chile. Un primer grupo de personas proviene de organizaciones de pescadores que utilizan sistemas de co-manejo explotando estos recursos a traves de derechos territoriales de uso. Un segundo grupo de pescadores incluidos en este experimento no pertenecian a organizaciones de pescadores y tampoco participaban en sistemas de co-manejo, pescando de forma exclusiva bajo un regimen de acceso abierto y rara vez cooperan entre ellos. Este trabajo realiza un analisis comparativo entre el desempeno en co-manejo entre estas diferentes organizaciones de pescadores y el comportamiento colaborativo de los pescadores. Los resultados indican que los pescadores miembros de organizaciones con elevado desempeno presentan un alto grado de cooperacion entre ellos, mientras que aquellos donde se observa bajo desempeno su nivel de cooperacion es tambien significativamente mas reducido. El trabajo tambien demuestra que los pescadores que no forman parte de organizaciones de pescadores tampoco mostraron ningun tipo de cooperacion. Asimismo, tamiben investigamos como un debil cumplimiento externo de la normativa en relacion a las cuotas de capturas puede provocar cambios en el comportamiento de los pescadores, entendido aqui como internalizacion de las normas. Solo los miembros de organizaciones con un Elevado desempeno demuestran haber internalizado las normas. Se abstuvieron de continuar sobrepescando hasta el final de juego a pesar de que la sancion prevista por exceder la cuota no era lo suficientemente disuasoria desde la perspectiva de su propio interes. Este estudio aporta nueva luz sobre el analisis experimental de la cooperacion en pesquerias artesanales, y sugiere que la capacidad de internalizar las normas es relevante para la explotacion sostenible de recursos comunes en pesquerias artesanales.

Territorial user rights for artisanal fisheries in Chile – intended and unintended outcomes

Granting property rights in fisheries is assumed to provide incentives for sustainable resource exploitation. These rights might also open other income options for fishers, including some that go beyond the original objectives intended by authorities establishing the right. The opportunity for alternative uses is especially high if the details of these rights are not clearly identified. In Chile, a de novo TURF (Territorial User Rights for Fishery) system, called Management Exploitation Areas for Benthic Resources (Áreas de Manejo y Explotación de Recursos Bentónicos-AMERB) was created to achieve sustainable exploitation of benthic resources. This study compares two small-scale fishing communities in Chile, Guayacán and Huentelauquén, representing two typical contrasting settings, regarding geographical contexts and surroundings, origin, history, location, social embeddedness, main fisheries activities as well as the motivation and the process through which they acquired their AMERB. While in Guayacán the main fishing activity outside the AMERB is the giant squid and finfish fishery, in Huentelauquén the main and traditional activity has been diving for benthic resources. The objectives to acquire their AMERBs were different in both cases. Huentelauquén applied the AMERB for their traditional activity, the fishery of Concholepas concholepas (“loco”), thus in accordance with the official objective of the AMERB. Due to reduced catches of loco, fishers also added the collection of kelps, using their AMERB to control access to the entire coast surrounding their fishing community, beyond the limits of their AMERB. In Guayacán the AMERB, applied for the management of scallops and a species of red algae, began to be used for sea squirt aquaculture. Within the framework of sustainable fisheries implied by the AMERBs, there was in both cases a clear expectation to gain new sources of income. However with time both AMERBs are being used as a tool for territorial exclusion of other fishers beyond the limits of their respective AMERBs. In Huentelauquén fishers mention mostly negative aspects about the performance of their AMERB, given the poor economic results, being unsatisfied with the AMERB system in general, because they feel that the system disrupted their traditional migration along the coast. In Guayacán, fishers mentioned mostly positive aspects for their AMERB, as it was an opportunity to add new activities. Both examples show that rights-based management approaches are very attractive; they could promote new uses or developments, whose sustainability nevertheless needs to be analyzed further. The analyzed case studies show that, contrary to how the system was developed in Chile, a more bottom-up implementation of new management arrangements may make it easier to agree on common objectives, and/or leave more freedom for fishers to adjust and arrange their livelihood. Considering the importance the AMERBs have acquired for fishers, these kinds of systems need flexible regulations in order that fishers can adapt the system to local traditions, uses or needs and also to their learning and adapting capacities.

Cuotas de pesca y libre competencia: Consideraciones para la nueva ley de pesca

espanolHacia fines del 2012 debe entrar en vigencia una nueva ley de pesca en reemplazo de la actual Ley N° 19.713. Varios analistas han argumentado que la nueva ley se debe hacer cargo, entre otras cosas, de la baja competencia en el sector y de la falta de entrada de nuevos actores. El objetivo de este trabajo es documentar precisamente lo contrario a la luz de la teoria economica y de la evidencia proveniente de las pesquerias de la zona centro-sur. Este resultado acarrea dos implicancias para la nueva ley. La primera es que el uso de licitaciones como mecanismo de asignacion de cuotas debiera ser justificado como un objetivo de distribucion y no de eficiencia; y la segunda es que no hay problemas de eficiencia en asignar cuotas a perpetuidad en la medida que sean facilmente transferibles. EnglishA new fishing law is to enter into effect by the end of 2012 to replace the actual law 19,713. Several analysts have argued that the new law must correct, among other things, for the limited competition and lack of new entry in the sector. Using economic theory and evidence from fisheries in Chile’s central-south zone, the objective of this paper is to document precisely the contrary. The latter has two implications for the drafting of the new law. The first is that the use of auctions to allocate quotas should only be justified on distribution grounds and not on efficiency grounds; and second, that there are no efficiency losses from allocating quotas in perpetuity provided that they are easily transferable.

Morphological Characters of the Thickbody Skate Amblyraja frerichsi (Krefft 1968) (Rajiformes: Rajidae), with Notes on Its Biology

Detailed descriptions of morphological features, morphometrics, neurocranium anatomy, clasper structure and egg case descriptions are provided for the thickbody skate Amblyraja frerichsi; a rare, deep-water species from Chile, Argentina and Falkland Islands. The species diagnosis is complemented from new observations and aspects such as colour, size and distribution are described. Geographic and bathymetric distributional ranges are discussed as relevant features of this taxońs biology. Additionally, the conservation status is assessed including bycatch records from Chilean fisheries.

Crises in the South African abalone and Chilean loco fisheries: shared challenges and prospects

Crises in the South African abalone and Chilean loco fisheries: shared challenges and prospects

Epidemiological description of the sea lice (Caligus rogercresseyi) situation in southern Chile in August 2007

Salmon sea lice represent one of the most important threats to salmon farming throughout the world. Results of private monitoring efforts have shown an increase in the number of positive cages and cage-level abundance of sea lice in southern Chile since 2004. As a consequence, the Chilean Fisheries Service implemented an Official Surveillance Program in the main salmon production area of southern Chile to assess the situation of sea lice in fish farms. Results showed that the prevalence of sea lice in the fish farms was 53.4%, ranging from 3.5% in Puerto Aysén to 100% in the Seno de Reloncaví zone. The average sea lice abundance was 11.8 per fish (Geometrical mean (GM)=8.61, 95% CI (2.1–6.9)). The highest levels were found in Seno de Reloncaví (GM=24.99, 95% CI (15.9–39.2)), Hornopirén (GM=14.7, 95% CI (10.4–20.8)) and Chiloé norte (GM=9.75, 95% CI (1–1.9)), and the lowest loads were observed in Puerto Aysén (GM=1.35, 95%CI (1–1.9)) and Puerto Cisnes (GM=1.67, 95%CI (1.1–2.6)).Salmo salar and Oncorhynchus mykiss had the highest abundance levels (GM=6.93, 95% CI (5.7–8.5), and (GM=5.55, 95% CI (3.6–8.5), respectively). O. kisutch showed lower levels (GM=1.34, 95% CI (1–1.7)), apparently being more resistant to infestation.Sea lice in farmed salmon are widely distributed in different zones of southern Chile, and are becoming a serious threat to this industry. Prevalence and abundance levels were found to be generally high, decreasing in southern zones.