Are artificial reefs fish-aggregating devices?
1998
Waltemath, N. (Provincial Planning and Development Office, Capitol Area, 6299 Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental (Philippines). Resource Management Div.)
The installation of artificial reefs in the Philippines has been prompted since 1977. Although the Philippine marine fisheries have been characterized as overfished and massive reduction of fishing effort had been recommended (Pauly 1989), the main objective of the different artificial reef programs was to enhance catch rates of small-scale fishermen. The crucial question is "Do artificial reefs increase biomass and fish harvests in a sustainable way, or do they simply aggregate adult fishes, generate increased fishing mortality and contribute to the over-exploitation of certain fish species?" A monitoring program initiated in April 1993 by the Resource Management Division in cooperation with the German Development Service aimed to answer this question. Around 300 fishermen were involved in the fish catch monitoring program. Preliminary results of the artificial reef monitoring program will be presented. The results of a visual census on the abundance of certain fish species in selected artificial reefs will be compared with annual catch rates from the same site to assess if harvest exceed the present fish populations. The results of fish counts in newly developed artificial reefs showed that juvenile as well as adult fishes can be found in artificial reefs only few weeks after installation, indicating the strong aggregating capacity of artificial reefs
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