Catch-per-unit effort of exploited finfishes and crustaceans in Ilog River Estuary, Negros Occidental, Philippines

SUAKCREM, Silliman University, Dumaguete, Negros Oriental, Philippines
Biology, Palawan State University, Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2957v1
Subject Areas
Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science
Keywords
estuary, fisheries, catch-per-unit-effort, fish, crustaceans
Copyright
© 2017 Bucol et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Bucol AA, Galon FD, Alcala AC. 2017. Catch-per-unit effort of exploited finfishes and crustaceans in Ilog River Estuary, Negros Occidental, Philippines. PeerJ Preprints 5:e2957v1

Abstract

This paper reports the catch-per-unit effort (CPUE) of the finfish and crustacean fishery in Ilog River Estuary in Negros Occidental. We monitored catch data of fishing gears, mainly trawl (small type), beach seine and mud crab pot from April, May, September, October, December 2013 and January 2014.We estimated at least 37.82 metric tonnes of annual fishery yield (fishes and crustaceans combined) for the entire Malabong estuarine area. Two gears (liftnet and fish corrals) were used by the local fishers since the 1980s. Based on the baseline annual yield of 21 tonnes, the annual yield for these gears (at present ~7.5 tonnes) combined has declined by 13.5 tonnes (~65%) since the early 1980s (~30 years). This decline might be due to habitat degradation (including conversion of original mangrove forests into fish ponds and nipa plantations), over-exploitation, and organic pollution (resulting to recurring fish kill events) in the area.

Author Comment

This paper describes the status of fin fish and crustacean fisheries in a Philippine estuary. We compare present CPUE with an unpublished data gathered in the 1980s.

Supplemental Information

fish and crustacean CPUE by month

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2957v1/supp-1