engleski

Composition of the catches of purse seine “srdelara” in Croatian waters

Purse seine net is surrounding fishing gear with a mesh size of min 14 mm that captures fish shoals of small pelagic fish species attracted by light. The main target fish species are anchovy, Engraulis encraicolus, sardine, Sardina pilchardus, and other small pelagic fish species of less economic importance- garfish Belone belone gracilis, sprat Sprattus sprattus, chub mackerel Scomber colias, Atlantic mackerel Scomber scombrus, round sardinella Sardinella aurita, Atlantic horse mackerel Trachurus trachurus and Mediterranean horse mackerel Trachurus mediterraneus. Purse seiners (168 active vessels in last years) are operating in the entire Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea, with exception of the channel area for larger fishing vessels, almost all year round (exception of fishing ban in December-January and May) and are part of the monitoring program EU-DCF from 2013. Average official catches of Croatian purse seiners in the period from 2016 to 2021, were around 61, 140 tonnes. Percentage in total catches varied from 77.7 to 86.8% for sardine, from 12.3 to 22.2% for anchovy, and from 2.1 to 3.8% for bycatch and discard species. During monthly sampling on board and on the landing place in the most active fishing zones for purse seiners, in six subsequent years, analyses of the catches were recorded and analyzed. In general, the main species caught besides sardine (80.1%) and anchovy (17.2%) were Scomber- S. colias (1.4%), S.scombrus (0.001%), and Trachurus -T. mediterraneus (0.8%), T.trachurus (0.4%). Altogether 65 different species (besides target ones) were detected in on-board and landing sampling of this fishing gear in the selected time period. This bycatch and discard species composed 0.08% of the total catch. In total landed weight of sampled bycatch and discard, Boops boops made 84.6%, Mola mola 4.5%, while the rest of the species' individual percentage in weight were below 2%. Most of the species occurred in catches in all investigated years. Length distribution of the sampled target species varied from 7.5 cm to 18.0 cm for sardine, 9.5 to 17 cm for anchovy, while chub mackerel varied from 6.5 to 26.5 cm and Atlantic mackerel from 7.5 to 24 cm in total length. Bycatch species more significantly varied in length- between 2.0 - 3.5 cm (Allotheutis media) and 30.0-38.0 cm (Belone belone gracilis).

purse seine ; Croatia ; catch composition

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