Gamefishing in the Pacific and Data Collection

Funding provided by Aus AID in 1998 has allowed dedicated work on billfish to be undertaken for the first time.

Presently there is very little available gamefish data. What is available is very fragmented, incomplete and inaccessible. As such there is a pressing need to co-ordinate and collate existing data and to ensure the collection of future data. Several forms have been produced for helping in the collection of fishing data. They concern tournament data, troll data, tagging instruction and a key to marlin species identification.

[SCTB Working Paper on Present knowledge –current and future research (2000)...]

Observers’ work

Fishery observer information is a valuable tool. It is the only truly independent source of catch and bycatch statistics at the species level, while also providing vessel and fishing effort information. For this reason the Statistics and Monitoring Section of the Oceanic Fisheries Programme provides technical support and direction to the national observer programmes of SPC member countries. Currently there are active observer programmes in the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. These countries are soon to be joined by French Polynesia and New Caledonia who have recently secured PROC FISH (EU) funds.

The OFP has supported observer programmes since the early 1990’s by providing scientific input into observer training courses run by the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA). Since that time OFP has worked closely with FFA in the development and support of observer programmes throughout the region. The type of data collected by the fishery observers is directed by the Data Collection Committee (DCC), which is made up of staff from OFP, FFA and other invited guests. A meeting takes place every second year. The DCC reviews the information collected on all South Pacific Regional Standard forms including logsheets, unloading forms, observer and port sampling forms, and supports their use in all SPC and FFA member countries. The latest report, which includes the forms, is available here - [DCC report and regional forms...]

Global Environment Facility (GEF) funds presently employs one staff member of the OFP, the Fishery Monitoring Supervisor, to provide support to the observer and port sampling programmes, but it is hoped an additional two positions will be funded through the PROC FISH programme in the very near future. In addition to this, GEF has provided funds for two Observer Co-ordinators (Assistants) at the national level for Papua New Guinea and Kiribati. "Fork Length", an occasional observer and port sampler newsletter, is produced in an effort to integrate the observer programmes from around the region and to disseminate additional information to the observers.  [Fork length...] Other resource materials are currently in production and will soon be available on this website.

The Western and Central Pacific Fishery Convention allows for the development of a regional observer programme at some point in the future. Any regional observer programme would require a large contingent of trained observers and work is already underway to increase the number of observers in the region. This work, along with the production of sound resource material will support the work of the national observer programmes and allow them to work in an independent manner, while also preparing member countries for the proposed regional observer programme.

Length and species composition data for stock assessment are also collected through port sampling programmes. There are currently 26 harbours throughout the region where port sampling data are collected, supported by either direct funding or technical advise from OFP.

Contact: observer@spc.int or portsampler@spc.int

By-catch and Discard in Western Tuna Fisheries

The western and central Pacific Ocean currently supports the largest industrial tuna fishery in the world, with an estimated catch in 1992 of 1,089,607 mt in the SPC statistical area alone (Lawson 1993). Skipjack is the most important of the four major tuna species in the fishery, accounting for 67 per cent of the catch by weight in 1992, followed by yellowfin (24.5%), bigeye (5%) and albacore (3%). Purse seine gear was responsible for 80 per cent of the total catch, with pole-and-line gear accounting for 7 per cent, longline gear 12 per cent and troll gear 1 per cent.

[By-catch publications...]

Billfish and bycatch growth studies

While we remain largely ignorant about the impacts of tuna fisheries on by-catch species and pelagic ecosystems, it is obvious that these impacts have increased very significantly over the last 50 years as tuna fisheries worldwide have expanded their catches and effort by orders of magnitude. However, we have little or no information on the relative abundances or biomasses of many components of the pelagic ecosystem.

Observer programs, conducted by regional and national organizations, have developed over the last two to three decades. In general, these observer programs were created to monitor activities such as compliance with licensing agreements and restrictions on incidental catches. In addition to providing information required for meeting those objectives, observer programs provide essentially the only reliable, detailed information on catches discarded at sea. Based on such observer programs in the WCPO the main by-catch species of tuna fisheries are billfish, sharks, Escolar, Wahoo, Mahi-mahi, Rainbow runner, and Opah.

[Growth Studies...]