© 2004 by ICES/CIEM International Council for the Exploration of the Sea/Conseil International pour l'Exploration de la Mer
Interactions between fish and fisher's spatial distribution and behaviour: an empirical study of the anchovy (Engraulis ringens) fishery of Peru
a Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Centre de Recherche Halieutique Méditerranéenne et Tropicale, Avenue Jean Monnet BP 171, 34203 Sète Cedex, France
b Instituto del Mar del Peru (IMARPE) Esquina Gamarra y Gral. Valles S/N; Chucuito, Callao, Lima, Peru
*Correspondence to S. Bertrand: tel: +33(0)499573200; fax: +33(0)499573295. e-mail: sophie.bertrand{at}ird.fr.
Fishing data provide, with wide spatio-temporal coverage, inexpensive information about exploited species, but a precondition for their interpretation is a good comprehension of fish and fisher spatial dynamics and interactions. In Peru, anchovy (Engraulis ringens) is exploited by an industrial fleet of about 800 purse-seiners operating all along the coast. Using simultaneous acoustic survey and commercial fishing data for the 1998–2001 time period, we present a preliminary, exploratory, and empirical approach to identify the nature of potential interactions between Peruvian anchovy and fisher behaviour. We show that (i) Peruvian anchovy exhibited a composite spatial strategy for the study period, i.e. a change in biomass was associated with both change in geographical extension and density; (ii) fishing behaviour significantly varied within and among vessels in terms of travel duration, searching duration, and number of fishing sets; and (iii) interactions between fish and fisher behaviours differed according to the spatial scale. At a fish stock scale (the scale of fishing ground selection for fishers), fishing was more efficient with low biomass and high spatial concentration (low stock range and high biomass); at a local fish spatial scale (the scale of searching for a school inside the fishing ground), fishing performance was favoured by high mean local abundances and low spatial concentration (the way fish is distributed inside its stock range); finally, at the school scale (the scale of the fishing set), both high abundance and high spatial concentration were favourable to fishing success.
Keywords: fish spatial distribution, fisher behaviour, Peruvian anchovy, spatial concentration, spatial scale
Received 3 July 2003; accepted 22 June 2004.
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  S. Bertrand, J. M. Burgos, F. Gerlotto, and J. Atiquipa Levy trajectories of Peruvian purse-seiners as an indicator of the spatial distribution of anchovy (Engraulis ringens) ICES J. Mar. Sci., January 1, 2005; 62(3): 477 - 482. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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