Assessment of Small Pelagic Species Landed in ARMM, Sulu Sea

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide a general information of fisheries in the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi, of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) covering the period from CY 2008 to 2012 which can be a basis for the formulation of fisheries management geared towards protection, preservation, utilization, and development of ARMM waters as embodied in Section 2 of the Implementing Rules of the ARMM Muslim Mindanao Autonomy Act (MMAA) No. 86. The number of boats and gears were obtained from the monitored data of NSAP. Catch and CPUE were analyzed using MS Excel. Seasonality of species was processed by extracting information on landed catch from the NSAP data and the high and low catch by month were then analyzed.Tunas and oceanic pelagic are abundant finfishes in the Sulu Sea. The catch composition was dominated by neritic and oceanic tunas with Euthynus affinis representing 35.20% of the total catch, followed by Katsuwonus pelamis with 29.22%, and Auxis thazard with 5.44%. Five small pelagic species such as Selar crumenophthalmus, Sardinella lemuru, Rastrelliger kanagurta, Auxis thazard, and Decapterus macrosoma were analyzed for seasonality and the results showed that these species commonly peaked in terms of catch during the 1st and 2nd quarters of every year from CY 2008 to CY 2012. Population parameter values (K and L∞) of the selected species were found to be within the values given in FishBase. The length frequency distribution of selected small pelagic species shows a situation of growth overfishing since they were caught at sizes before their length at first maturity (Lm). Estimates of fishing mortality and exploitation rates for most of the species analyzed were found to have exceeded the Eopt level