Assessment of stock status of the exploited fishery resources in northern Bay of Bengal using landed catch data

Abstract

The temporal evolution of fish stocks in the waters of northern Bay of Bengal from 1985 - 2013 was ascertained from commercial marine fish landings. Stocks of major exploited fishery resources were classified based on the trend in landing as “developing”, “fully exploited”, “overexploited”, “collapsed” and “rebuilding”. During the early years, most stocks were in “developing” state, but with mechanisation and intense exploitation, stocks gradually became “fully exploited” and then “overexploited”. Few stocks “collapsed”, after which “rebuilding” occurred but pigface breams remained in a “collapsed” state for many years. No stocks were found in “developing” state and 56.1% of the stocks were found “fully exploited” while 36.8% were “overexploited”. Not much difference was observed in the status of pelagic and demersal stocks. The time span a stock remained in a specific category has decreased over the years indicating that stocks are moving faster across categories in recent years. Stock status determined in the present study is consistent with those reported by conventional stock assessment techniques, confirming that stock status plots (SSP) are alternative way of assessing fish stocks when data are limited.