Exploratory Fishing Activities of the UNDP/FAO Caribbean Fishery Development Project, 1965-1971

Résumé du livre

The UNDP (United Nations Development Program) FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) Caribbean Fishery Development Project became operational in 1965. The Exploratory Fishing Section formed the largest component of the project it was primarily staffed by FAO personnel, but was planned and directed by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service. Activities from 1965 to 1971 are summarized in this publication. Beginning in 1966, nearly 2,500 sea days were spent by three vessels in resource experimentation and exploration. Operations extended from the Central American coastal shelf to the islands and banks off the Greater and Lesser Antilles and to the coastal shelves of eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana. Experiments were conducted in attracting and catching pelagic fish by the use of longlines, live baitlpole-and-line, trolling, gill nets, lift nets, and handlines, and in catching demersal fish through the use of handlines, power reels, traps, longlines, trawls, and gill nets. Exploratory efforts produced about 1 million pounds (453,597 kg) of usable food fish. Of this total, about 35 percent consisted of trawl-caught demersal fish, 38 percent of snapper, jacks, and fish of related species, 17 percent of sharks, and the remaining 10 percent mostly of pelagic fish. Three major resources were delineated. The demersal trawl fishes are limited to the continental shelf off northeastern South America. The demersal snapper and related species exist throughout the project region, but are most concentrated on the edge of the HonduranlNicaraguan continental shelf off Central America, on the banks of the northern Leeward Islands, and on the edge of the GuyananlFrench Guianan continental shelf. A lesser resource, of sharks, occurs on the continental shelf of northeastern South America, and is concentrated off Surinam. A seasonal increase in availability of skipjack tuna to live baitlpole-and-line fishing was apparent during March through May in the Windward Islands. Pelagic species showed a seasonal increase in availability to trolling during the same period in the northern Leeward islands and during September and October off Jamaica. Spiny lobsters were taken in good quantity in April on Pedro Bank south of Jamaica, but were not available on the other grounds in the project region. A small resource of tilefish was found in deep water off the edge of the Surinam continental shelf.