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Assessment and adaptive management of Orange Roughy off Southern Africa

[page 122, 123, 124 missing] Exploratory fishing off southern Africa for deepwater fish species (at depths > 500 m) started in earnest in 1994. The most sought· after of these species is the orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus), which has provided the basis for lucrative trawl fisheries in New Ze...

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Main Author: Branch, Trevor
Other Authors: D.S. Butterworth, J.G. Field
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Biological Sciences 2024
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access_status_str Open Access
author Branch, Trevor
author2 D.S. Butterworth, J.G. Field
author_browse Branch, Trevor
D.S. Butterworth, J.G. Field
author_facet D.S. Butterworth, J.G. Field
Branch, Trevor
author_sort Branch, Trevor
collection Thesis
description [page 122, 123, 124 missing] Exploratory fishing off southern Africa for deepwater fish species (at depths > 500 m) started in earnest in 1994. The most sought· after of these species is the orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus), which has provided the basis for lucrative trawl fisheries in New Zealand and Australia. Orange roughy form dense aggregations, especially during the spawning season, from which catch rates may reach 50 tonnes per minute of trawling with the net on the seabed. Orange roughy have many features of a K-selected species: extreme longevity(> 100 years), slow growth rate, low fecundity and poor productivity, although some of these estimates are controversial. All of these factors conspire to make orange roughy easily susceptible to over-fishing. Discoveries of fishable aggregations of orange roughy were made off Namibia in January J 995. In a short period of time, the annual catch became the second greatest in the world after New Zealand, and management advice for this fishery was urgently needed. In the absence (at that time) of scientific surveys that typify management in the more established fisheries off Australia and New Zealand, another approach was needed at the onset of the fishery: A swept-area methodology was developed which could be applied to the available commercial data. Swept-area biomass estimates were made and then corrected for the most factors thought to introduce bias, for example adjustment for the directed nature of the commercial data. Open discussion was held during two meetings in Namibia in January 1997 to decide on the values for these bias factors. Representatives of the exploratory fishing company and the Namibian fisheries ministry, and two international scientists were present at these meetings. Two final sets of specifications gave median biomass estimates of 306 000 t (CV = 34%) and 321 000 t (CV= 29%). An estimated 38-42% of this biomass was found inside four high-density aggregations, while the remainder was sparsely distributed around the Namibian coast
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license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2024
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/40283 Assessment and adaptive management of Orange Roughy off Southern Africa Branch, Trevor D.S. Butterworth, J.G. Field Zoology [page 122, 123, 124 missing] Exploratory fishing off southern Africa for deepwater fish species (at depths > 500 m) started in earnest in 1994. The most sought· after of these species is the orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus), which has provided the basis for lucrative trawl fisheries in New Zealand and Australia. Orange roughy form dense aggregations, especially during the spawning season, from which catch rates may reach 50 tonnes per minute of trawling with the net on the seabed. Orange roughy have many features of a K-selected species: extreme longevity(> 100 years), slow growth rate, low fecundity and poor productivity, although some of these estimates are controversial. All of these factors conspire to make orange roughy easily susceptible to over-fishing. Discoveries of fishable aggregations of orange roughy were made off Namibia in January J 995. In a short period of time, the annual catch became the second greatest in the world after New Zealand, and management advice for this fishery was urgently needed. In the absence (at that time) of scientific surveys that typify management in the more established fisheries off Australia and New Zealand, another approach was needed at the onset of the fishery: A swept-area methodology was developed which could be applied to the available commercial data. Swept-area biomass estimates were made and then corrected for the most factors thought to introduce bias, for example adjustment for the directed nature of the commercial data. Open discussion was held during two meetings in Namibia in January 1997 to decide on the values for these bias factors. Representatives of the exploratory fishing company and the Namibian fisheries ministry, and two international scientists were present at these meetings. Two final sets of specifications gave median biomass estimates of 306 000 t (CV = 34%) and 321 000 t (CV= 29%). An estimated 38-42% of this biomass was found inside four high-density aggregations, while the remainder was sparsely distributed around the Namibian coast 2024-07-04T13:43:25Z 2024-07-04T13:43:25Z 1999 2024-07-04T13:14:10Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40283 eng application/pdf Department of Biological Sciences Faculty of Science
spellingShingle Zoology
Branch, Trevor
Assessment and adaptive management of Orange Roughy off Southern Africa
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Assessment and adaptive management of Orange Roughy off Southern Africa
title_full Assessment and adaptive management of Orange Roughy off Southern Africa
title_fullStr Assessment and adaptive management of Orange Roughy off Southern Africa
title_full_unstemmed Assessment and adaptive management of Orange Roughy off Southern Africa
title_short Assessment and adaptive management of Orange Roughy off Southern Africa
title_sort assessment and adaptive management of orange roughy off southern africa
topic Zoology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40283
work_keys_str_mv AT branchtrevor assessmentandadaptivemanagementoforangeroughyoffsouthernafrica