Illegal and unreported fishing on abalone—Quantifying the extent using a fully integrated assessment model

Fifty Years of Sustained Production from the Australian Abalone Fisheries

“…Following a long period of stable catches in South Africa (Tarr, 1992), a rapid rise in organized, illegal fishing led to rampant poaching of the resource and a subsequent controversial closure of the fishery in 2008 (Raemaekers et al, 2011). Estimates of the illegal take were 10 times the TACC (Plagányi et al, 2011a) and continue almost unabated, demonstrating that poaching can have severe social and environmental impacts (Blank and Gavin, 2009;Raemaekers and Britz, 2009). There have also been substantial declines among the relatively smaller abalone fisheries, notably in the United States (California [Karpov et al, 2000], Alaska and Washington [Rogers-Bennett et al, 2011]), Canada (Jamieson, 2001), Oman , and Guernsey (Huchette and Clavier, 2004).…”

“…Penalties for infringements are severe, with prison terms common for repeat offenses; confiscation of assets, including homes, vehicles, and boats; and restraining orders that curtail offenders from diving and boating activities and from visiting coastal areas. Although illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) abalone harvests occur in all states and their magnitude is difficult to estimate (Gorfine et al, 2002a;Plagányi et al, 2011a), the highest levels of IUU abalone harvests are probably occurring adjacent to greater human population pressure in NSW and Victoria. There is no evidence of the extreme, uncontrolled, rampant illegal harvests that are well documented in South Africa and that have resulted in closure of the commercial abalone fishery in that country (Hauck, 2009;Raemaekers and Britz, 2009).…”

Effects of underestimating catch and effort on surplus production models

“…IUU fishing increased during the late 1990 s and 2000 s for Atlantic bluefin tuna causing catch and effort to be under-reported apparently in response to management actions and mismanagement (Fromentin et al, 2014). An extreme case of unreported catch is the South African abalone (Haliotis midae) fishery; this species is in high demand which leads to poaching and illegal export (Hauck and Sweijd, 1999) of up to 10 times the total allowable catch in one year (Plagányi et al, 2011). Bycatch mortality can also lead to underestimation of catch and effort when the species of interest is caught incidentally in a different fishery, and neither the catch nor effort from the incidental fishery is considered in the assessment.…”

Impacto de la captura ilegal en pesquerias artesanales bentonicas bajo el regimen de comanejo: el caso de Isla Mocha, Chile

“…(abalones) además del 'loco' (denominado comercialmente en el mercado exterior como 'abalón chileno' o "Chilean abalone"), constituyen blanco atractivo para las capturas ilegales y no declaradas, por su gran demanda mundial, ser relativamente sedentarios y por el bajo costo de extracción (Plagányi et al, 2011). A pesar del declive global de las pesquerías de dichos gastrópodos en los últimos 30 años, demandadas principalmente por mercados del sudeste asiático (FAO, 2008), se estima que su comercio en el mercado negro global se ha incrementado (Gordon & Cook, 2004).…”

“…Los peores impactos de esta última situación pueden observarse en los escenarios considerados como "críticos" por los administradores de la pesquería formal. Situaciones críticas de captura ilegal descontrolada, y tan alta como 10 veces el nivel de extracción formal, ya han sido verificadas en la pesquería del 'abalón' sudafricano, la que en consecuencia, debió cerrarse oficialmente en el año 2008 (Plagányi et al, 2011).…”