Spearfishing in The Canary Islands: is the devil as black as it seems to be?

Abstract

Spearfishing is traditionally recognized as catching spawners of species with a top trophic position that are slow-growing and highly vulnerable. This study is the first empirical research in The Canary islands quantifying this activity's pressure and impact with real catch information. The mean fishing effort by fisher is 6 days per annum at sea, with a mean yield of 390 g/fisher*hour. These figures outcome an estimate of 39 700 total days per annum at sea and a total annual catch (41.7 t) being 0.28% of professional sector landings. average trophic level and intrinsic Vulnerability index in the catch are 3.24 and 45.72 respectively. Sparisoma cretense, a fast growing fish, with a mid trophic level and not such a vulnerable species, is at the top of spearfishing catches. The sector is described socioeconomically by questionnaires (n=179). results represent a baseline and foundation for the sector management. No evidence has been found to justify the current spatially restricted access of spearfishing to resources.

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“…Moreover, it must be considered that the average depth of spearfishing in free diving is reported to be around 18-25 m (FIPSAS, 2002). Although in recent decades deep spearfishing at depth of 40-45 m has become more common, only a minority of spearfishers can operate at such extreme depth, for example only 10% of spearfishers operate at more than 25 m in the canary islands (Martín-Sosa, 2019). In summary, our results suggest that the ontogenetic deepening of the dusky grouper could not solely determine by spearfishing harvesting and the mechanisms explained above could contribute in driving it.…”