Understanding spearfishing in a coral reef fishery: Fishers’ opportunities, constraints, and decision-making

Abstract

Social and ecological systems come together during the act of fishing. However, we often lack a deep understanding of the fishing process, despite its importance for understanding and managing fisheries. A quantitative, mechanistic understanding of the opportunities fishers encounter, the constraints they face, and how they make decisions within the context of opportunities and constraints will enhance the design of fisheries management strategies to meet linked ecological and social objectives and will improve scientific capacity to predict impacts of different strategies. We examined the case of spearfishing in a Caribbean coral reef fishery. We mounted cameras on fishers’ spearguns to observe the fish they encountered, what limited their ability to catch fish, and how they made decisions about which fish to target. We observed spearfishers who dove with and without the assistance of compressed air, and compared the fishing process of each method using content analysis of videos and decision models of fishers’ targeting selections. Compressor divers encountered more fish, took less time to catch each fish, and had a higher rate of successful pursuits. We also analyzed differences among taxa in this multispecies fishery, because some taxa are known to be ecologically or economically more valuable than others. Parrotfish are ecologically indispensable for healthy coral reefs, and they were encountered and captured more frequently than any other taxon. Fishers made decisions about which fish to target based on a fish’s market value, proximity to the fisher, and taxon. The information uncovered on fishers’ opportunities, constraints, and decision making has implications for managing this fishery and others. Moreover, it demonstrates the value of pursuing an improved understanding of the fishing process from the perspective of the fishers.

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

“…it is a way to monitor and assess the activity, to educate about some yet unacquired responsible fishing habits, and to modify contests minimum weight for some species with a big divergence between MLL and MSaL. deconstructing the process of fishing from the fishers' perspective can help fisheries researchers understand social-ecological interactions and identify leverage points for management (Pavlowich and Kapuscinski 2017). in Lloret et al (2016), it is concluded that it is necessary to integrate different assessment approaches (biological, social and economic), with active participation from stakeholders, governments and relevant research institutions, to better evaluate and manage coastal fisheries.…”

Leveraging sex change in parrotfish to manage fished populations

“…We modeled the population dynamics of a single parrotfish species with high ecological and fishery value in the Caribbean: stoplight parrotfish, Sparisoma viride. In addition to its importance, this fish is well studied (Cardwell and Liley, 1991;Koltes, 1993;J Bruggemann et al, 1994;van Rooij et al, 1995;1996b;van Rooij and Videler, 1997;Choat et al, 2003;Paddack et al, 2009) which made it possible to model effectively. Our model extends the model of stoplight parrotfish created by Bozec et al (2016) by incorporating life phase and sex change explicitly.…”

Chronic spearfishing may indirectly affect reef health through reductions in parrotfish bite rates

“…Since the Caribbean region‐wide mass mortality of the urchin Diadema antillarum in 1983 (Lessios et al, ), parrotfish grazing alone may be insufficient to reduce macroalgal cover in areas of high fishery exploitation (Burkepile & Hay, ). Because of the increase in the harvesting of parrotfishes (Pavlowich & Kapuscinski, ), controls on the extraction of major grazers have been implemented in some countries in the region (Belize (Montero, ), Bonaire (Jackson et al, 2014) and the Turks and Caicos Islands (Mumby, ), but it has been recommended that an outright ban on parrotfish extraction be implemented throughout the Caribbean (Jackson et al, ).…”

“…Because of the increase in the harvesting of parrotfishes (Pavlowich & Kapuscinski, 2017), controls on the extraction of major grazers have been implemented in some countries in the region (Belize (Montero, 2009), Bonaire (Jackson et al, 2014) and the Turks and Caicos Islands (Mumby, 2016), but it has been recommended that an outright ban on parrotfish extraction be implemented throughout the Caribbean (Jackson et al, 2014).…”