Assessment of fisheries resources in Babuyan Channel / Angel B. Encarnacion and three others

Includes bibliographical references

Babuyan Channel is one of the major fishing grounds in the country providing livelihood, income, and employment particularly to fisherfolk living in the coastal areas of the Northern Philippines thus, there is a need to assess the status of the area to determine strategies and policies to sustain its production and livelihood of the fisherfolk. The study determined the types of fishing boat and gear operating in the area, the annual fish catch estimates to include commercial and municipal production, the catch per unit effort of various gears,the seasonality of dominant species, the relative abundance and population parameters of some commercially important species to include Decapterus macrosoma, Coryphaena hippurus, and Trichiurus lepturus using data collected from 2009 to 2013, and the methods used by the National Stock Assessment Program. Most of the fishing boats and gears operating in the Babuyan Channel are under the municipal fisheries sector. However, production is higher in the commercial sector suggesting higher fishing effort and catch rate was exerted by commercial fishing boats and gears in the fishing ground. The trend of annual fish production in the fishing ground is fluctuating as reflected by the changing production in both municipal and commercial sector during the study period. The fluctuating production may be due to environmental, social, and economic factors such as increasing operation cost due to increasing fuel price, conflict, and livelihood shifting on elvers gathering in the earlier part of 2011-2012. The noted increase in 2013 was mainly due to the strict implementation of FAO 242, banning elvers gathering, and policies formulated at the local level. Drift Filter Net dominated the commercial and municipal fisheries, respectively. There were 256 species belonging to 69 families caught in the fishing ground indicating a high diversity in the area. N. tennuipes topped the production in Babuyan Channel caught by the Drift Filter Net and Pair Trawl in the mouth of Cagayan River in Aparri, Cagayan. As observed, the fishing mortality values were higher than the natural mortality, an indication that high fishing pressure is being experienced on the fishing ground.

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