A rapid new method for assessing sustainability of ornamental fish by-catch from coral reefs

Abstract

The ornamental fish trade has considerable potential for damaging reef environments. Nearly 120 species are currently harvested in the Brazilian trade and little attention has been paid to the effects of the accidental catch of these species. Records of ornamental fish by-catch and the susceptibility and resilience of species from the major Brazilian families in the aquarium trade were examined to test a method and determine the sustainability of these catches. Each species was assessed based on two groups of criteria: (1) relative vulnerability to capture; and (2) population resilience to mortality due to fishing efforts. Each species was also ranked (1-3) for criteria regarding ecology, biology, catchability, numbers of individuals exported by aquarium companies and mortality index. These criteria were then weighted and each species rank in the two groups of criteria was plotted. Nineteen species from 10 families were recorded. The species least likely to have sustainable catch rates included Holacanthus tricolor, H. ciliaris, Chaetodon striatus and Pomacanthus paru. This approach is a useful alternative for management efforts and the assessment of catch sustainability in newly developed multi-species fisheries with limited available data, which occur in areas of high species richness such as reefs.

Biodiversity, ecology, fisheries, and use and trade of Tetraodontiformes fishes reveal their socio‐ecological significance along the tropical Brazilian continental shelf

“…Although aquarism can help educate the public and increase awareness of the need to conserve marine ecosystems, this practice is mainly based on wild harvest animals and has been shown to pose a very high potential threat (Lecchini et al, ). The main issues are possible over‐exploitation of target species, damaging methods of collection and high post‐harvest mortalities (Feitosa, Ferreira, & Araújo, ; Gasparini et al, ). The Brazilian law on ornamental trade (IBAMA 203/2008; IBAMA 202/2008) regulates the collecting methods, harvesting licence, transportation, species and quantity that may be caught.…”

The Importance of Ceará State to the Brazilian Marine Ornamental Fish Exports

“…Furthermore, collection for ornamental purposes are not the only threat towards marine fish. Pomacanthids (as well as some acanthurids and chaetodontids) are by-catch in trap and gillnet lobster fisheries (Ivo et al, 1996), shrimp trawling (Braga et al, 2001) and fish traps (Feitosa et al, 2008) in Brazil and, so, it is difficult to address how deep ornamental fish are being negatively impacted by the marine aquarium industry, specially in face of the paucity of scientific information regarding their population biology.…”

Management implications of juvenile reef fish habitat preferences and coral susceptibility to stressors

“…for directly visualising the relative influence of economic and ecological factors for resource species at risk to habitat loss. Feitosa et al (2008) provide an analogous model for prioritising species using multiple criteria when managing ornamental fish extraction on Brazilian reefs.…”