Pelagic fisheries and resources in Thai waters

Abstract

The study on fisheries status, the resources of important economical pelagic species in the Thai Waters and their management, are the consequence of the regional workshop on shared stocks in the South China Sea Area. The objectives of this paper are to analyses and review technical reports pertaining to pelagic fisheries and resources both in the Gulf of Thailand and Andaman Sea. In the Gulf of Thailand, the average catches during the last ten years (1984-1994) of Indo-Pacific mackerel; Indian mackerel; round scads; small tunas; anchovies; sardines; king mackerel; hardtail scad; bigeye scad and total pelagic are 83,022; 30,223; 28,258; 114,630; 93,570; 101,346; 9,154; 15,258; 19,988 and 543,549 metric tons, respectively. The Maximum Sustainable Yields of Indo-Pacific mackerel; Indian mackerel; round scads; small tunas; anchovies; sardines; king mackerel; hardtail scad and bigeye scad estimated using Schaefer s model are 94,791; 34,282; 29,280; 86,000; 106,118; 110,457; 14,599; 18,433 and 18,500 metric tons, respectively. In the Andaman Sea, the average catches of Indo-Pacific mackerel; round scads; small tunas; sardines and total pelagic are 29,021; 12,470; 16,507; 29,651 and 108,346 metric tons, respectively and the Maximum Sustainable Yields of Indo-pacific mackerel; small tunas; sardines and total pelagic are 24,453; 8,383; 36,228 and 144,848 metric tons, respectively. The further objective is also to establish the pelagic fisheries resources and management which the resources are shared with neighbouring countries. It express that many stocks of important economical pelagic species in Thai's Waters have been fully exploited and there is a sign of stock depletion of the round scad resources in the Gulf of Thailand. Therefore, the fishermen have change their fisheries to fish the fishery industrial target species. Some pelagic stocks, as a result, have been neglected for a while and could be rehabilitated within a short time.