Cyclades plateau

Fishery characterisation; Fish and shellfish catch statistics

Trawl discard rates exhibited considerable variations during the five years period of the study, reflecting differences in local market demand and species compositions. The discard rate for the target species was almost negligible (more than 90% of the specimens collected were marketed) and the discarded specimens belonged to the smallest size classes recorded in the total catch. On the other hand, regarding the rest (non-target) species only about 10 % was always marketed, about 30% of the species was commercialised, depending on the fluctuation of the market price, while over 60 % was always totally discarded. The discarded yield of each species or each category (i.e. fish, crustaceans, cephalopods) appeared to be correlated with the correspondent marketable yield. The size at which the 50% of the specimens of a certain species were discarded (L50) seemed to be a valuable tool to estimate the discarded fraction of each species from the landings (marketable fraction), as well as to understand the causes of discarding.

Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters, Dept. of Marine Biological Resources
Agios Kosmas
Hellinikon
Attiki
16604
Greece