National report of Saint Kitts

Samuel Heyliger
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries,
Co-operative, Lands and Housing.
P.O. Box 39
Basseterre
Saint Kitts
Tel: 869 465 8045
Fax: 869 466 7254
email: [email protected]

THE LARGE PELAGIC FISH FISHERIES

Introduction

Landings of all fish and fishery products by local fishing vessels for 2000 were estimated to be just over 500,000 pounds of which large pelagic (dolphin, tuna and mackerel) contributed just over 64,000 lbs.

Trolling sometimes referred to as towing, is the method by which these fish species are caught. As a matter of fact this has been the fastest growing fishing technique over the past five years. The growth is reflected in the impact that it has on the availability of fresh fish on the local market. The nature of this activity determines that fishers concentrate their efforts on the catching of large pelagic for six months i.e. January - June. Additionally, some catch is reported for the months of October through December. The targeted species include the dolphinfish, tunas and mackerels. Incidental catches of billfish (swordfish and marlin) are also recorded. Fishers involved in this fishery are normally the younger of the trap fishers (25 - 45 years of age)) who may be daring enough to venture up 35 miles from their home ports in pursuit of these species.

There are five major landing sites around St. Kitts and except for Dieppe Bay on the Northern end of the island all the other sites are on the Leeward side of the island. In Basseterre east no vessel targets these species apart from the two registered sport-fishing vessels. Basseterre West (Public market) has 1 vessel, Old Road - 5, Sandy Point - 3 and Dieppe Bay - 10. However, fishers operating out of Old Road account for the greater percentage of these fish landed. The number of fishers involve in this fishery is just about fifty. Most vessels have a crew of two including the captain who is normally the owner. However, a few of the vessels have a crew of three.

Trolling lines are normally of 80- 100lb test with a single hook. Mustard #4- #8 are used regularly. Artificial lures are sometimes used especially for the tuna and mackerel species. However, in the case of dolphinfish, fishers prefer to use ballyhoo or flyingfish. Sometimes live bait is used with hand lines to catch tunas.

Production data

Over the years through assistance from various organizations some efforts were made in collecting certain vital pieces of data including species, effort, gear, weight and length. However, collectors experienced a tremendous amount of resistance from fishers when collecting data on large pelagic species; hence most of the required information were not obtained. For example the data obtained was generally in a form such as “48 tuna ”, with no reference to species and weight per species. Other fisheries data is collected on a systematic census basis for all major landing sites. All the fish landed at a site for a particular day is recorded. No sampling of catch is carried out. Table 1 shows the estimates of the major species landed for relative comparison.

Table1: Total fish landed in Saint Kitts for the period 1995 to 2000

Social and economical issues

One of the major issues affecting the development of this fishery is that of marketing. Most of the fish are sold whole thus, in times of abundance, many of the fishers encounter difficulty in obtaining sales for their catch. It has been observed that fishers are not the best at marketing their catch. The price remains the same whether there is a glut or not. It is normal to find the price of imported fish cheaper or within the same price range as locally caught fish.

STATUS OF DEVELOPMENT OF FISH AGGREGATING DEVICES

The introduction of moored Fish Aggregating Devices (FAD) in the early 1980's has finally begun to bear fruits as a number of fishers are now deploying FAD. However, this has begun to manifest a number of challenges of its own. A number of reported conflicts have already been dealt with at the Fisheries Management Unit. Efforts are under way to upgrade regulations governing the use and deployment of FAD.

It is evident that a few fishers have invested substantial amount of money into FAD and they are reaping very healthy returns. However, because this fishery is so small with regards to fishers, any change in the activity of the fishers is quickly detected. Thus the loss of a FAD or the deployment of more FAD is almost immediately detected in the catch.

The effects of the destruction of FAD by the tropical weather systems are further compounded by the inability of fishers to replace lost FAD. This could be seen in the estimated landings where even though the overall estimate was higher than in 1999 the species caught in greatest numbers around FAD (tunas/mackerel) was greatly reduced.

The estimated landings of this fishery for 2000 were estimated to be just over 64,000 lbs. This was an increase over 1999. The value of those estimated landings (for 2000) is E.C.$439,000. The future of this fishery may be the most promising sub-sector of our fisheries. Care must therefore be taken in developing this “young” fishery.