By-catch is a common threat to marine fauna such as mammals and reptiles. The by-catch assessment has been carried out along Cameroon coastline to map artisanal fishing effort and quantify impact of by-catch on sea turtles and marine mammals during three months from June to September 2011 and specific objectives include:
- To interview
fishermen in various fishing villages or ports in Cameroon regarding fishing
effort and catch.
- To estimate
fishing gears used in these fishing ports.
- To evaluate
impacts of by-catch on marine mammals and sea turtles.
In total 30 fishing ports were been planned but 23 were covered
with 932 files in total (245 long forms and 685 short forms). In total we have
4121boats (none motorized and motorized) and the common gears used are gillnet
and surround seine.
The results reveal that, yearly around 1228 turtles with back
(green, hawksbill and olive) were caught and 13
Leatherback; most not intentionally. But in Sandje port we noted
the intentional catch by local fishermen with around 400 individuals per year
for international commercial uses. These numbers are low according to certain
data on sea turtles surveys along Cameroon coast. About cetaceans and manatee
we had the following data 97 and 292 respectively for each group, but most
manatees are caught intentionally for bush meat trade. The survey was limited
in time and lack of baseline information on the issue but in future it could be
good to involve more permanent data collectors and scientific observers. These
results must be feedback to official services for good monitoring of marine
faunal and their ecosystem.
Author
(s) Details
Ayissi I
Institute of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (ISH) at Yabassi, University of
Douala, P.O. Box 7236, Douala, Cameroon and Cameroon Association of Promotion
of Marine Biology, Cameroon.
Jiofack TJEA
UNESCO, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Please see the book here:- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/crpbs/v11/4213
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