Age, Growth and Mortality of Garfish, Belone euxini Günther, 1866 in the Central Black Sea, Turkey
Age, Growth and Mortality of Garfish, Belone euxini Günther, 1866 in the Central Black Sea, Turkey
Tevfik Ceyhan1,*, Osman Samsun2 and Okan Akyol1
ABSTRACT
A total of 986 garfish were collected from commercial fisheries, using encircling nets between October 2016 and December 2017 in Sinop, Central Black Sea. The length and weight distribution of all garfish samples ranged from 28.8 to 51.6 cm TL and from 26.6 to 177.2 g, respectively. Female: male ratio was 0.3:1. The LWR parameters (a, b, r2) were computed as 0.0009 ± 0.50, 3.040 ± 0.32 and 0.902 ±0.40, respectively. The age of garfish was between 1 and 4 years. The estimated von Bertalanffy growth parameters with standard errors were L∞= 55.74 ±26.75 cm, K= 0.28 ±0.42, and t0=-1.68 ±2.02. Natural, fishing and total mortality of the garfish were 0.47, 0.69 and 1.16, respectively. The current study revealed that about 68% of the fish caught were of size smaller than the first maturity length. In addition, exploitation rate was found to be higher than optimum. On the other words, there is a fishing pressure on the garfish stock in the Black Sea due to absence of minimum landing size (MLS) of the garfish. Apart from direct fishing control measures aiming to reduce fishing mortality, the establishment of a MLS of 38cm that coincides with the length at first maturity would be also beneficial for the stock. Our results suggest that the garfish stock undergoes high levels of fishing pressure and the adoption of management measures is necessary.
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