Abondance relative et estimation de la biomasse des petits pelagiques des eaux tunisiennes

Abstract

Within the frame of the National Program (PNM), “Assessment of Marine Tunisian Resources” (1996-1999), two prospecting surveys on small pelagic fishes, have been led in narrow collaboration with French Institute IFREMER. Their objectives were to specify the relative fishes abundance, their spatial-temporal variability but also to quantify the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of this resource. A third important goal was to familiarize a Tunisian scientist team, with numerical methods and data processing used during the cruises (reading of echograms, treatments of data, etc.) in stocks assessment. It is known that the indirect stocks assessment methods of small pelagic species is not reliable, reason for which we opted to apply echo - integration techniques. Those campaigns revealed that for all the Tunisian waters, and despite of possible sources of errors in the estimation of the MSY and considering the level of exploitation that turns to best around 35.000 tons, we assume the possibility of increasing captures to a reasonable level. That level was fixed empirically to 75% of the calculated value, to 60.000 Tons. But it will be recommended more accuracy in the calculation of the minimum rate of exploitation to be supported by small pelagic stocks. A regular sampling of professional landings in the main harbours would permit the available estimation of the different dynamic parameters of the main exploited species.