Reply to: ‘Flooding is a key driver of the Tonle Sap dai fishery in Cambodia’

We empirically analyzed1 an industrial-scale ‘Dai’ fishery (2000/2001–2014/2015) presenting the signatures of indiscriminate fishing effects on the Tonle Sap’s fish community. Halls and Hortle2 suggest that apparent recent changes in Tonle Sap’s fish catch are more likely to reflect changing hydrological conditions than fishing-down effects, possibly caused by climate change and hydropower development. In addition, they question (1) the use of the Dai fishery data from 2000/01 onwards, as the fishery has been assessed since 19943,4; (2) the Dai data being generated from a ‘standardized biological catch assessment’; (3) the explanation of compensatory response from small-bodied species in stabilizing the Dai seasonal catches; and (4) the mean fish weight used in1 being subject to ‘sampling related bias’. Finally, they claim that fishing effort from Tonle Sap may have declined as a result of fishing lot removal since 2012, and conclude that our findings may distract attention from irreversible and growing threats to fisheries caused by ongoing hydropower dam developments. We appreciate Halls and Hortle’s contributions and the opportunity to discuss these issues.