Stock Evaluation of the Data-Limited Fisheries: A Case Study of Five Major Commercially Important Fishes from the Western Indian Ocean, Pakistan

ABSTRACT Evaluating the stock status is one of the most fundamental part of the dynamic cycle of fisheries management intended to secure our aquatic resources. Indeed the stock assessments not only provide a technical foundation for setting up yearly fisheries harvest levels but also offers a wide variety of other fishery-related measures for management purposes. To do so, we used two newly developed Catch-based Monte Carlo method of estimating MSY (CMSY) and the Bayesian state-space Schaefer production model (BSM) based on the catch and effort time series data from (1993-2017) from the Western Indian Ocean (WIO), Pakistan. The five major fish species of commercial importance exploited by heterogeneous fishing fleets in the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of Pakistan have been undertaken as a case study for the stock evaluation. Altogether, both the models estimated largely similar results. The stock status results indicate that Euthynnus affinis and Rachycentron canadum were healthy, while Scomberomorus commerson and Parastromateus niger were overfished and Lutjanus argentimaculatus was strongly overfished. However, all the stocks were subjected to overfishing. Therefore, the parameters estimated from our study may be used as indicators for the sustainable management of the fisheries in the country.