Keywords: catch statistics - demersal fisheries - potential yield - stock assessment

Abstract

The past and current status of Albanian demersal trawl fishery is discussed on the basis of catch and effort data (time series 1960-1992) from the archives of Fisheries Research Institute of Durrës (Albania). Fishing effort steeply increased during the eighties, while a slight reduction has been reported for 1990-1992 when important political and economic changes occurred in the country. Annual yields and CPUEs for total demersal catches have quite stable trends up to the eighties, then they increased in the following two-three years as a result of the increased fishing effort and probably the improved technology (more efficient, bigger vessels, etc.). Strong fluctuations of fishery yields and CPUEs are reported from 1984 up to 1992. With regard to demersal fishery “target species”, surplus production models (biomass-dynamic models) fitted to the available data highlight the decrease of CPUE values for the hake (Merluccius merluccius) in the period of investigation. The same models did not provide reliable results for the red mullet (Mullus barbatus), a species characterised by a short life span and discrete recruitment. Nevertheless, taking into account the processing constraints of the models used, some new information for the area investigated is reported. The results have to be considered as the first attempt to study the Albanian demersal fishery in a thirty-year period.