Catch-per-unit effort of exploited finfishes and crustaceans in Ilog River Estuary, Negros Occidental, Philippines

This paper reports the catch-per-unit effort (CPUE) of the finfish and crustacean fishery in Ilog River Estuary in Negros Occidental. We monitored catch data of fishing gears, mainly trawl (small type), beach seine and mud crab pot from April, May, September, October, December 2013 and January 2014.We estimated at least 37.82 metric tonnes of annual fishery yield (fishes and crustaceans combined) for the entire Malabong estuarine area. Two gears (liftnet and fish corrals) were used by the local fishers since the 1980s. Based on the baseline annual yield of 21 tonnes, the annual yield for these gears (at present ~7.5 tonnes) combined has declined by 13.5 tonnes (~65%) since the early 1980s (~30 years). This decline might be due to habitat degradation (including conversion of original mangrove forests into fish ponds and nipa plantations), over-exploitation, and organic pollution (resulting to recurring fish kill events) in the area.