Yvonne Sadovy

Professor, Department of Ecology and biodiversity, The University of Hong Kong

Reef Fish Fisheries: The good, the Bad, and the Unsustainable

2005 Program

Abstract

Live fish have long been traded globally for the marine aquarium trade to satisfy demand from western Europe and the USA; only in the past few decades has interest in live coral reef fishes for a very different, luxury restaurant, market surged, particularly in southeastern Asia. At first, this food trade promised to, and to an extent did, deliver high prices for fishermen and traders. But heavy targeting of favoured and seemingly abundant reef fish species in many key areas soon revealed the risks of unregulated fishing of these naturally vulnerable species, and the human costs also involved.

Impacts ranged from reversible levels of growth and recruitment overfishing, to severe declines and threatened species, to disruption of coastal fishing communities. Many of the species involved are biologically ill-suited to heavy fishing, being long-lived and slow to mature sexually, or are taken at vulnerable life history phases or using methods destructive of reef habitat. One such example, the humphead or Napoleon wrasse, Cheilinus undulatus, has just been listed on Appendix II of CITES, one of just a handful of commercial marine species to be so listed, while fishers increasingly target spawning aggregations and sub-adult fish to meet demand. Corruption of local officials by outside traders, clan disputes, poaching, and extended absences and paralysis of young men diving for live fish undermine the social networks of coastal communities.

The challenge is to sustain and benefit from valuable reef resources while minimizing the risk of long-term or irretrievable losses to the ecosystem. Creative and pragmatic approaches are needed to establish realistic and manageable catch levels and profiles, and protect key habitats and life history phases while recognizing the needs, constraints and aspirations of dependent communities in areas sourced for live food-fish.

Bio

Dr. Sadovy is Associate Professor at the Department of Ecology & Biodiversity of the University of Hong Kong. She has been in southeastern Asia since 1993 teaching fish biology, fisheries, comparative vertebrate morphology, and oceanography to under- and post-graduate students. Dr. Sadovy’s research, and that of her students, encompasses the areas of biology, conservation and fisheries, especially in coral reef fish. She is founder and Chair of the IUCN Groupers and Wrasses Specialist Group and co-founder and Director of the Society for the Conservation of Reef Fish Aggregations, established in 2000 to focus attention on the problems of exploiting reproductive gatherings of fishes.

Prior to moving to Hong Kong, Dr. Sadovy was Director of the government Fishery Research Laboratory of Puerto Rico, and fishery biologist of the Caribbean Fishery Management Council, one of the eight such councils under the National Marine Fisheries Service in the USA. She gained her PhD in Zoology at the University of Manchester, in the UK, and has worked extensively in the tropics, with particular focus on reproductive biology and the behavioural and ecological aspects of overfishing, threatened species and management of coral reef fishes.

Readings

Dulvy, N. K., Sadovy, Y. and Reynolds, J. D. 2003. Extinction vulnerability in marine populations. Fish and Fisheries 4:25-64

Sadovy, Y. J. and Vincent, A. C. J. 2002. Ecological Issues and the Trades in Live Reef Fishes. Chapter 18, Coral Reef Fishes: Dynamics and diversity in a complex ecosystem, Peter F. Sale, ed., Academic Press, San Diego, pp 391-420.

Sadovy, Y., and Domeier, M. In press. Are aggregation-fisheries sustainable? Reef fish fisheries as a case study. Coral Reefs.