Estimation of the marine Pomfret fishery status of the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh: Sustainability retained

Abstract

The status of Pomfret fishery of the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh was analyzed by using non-equilibrium surplus production models with a view to evaluate <em>MSY</em> based on (2003-2015) 13 years catch and effort data. Three surplus production models of Fox, Schaefer and Pella-Tomlinson including three error assumptions of normal, log-normal and gamma were used by applying CEDA software package. Initial proportion (<em>IP</em>) value of 0.2 was used because the starting catch was only about 20% of the maximum catch. The <em>MSY </em> output of Fox models were 22,177MT and 21,177MT under the error assumptions of normal and log-normal, while Schaefer and Pella-Tomlinson models produced similar <em>MSY</em> of 33,511MT and 33,138MT. The outcomes from the log-normal error assumption of Fox model was produced goodness of fit <em>R²</em> (0.678) value which was smallest among all models whereas highest biomass, <em>B_final</em> (137640) was found from the same model. The estimated <em>MSY</em> from Schaefer and Pella-Tomlinson models were not as suitable to accept as because the value of coefficients of variation (<em>CV</em>) were too small. The Fox model estimates (normal and log-normal assumption) are close to the recent landings (11,067MT) of Pomfrets which are more conservative and hence the best fit. This study points out that Pomfrets stock of Bangladesh remains in a satisfactory level.