Categories
vol-31TRENDS IN CATCHES OF PLECTROPOMUS PESSULIFERUS
(FOWLER) AND PLECTROPOMUS AREOLATUS (RUPPEL)IN
THE RED SEA COAST OF SAUDI ARABIA FROM 1995 TO 2002
ABDULRAHMAN A. FALLATAH
Fisheries Research Centre – Ministry of Agriculture
P.O. Box: 2580, Jeddah 21461, Saudi Arabia
International Conference On Aquatic Resources Of The Arab Region
7-9th May 2005 – Alexandria
Key Words: Saudi Arabia – Fishery statistics – Industrial fishery – Fishing gears.
ABSTRACT
Based on the Fisheries Statistics bulletins published by the Marine fisheries
department, Ministry of Agriculture (1995 –2002),
The coastline of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia has been divided statistically into 3 areas
from the North to the South. The Northern area extends from Haql to Al-Rayes, the Central
area is from Al-Sateh to Al-Birk and the Southern area is from Al-Gahmah to AlMuwassam including Farasan Islands.
According to the specifications of the boats and fishing gears, two sectors were
identified, the Industrial sector and the Traditional sector.
The types of fishing gears used in the Traditional sector are hand lines, gillnets, traps.
The first three fishing gears were discussed in the present study because of their relation to
catch of Plectropomus Pessuliferus (Fowler) (Roving Coralgrouper) and Plectropomus
areolatus (Ruppel) squaretail coralgrouper which are known locally as “Najil “and
“Taradi” respectively.
The catch of these two species represent 2% of the total catch of fish in the Red sea area
for each of them.
Roving coralgrouper catch varied from year to year where, the highest was 81% in
1996 while the lowest was 2% in 2001. Increase that reached up 35% was observed in
2002, in comparison to 1995. squaretail Coralgroupers species had a sharp rise, it reached
20.1% in 1996 and 12.3 % in 1999 while it increased to 50% in 2002.
From the period of 1995-2002 the catch of Roving coralgrouper at the Northern and
Central areas were 41% of the total catch, while the Southern area lomdel catch was 18%.
For Squaretail coralgrouper, the catch of Northern and Central areas represented 57% and
43% of the total catch respectively, while the catch taken from Southern area only
represented 0.02% (less than one metric ton).
