Perspective of the pink shrimp (Farfantepenaeus duorarum burkenroad) fishery of Campeche bank, Mexico

Abstract

The pink shrimp, Farfantepenaeus duorarum, fishery of Campeche Bank, Mexico, was analyzed in order to characterize it and to test the effect of different fishing intensities upon the stock. Catch data consisted of the number of shrimp per commercial class for the 1986–1993 period. A virtual population analysis structured by age was applied to determine seasonal recruitment and fishing mortality patterns with respect to age, as well as the stock-recruitment relationship. With these results, an age-structured deterministic simulation model was developed, which diagnosed the fishery and defined the effects of different exploitation scenarios by considering changes in fishing mortality. Results show that the decreasing catch tendency through the period of analysis is related to recruitment failures. The analysis indicated that a way to mitigate the low recruitment problem is to control and reduce fishing mortality, but stock density will continue to decrease if the current fishing intensity is maintained.