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In 2017, Mauritius had 2 purse seiners, 1 supply vessel and 12 semi-industrial longliners operating in the tuna fishery in the IOTC area of competence. The two purse seiners are large freezer vessels having an overall length of 89.4 M each. The longliners are semi-industial boats less than 24 Metres in length, operating mostly in the EEZ of Mauritius and some operated outside the EEZ. These vessels carry out short trips of about 9-11 days and land their fish mostly chilled. The purse seiners operated largely outside the EEZ of Mauritius.
The semi-industrial longline fleet operating exclusively inside the EEZ of Mauritius comprised of 9 boats which undertook 69 fishing trips for a total of 824 fishing days and a deployment of 952344 hooks. The majority of the catch consisted of yellowfin and swordfish. Their total catch amounted to 378 tonnes. The CPUE was 0.4kg/ hook.
The three longliners operating outside the EEZ carried out 59 trips for a total of 577 fishing days. They landed 512.6t of fish with a deployment of 701,637 hooks. Majority of their catch consisted of swordfish (40%).
The Mauritian purse seiners operated between latitudes 14oN to 14oS and longitudes 40o to 85oE. Total catch of the two purse seiners amounted to 17,686t comprising of 48% skipjack, 43% yellowfin and 7% bigeye tuna for 678 positive sets out of a total of 719 sets. An observer was deployed on a Mauritian purse seiner for 71 days.
Sampling exercises were carried out at Port Louis on local semi-industrial longliners. About a thousand fish were sampled. Sampling exercises were also carried out on the Mauritian purse seiners.
Mauritius has produced its National Plan of action for sharks. Marine sea turtles and cetaceans are protected under Mauritian law. Mauritius has put in place a Vessel Monitoring System since 2005 and all licensed vessels are monitored.
