Seychelles - National Report 2020

The Seychelles National Report summarizes activities of the Seychelles’ fishing fleet targeting tuna and tuna-like species in the WIO for the year 2018 in comparison with previous years. It also summarizes research, and data collection related activities as well as actions undertaken in 2018 to implement Scientific Committee recommendations and IOTC Conservation and Management Measures.
Over the past five years, the Seychelles purse seine fleet has remained the same comprising of 13 vessels. The number of supply vessels has decreased from 9 vessel is 2016 to 6 vessels in 2019. In 2019 the nominal effort increased slightly by 136 days (5%) when compared to the previous year to reach a total of 2,922 days fished whilst the catches decreased by 9% from 123,310 MT in 2018 to 112,621 MT in 2019 resulting in a mean catch rate of 38.54 MT/Fishing day. Catches of yellowfin tuna and skipjack tuna decreased by 6% and 10% respectively whilst catches of bigeye tuna increased by 1% when compared to the previous year.
The Seychelles Industrial longline fleet comprised of 58 vessels in 2019 compared to 54 vessels in 2018. The total catch reported by the industrial longline fleet for 2018 was estimated at 17,578 MT of which 5,855 MT consisted of yellowfin tuna. The estimated catch rate has remained more or less similar to the previous year estimated at 0.45 Mt/1000 hooks for the year 2018.
In 2018, the Semi industrial fishery recorded the highest catch since the beginning of the fishery with a reported total catch of 1,267 Mt representing a 9% increase compared to the previous year catches.
Similarly, to previous years, the SFA is implementing various actions to improve the quantity and quality of data collected from its fleet targeting tuna and tuna-like species in the Indian Ocean. It should be highlighted that major delays were encountered in statistical operations for longline fishery for year 2019 due to technical and administrative related issues in late 2019 and Covid19 pandemic in early 2020. Hence statistics for the year 2019 for longline fisheries will not be presented in this report and will be communicated to the Secretariat later.