Catches of billfish by the Malaysian tuna longliners targeting the tropical and temperate tune in the Indian Ocean

A total of 4 plus Malaysian tuna longliners plus one carrier began to fish for frozen albacore in the vicinity of southern Mauritius since the 3rd quarter of 2011. For this paper, the catch and effort data were analyzed from the record since 2003 to 2010 for tropical tuna and from January 2012 – June 2013 for temperate tuna. Swordfish and marlin contributed 6.85% and 6.34% respectively from the total tuna catch in weight. The highest catch of swordfish and marlin from temperate tuna fishing were recorded in at 7.7 tons (July 2012) and 9.7 tons (December 2012) respectively. Annualy catch ranges for both species vary greatly from 30 – 217 tons for swordfish and 35 – 225 tons for marlin. The average catch rate for swordfish and marlin were 0.36 ton/vessel and 0.31 tone/vessel respectively and 0.23 ton/vessel for sailfish. There were no record of sailfish caught by all the Malaysian tuna longliners and this require further consultation with the vessel operators to identify the problem.