A review on billfish fishery resources in Sri Lanka

This paper reviews the landings of billfish made in large pelagic fisheries during the period 2010-2012. Sri Lanka has a well established offshore fishery targeting for tuna and tuna like species. Apart from tuna, billfish, sharks and seerfish are caught mostly within the EEZ of Sri Lanka as well as in high seas. The annual production of large pelagic fish in Sri Lanka was 135237 mt in 2012. Although there is no target fishery for billfish, it makes up to 9% of the total large pelagic landings in Sri Lanka. Majority of the billfish which includes three species of marlins, one species of sailfish and one species of swordfish production come from multi-day boats operating offshore fishery. Relatively higher proportion of billfish is being caught using gillnet- longline gear combination. A slight increasing trend in the billfish landings was observed over the period.