Fishery and stock status of neritic tunas and allied resources in the Indian coastal waters

Tunas and allied resource are exploited from coastal waters by a variety of small to
medium fleets operating different varieties of gears. The catch was constituted by neritic
tunas, small sized oceanic tunas like skipjacks and Spanish mackerel from shelf areas.
Targeted fishery prevailed only for Spanish mackerels, whereas tunas mostly formed
incidental catch in most gears. Their fishery is mostly coastal based and restricted to
limited areas along the coast. Neritic tunas with a contribution of 65% in total tuna catch
formed the mainstay of the National tuna landings with a catch of 45,571 ton during 2020.
Catch during the year registered a marginal decline as compared to 2019. The neritic tuna
fisheriy was supported by five species, namely; kawakawa (Euthynnus affinis, 28,310 t),
frigate tuna (Auxis thazard, 5,840 t), bullet tuna (Auxis rochei, 6,888 t), longtail tuna
(Thunnus tonggol, 4,052 t) and bonito (Sarda orientalis, 481 t). Spanish mackerels
contributed 37,219 ton to the landings and was represented by narrowbarred Spanish
mackerel (Somberomores commerson, 23,478 t) Indo-Pacific king mackerel
(Somberomores guttatus, 13,419 t) and streaked Spanish mackerel (Somberomores
lineolatus, 13 t). Fishery biological observations and stock assessment of component
species indicated that neritic tuna stocks in general is healthy, with fairly high spawning
stock biomass and are being fishing at sustainable levels.