Comparison between industrial and artisanal tuna fishery in Kenya

The paper looks at data from both Industrial vessels and artisanal vessels from 2019 to 2022. In terms of species composition, though the industrial vessels target mainly swordfish, yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna are the main tropical tuna species landed by the industrial fleet. On the contrary, yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna are the main tropical tuna catches from the artisanal fishery. In both fisheries, the number of skipjack tunas landed is minimal. In terms of spatial distribution, while most of the artisanal catches are from the territorial waters, the industrial catches are mainly form the EEZ and high seas. The sizes of yellowfin tuna species fish caught differ with industrial catches being larger (AvFL 131 cm) while the artisanal catches mainly compose of fish below 100 cm FL (AvFL 79cm). In terms of seasonality, most artisanal catches were caught between October and March while for the industrial catches the May to July season had the highest catches. While all the industrial catches were from longline gear, artisanal tropical tuna catches were from handlines, trolling lines, artisanal longlines and gillnets