A new approach to estimate catches and fishing effort of small scale fisheries by sampling fishing trips on-site

International audienceSmall-scale fisheries are commonly little understood as a consequence of a crucial lack of data. This is also true for European fisheries, where vessels less than 12 m represent almost 75% of the total fleet. This paper details a methodology developed to estimate catches and fishing effort of small-scale vessels by sampling fishing trips on-site. The benefits of using auxiliary census data, the annual activity calendars collected by the Fisheries Information System (FIS), to improve the precision of the estimates are evaluated. Sampling schemes to estimate catches and fishing effort need to take account of the variability resulting from different categories of vessels, métiers, zones, and seasonality. To meet this objective, the methodology used here aims to optimize the sampling effort's allocation according to the diversity of métiers and the intensity of activity in each harbour. Different methods for the extrapolation of catch and effort data have been tested on the basis of the métiers and on the typologies of fleets. The results obtained are presented and their accuracy discussed. For Réunion Island, our estimation by sampling is compared with the declared fishing forms