16ème groupe de travail sur les thons tropicaux

In 2013, the French purse seine fishing fleet of the Indian Ocean was composed of 13 vessels of individual capacity >800 t, which all represented a total carrying capacity >13,000 t of tuna. The total cumulated nominal effort exerted during the year was 3,673 and 3,185 fishing and searching days, respectively. The French purse seiners cumulated a total of more than 2,800 fishing sets, with 1 third made on free-swimming schools (FSC) and 2 third realised on schools associated with fish aggregating devices (FADs). The total annual landings of the principal market tunas by the French purse seine fishing fleet has remained very stable during 2010-2013, with a total of 66,000 t landed in 2013. The landings were composed of more than 55%, 33%, and 10% yellowfin, skipjack, and bigeye, respectively. Catch on FADs increased by 36% between 2012 and 2013 to reach more than 46,000 t. The proportion of yellowin in FAD-catch has strongly increased in the recent years and reached 45% in 2012-2013. The total number of sets per searching day on both fishing modes has been decreasing in the recent years and reached a low value <0.9 in 2013. Skipjack catch per positive set on FADs strongly decreased in the recent years concomitantly with an increase in yellowfin catch per set. The catch of large yellowfin per positive set on FSC has shown an increase in the recent years to reach 39 t in 2013. Landings of damaged and small-sized tunas as well as other marine species incidentally caught as bycatch in the French purse seine fishery on the local markets of Madagascar and Seychelles were estimated to be low at about 230 t y&#8722;1 during 2011-2013. They were predominated by a combination of small tunas and various tuna-like species of length