This technical report provides an overview of the current state, challenges, and opportunities related to acoustic discrimination in tropical tuna purse seine fisheries.
Acoustic discrimination, the ability to differentiate fish species based on their acoustic signatures, holds considerable promise for improving the selectivity of purse seine fishery and supporting fishery-independent abundance indices. A workshop with fishers and scientists revealed that, although scientific understanding and theory of tropical tuna species-specific acoustic responses is well understood, its practical implementation remains challenging.
Current buoy models offer only limited species discrimination capabilities; however, newly developed echosounder buoy models with enhanced functionalities recently been introduced to the market. Results of the fishers’ survey highlight buoy performance variability across oceans, fishing zones and brands.
This report also documents ongoing international research efforts and capacity-building initiatives aimed at advancing discrimination capabilities and the development of catch-independent indices of abundance.
Overall, results underscore the strategic value of acoustic technologies for sustainable tropical tuna management while calling for continued research and coordination among science, fishing industry, and technology providers.
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