Risk and strategy of fishers alternatively exploiting sea bream and tuna in the Gibraltar Strait from an efficiency perspective

Herrero, I. 2004. Risk and strategy of fishers alternatively exploiting sea bream and tuna inthe Gibraltar Strait from an efficiency perspective. e ICES Journal of Marine Science, 61:211e217.While in the last few years interest in efficiency analyses has increased among fisherieseconomists, efficiency analyses have not been used so far to compare the profitability ofalternative fisheries. We compared the profitability of the sea bream fishery and the tunafishery, both operating in the South of Spain (Gibraltar Strait), based on an efficiencyanalysis and on a comparison of the efficient frontiers of the two fisheries. Results for 2002show that, even if the sea bream is a higher-value species than tuna, the profitability of thelatter is higher. However, sea bream still appears to be the target species of the fleet whereasthe tuna fishery appears only as an alternative fishery. The key reason appears to be that thelatter involves more risk than the former. The management of each fishing vessel seemsrelated to the management strategy of the captain and to his assessments of risk.

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