Trends of mobulids ray fishery: a case study of Indonesian megafauna hunters community

The major threat to mobulids population is international wildlife trade, which has increased in the last decade. Meanwhile, this high demand is not in line with these species’ biological characteristics, which tend to be... [ view full abstract ]

The major threat to mobulids population is international wildlife trade, which has increased in the last decade. Meanwhile, this high demand is not in line with these species’ biological characteristics, which tend to be slow in growth, late sexual maturation, long life spans, long gestation periods, low reproductive rates and low natural mortality. We recorded mobulids fishery landing in Lamakera along 2015-2017, where this village has famous as megafauna hunter community and one of the largest in the world. Generalized linier model (GLM) was used to describe the annual landing trends on each type of mobulids fishery. A total of 912 individuals were landed in the last three years, dominated by Mobula japanica (49%), Mobula birostris (37%), Mobula tarapacana (12%), and Mobula spp. (2%). Mobula birostris is the highest targeted species (77%), while Mobula japanica is the highest mobulids of bycatch from drift gillnet fishery (79%). The GLM model demonstrates the management intervention through marine patrol and law enforcement have successfully push down the numbers of Mobula birostris hunting annually (R²= 0.92, p-value <0.0001). However, the landing trends of Mobula japanica has increased significantly up to 623% due to the increasing of the bycatch product from drift gillnet fishery (R²= 0.97, p-value <0.0001). After all, the landing trends of all mobulids species from hunting were decreased, where the landing trends have changed and dominated by drift gillnet fishery bycatch. Meanwhile, the landing trends of Mobula birostris and Mobula tarapacana has decreased significantly except Mobula japanica.