India West Coast Squid - Trawl

Industry led FIP started by Netuno USA, Inc and local partners Neptune, IndoFisheries and Winsor World Export targeting Squid fisheries in the West Coast India. 

Squid Uroteuthis (Photololigo) duvaucelii (hereafter “Indian squid”) is the most important of a range of squid species targeted by the trawl fishery. CMFRI (Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute) note that squid catch and CPUE can vary a lot between years, considering that this relates to high variability in recruitment (e.g. a very large year class entering the fishery in 2014, leading to high catches and CPUE that year). The peak spawning season is, like cuttlefish, immediately after the monsoon, which is also the season when catch rates are highest (targeting mating aggregations). Like cuttlefish the eggs are demersal (attached to hard substrata). The species is short-lived; previously CMFRI considered the life span to be ~2-2.5 years, but recent analysis based on statoliths suggests that it may only be one year. Its distribution is coastal and it occurs around the Indian Ocean from northern Madagascar to northern Australia. U. duvaucelii makes up 88% of the squid catch according to this analysis.

This FIP focuses on Indian squid, Uroteuthis (Photololigo) duvaucelii, caught from Gujarat to Kerala (West Coast of India, northeastern Arabian Sea). There are significant differences across the West coast fisheries (between the SE Arabian Sea- SW Coast and the NW Arabian sea-SE Coast), including across all fishing patterns, different continental slopes, oceanography, regulations (SE coast has small boats, less powerful), where the squid are recovering. The fisheries operations also differ by mesh size restrictions and the length of the seasonal ban. Kerala’s compliance rates have improved since they first implemented the regulation.  

The high percentage (54.2%) of overfished stocks along the northwest coast of India can be attributed to the very high number of fishing vessels in the states of Gujarat, Daman Diu, and Maharashtra and the consequent fishing pressure on these resources. The number of mechanized fishing vessels in this region together accounts for nearly half (49.7%) of the national total (CMFRI-FSI-DoF, 2020). The southwest coast, particularly Kerala, has a high percentage (52%) of sustainable fish stocks, and this could be because of the recent regulations to curtail overcapacity and overfishing (Mohamed, 2017a) (Sathianandan et al. 2021).

Squid catches, and CPUE can vary significantly between years due to its high variability in recruitment.  Stock assessments covering Uroteuthis (Photololigo) duvaucelii along the west coast of India estimate the populations to be close to MSY (Sasikumar et al., 2017) or in the ‘abundant’ category (Venkatesan et al., 2017). Its peak spawning season is immediately after the monsoon, which is when catch rates are at their highest (targeting mating aggregations). The CMFRI publication in 2023 on the Marine fish stocks status of India summarises the stock status of Uroteuthis (Photololigo) duvaucelii as ‘sustainable’ from the Southwest coast of India and rebuilding from the North West coast of India.

Gear, vessels, and fishery operations differ across the western states of India. The fishery is prosecuted by relatively small boats that are involved in other fisheries but use different nets depending on the target species (largely associated with the shrimp fishery). To provide an idea of scale, there are around 5,000 boats operating in the India Kerala shrimp and cephalopods – trawl, which are mostly 18m to 25m in length. There are several (~12) types of nets on board. Trawl nets, operating up to 100m depth, account for ~85% of cephalopod landings.