Strengthening knowledge on recreational fishing is a major and current challenge in the Mediterranean Sea. As part of the Ocean Hackathon, IFREMER, the Gulf of Lion Marine Park, the French Federation of Sea Fishermen and the SATHOAN professional organization have joined forces for the first time around a collaborative project.
About twenty clubs, members of the FFPM, organize 2 to 3 fishing contests per year. That is to say more than 100 days of recreational and sport fishing, which could constitute for the scientific community a major source of data to better understand the populations present in the area of the fishing contests, in particular their size, their spatial distribution and the period of distribution.
Particularly for buefin tuna, the practice of no-kill has developed, allowing the pursuit of a sport with a lesser impact, provided that the good practices are known. But the information on the individuals caught and released is neither known nor valued.
The FFPM is aware of this and wishes to mobilize.
OP Sathoan has obtained a double eco-certification of its bluefin tuna line fishery, as a result of its effort to improve sustainability of fishing practices (selectivity, scaring, good practices of release). But the maintenance of its label is conditioned by an action to improve the knowledge about the recreational fishing, which the OP does not feel legitimate to do.
IFREMER and PNMGL are present today to make the link between the two worlds throught this project.