Most Fish in Hurghada's Markets Were Caught Before Breeding Size, a New Al-Azhar Study Finds

A doctoral study in the marine sciences department at Al-Azhar University's Faculty of Science has found indications of growing pressure on the Red Sea fish stock at Hurghada, Al-Masry Al-Youm reports. Fishing effort is rising, and most of the fish measured for the study were smaller than the length at which their species reproduces.

The study — "Assessment of Red Sea fisheries through markets instead of landing ports in Hurghada – Egypt" — reached that conclusion by an unusual route. Rather than relying on what is recorded at the landing points, it used the city's fish markets as its sampling ground, logging which species are traded, what sizes they are, how much is caught and how much effort goes into catching it, alongside an analysis of biomass and biodiversity.

It was written by Aref Farghaly, a researcher at the Environmental Affairs Agency's Hurghada branch, who was awarded a doctorate for it by Al-Azhar's marine sciences department.

What the study found

• Most of the catch was below breeding size. Taking fish before they mature denies them the chance to produce a new generation and limits the stock's ability to replace what is removed from the sea, the study says — a finding it treats as biologically significant rather than a matter of tonnage alone.
• Fishing effort has outgrown the stock. The number of fishing boats has risen beyond what the stock can absorb at current exploitation rates, which according to the researcher could show up in fish production over time.
• The reefs are part of the picture. A declining stock can shift feeding relationships inside the marine ecosystem, including the environments tied to the Red Sea's coral reefs.

The study also argues for the method itself: markets show which species and sizes are actually changing hands, so combining market data with landing-point records and field monitoring would give regulators a fuller picture than any one of them alone.

What the researcher recommends

None of this changes the rules a fisherman or a fishmonger works under today. These are recommendations addressed to the bodies that regulate fishing:

• Reduce fishing effort by reviewing how many boats are operating against the state of the stock, balancing the livelihoods of people in the fishing trade against the sea's capacity to renew itself.
• Assess the stock every year and expand scientific monitoring of spawning seasons, deciding when fishing should stop or be restricted from each species' biology.
• Review the closed-season dates periodically instead of keeping fixed ones, because rising temperatures and other environmental change can move spawning times.
• Set the sizes that may be landed species by species, and stop the use of narrow-mesh nets that take fish before they reach those sizes.
• Base fisheries management on scientific studies and field data, with closer coordination between the oversight bodies and those managing marine resources.

The thesis was examined by a committee that included Alaa Gad El-Karim Mahmoud Othman, professor of fish biology and ecology and dean of the Faculty of Science for men at Al-Azhar University in Assiut; El-Doushy Abdel-Karim, professor of aquatic environment at the same faculty; Khaled Youssef Abou El-Fadl, vice-dean for postgraduate studies at Aswan University's Faculty of Fisheries Technology and Fish Wealth; Ashraf Sedik Mohamed, assistant professor of fish assemblages and fisheries at the National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries' Red Sea branch; and Mahmoud Mahrous Sayed Farag, professor of fish biology and ecology at Al-Azhar in Assiut.

That institute's Red Sea branch is also the governorate's new research partner: Red Sea Governorate signed a five-year agreement with the National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries covering beach pollution and marine surveys, which we reported on 16 October.