Fleet Dynamics of Tuna Purse-Seiner Fishery in the EPO: An Application of the Fishscape

We are investigating the impacts of economic, regulatory, and environmental/oceanographic conditions as determinants of the spatial-temporal distribution of international tuna purse-seine (PS) fishing effort in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO). We construct and parameterize a random utility model to explain the PS spatial-temporal set by set location behavior modeled within regions of the EPO. The probability of the location of a vessels first set and that of switching from an existing region to another is modelled based on the social-economics caracteristics, such as vessel size, departure port, the duration of the trip, the cumulative distant travelled, the expected revenue, and the oceanographic conditions in EPO from 1997 to 2012.

The fleet dynamics will be displayed on the Fishscape GIS system in a prototype model to test three meta-scenarios anticipated to impact the EPO tuna fisheries: (1) climate change, (2) increasing price of oil and vessel operations, and (3) technological improvements; applied across a fixed array of potential policy options in order to identify sources of stability and instability within the system. The Fishscape system is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation Coupled Human and Natural Systems program with additional indirect support by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission.