Ichthyological analysis of catches from the Mirna Estuary–eastern Adriatic

Abstract

      Mirna Estuary has been fished once per year for more than 900 years. Ichthyologi­cal analyzes started in 1989. Material was collected by special constructed big seine net for this area. Twelve species were captured, though 4 of these are of commercial point. Family Mugilidae was numerically dominant and constituted 93.6% of total catch (8 year period) while Liza aurata and Liza ramada constituted 89.0 and 6.6% of that procent, respectively. All other species were represented in very small numbers of which Lithognathus mormyrus (4.1%) and Dicentrarchus labrax (1.7 %) were mostly abundant. Total length-weight rela­tionship and condition factor were calculated for these comercial species. On the basis of age, maturity of individuals, length frequency distribution according to first maturity, mean total length of analyzed specimens and exploitation ratio (E), we concluded that the fishing pres­sure exerted on the golden and thin-lipped mullet were light (underfished stock), while the population of the sea bass (E=0.554) and striped sea bream (E=0.499) in a sufficient fish­ing condition in the area under study.