Alor Thresher Shark Fisheries Summary 2019

In order to acquire Thresher shark fisheries and catch data in Alor , our team on the ground conducted fisheries surveys. From July 2018 – May 2019, our team members visited the Ampera and Lewalu coastal areas to document the catch. We appointed and  trained an individual from these communities on how to properly fill out a fisheries log sheet. This very useful information was then collected by one of our team members during the period of our initial project. 

From the fishers log-sheet, we were able to find out the following information:

• A total of 274 catches were recorded 
• 50 out of the 274 recorded catches were Thresher Sharks 
• 72% of the Threshers sharks caught were female and 34% of the female Thresher sharks were pregnant 
• The average total length for all Thresher sharks caught was 280-342cm. 

There were some data gaps during the period of December 2018 – Feb 2019. This is due to the monsoon season and fishers were not able to head out to sea very often. The main shift in catch species happened during the period of March – May 2019. During this time, the local fisherman changed their fishing methods to modified fishing hooks, which is specifically used to catch Thresher sharks instead of Tuna and Snapper. 

There is still a severe lack of data on population of the Pelagic Thresher shark ( A.pelagicus ). The area in which this species is fished in the Alor regency is close to the fishers management area ( FMA ) 573 and is managed by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission ( IOTC ). Previous studies of the Pelagic Thresher shark have indicated that this species has a low annual rate of population increase, which makes it extremely vulnerable to overfishing / exploitation.