STATISTIC AUTHORITY HOLDS 4 TYPES OF FISHERY SURVEYS IN AKLAN

FOUR TYPES of fishery surveys are presently being conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority in selected sample households, aquafarms and fish landing centers in Aklan.

The surveys are composed of commercial, municipal, inland, and aquaculture fishing operations.

Provincial Statistics Officer Antonet Catubuan said commercial fishing operations makes use of boats with more than three gross tons, while municipal fishing used boat with three gross tons or less.

On the other hand, inland fishing refers to catching of fish, crustaceans, mollusks and all other aquatic animals and plants in inland water, while aquaculture involves all forms of raising and culturing fish and other fishery species in marine, brackish and freshwater under controlled conditions.

PSO Catubuan said that data from this survey will be used to assess the performance of fishing industry in national, regional, and provincial levels.

Among the data being collected are volume and value of fish unloaded in different landing centers, and other fishery production in aquafarms and households.

Reports of similar survey conducted last year showed that Aklan’s volume of fisheries production declined by 2 percent in 2017 from 22,694 metric tons in 2016 to 22,285 metric tons.

Aquaculture shared the largest production with 12, 102 MT or 54 percent of the total output, followed by municipal subsector with 41 percent (or 9, 212 MT), and commercial with 4 percent (or 971 MT).

Of the type of aquafarms, brackish water fishpond has the highest production estimated at 11, 208 MT, followed by oyster with 713 MT, mussel with 85 MT, freshwater fishpond with 31 MT, seaweeds with 11 MT, and brackish water cage with 3 MT.

Milkfish dominates the production with 10, 836 MT, followed by oyster with 713 MT, tiger prawn with 251 MT, and mussel with 85 MT.

In commercial and municipal fishing, dominant fishes caught consist of roundscad or galunggong (872 MT), indo-pacific mackerel or hasa-hasa (559 MT), slipmouth or sapsap (544 MT), indian sardines or tamban (530 MT), anchovies or dilis (483 MT), frigate tuna or tulingan (67 MT), skipjack or gulyasan (66 MT), and big-eyed scad or matangbaka (55 MT).##

- PSA-Aklan