Assessment of Coral Reef Fish Population at Pulau Payar Marine Park and Adjacent Waters
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Date
2008-05
Authors
Man, Alias
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Abstract
Malaysia, through the Department of Fisheries, has established marine
protected area or marine parks since 1984 to alleviate the problem of low fishery
catches due to overfishing. Since its establishment, it is not known whether the marine
parks are performing as expected, as there were no information available on the
productivity status of fish and coral in these marine parks. To know the present state of
coral and fish in the marine park, a study on Pulau Payar Marine Park in Kedah was
conducted from 2001 to 2005. In this study, environmentally-friendly methods were
implemented to sample fish and corals in the protected marine park, while trawl was
used to sample fish in the harvest area or area open for fishing outside of the marine
park. Three different fish populations have been identified, they are the coral reef fish
population inside the protected area, the coral reef-related fish population just outside
of the park, and the coastal fish population near the mainland. The average density of
fish for the three fish populations were 29,000 kg/km2, 682 kg/km2 and 825 kg/km2
respectively. For the fish population inside the park, results show that there exists a
positive relationship between coral cover and fish density, such that, for every increase
in the percentage of coral cover, fish density would increase at the rate of 1,300
kg/km2. At present, the average coral cover was between 10-15 percent. With relatively
high density of fish in the protected park as compared to the harvest area, it could
attract more fishermen to fish nearby, looking for the spillover fishes. To ensure
continuous replenishment of the fish population in the harvest area, it is important to
improve the protection of the park. With improved protection of the park's habitat and
its fishery resources, more benefits could be generated through higher quantity of
spillover fishes to the harvest area.
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Keywords
Coral Reef , Pulau Payar