Management of scombroid resources of India

Scombroids consisting of mackerels, seerfishes and tunas are an economically important pelagic fishes whose average landings during the 90s was 2.81 lakh t forming 11.7 % of the total marine fish production in India. Their demand in the domestic and export markets is on the rise and the group assumes topical importance in a situation where most of the coastal fishery resources are exploited to the near optimum level. Resource potential, status of exploitation and management and conservation issues regarding the scombroid resource in the coastal fishery sector are presented and discussed.