Status Determination and Optimum Yield of the Most Common Species in Suez Canal Lakes, Egypt

Fisheries are imperative sources of food, employment, trade and revenue in many developed and developing coastal nations. The lakes' fisheries play an important role in Egyptian economy, where they afford about 39% of harvested fish in Egypt (2000-2020). Suez Canal has three lakes; Timsah, Great and little Bitter Lakes. The Suez Canal lakes are considered as a significant fishery resource in Egypt with a mean annual catch of 4403 ton. They harvest high economic species like mullets, cichlids, shrimp, molluscs, crab, striped piggy, seabass, seabream, cuttlefish and rabbitfish. There are about 829 sailing boats operated in Suez Canal Lakes working with several fishing methods; gillnets, trammel nets, crab nets and beach seine. Catch and fishing effort statistics have vital importance for the evaluation of an exploited fish stock status. The catch per unit fishing effort (CPUE) is a good measure of the relative abundance of the exploited stocks. In addition, information about effort and catch per unit effort is essential data for the estimation of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) and the corresponding level of fishing effort (fMSY) by means of surplus production models. The present work was prepared to evaluate the fishery status of Suez Canal lakes and to estimate the maximum sustainable yield for the most common stocks in order to give a detailed information about the fishery status of Suez Canal lakes for maintaining this valuable fish resource, and achieving its sustainable management.