ReD SHRIMPS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

 

Sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources is considered a priority objective in both International and European Community levels. The stock assessment of Mediterranean deep-sea shrimp is one of the main problem found by EU (Annex A ‑ Problem issues with respect to specific stocks: Mediterranean deep‑sea shrimp).

Both red shrimp, Aristaeomorpha foliacea, and rose shrimp, Aristeus antennatus, are species characterised by an high economical value, usually caught with deep trawling net. They represent a rare case of “mono-specific” fisheries in the Mediterranean sea.

Their intensive exploitation in the Western Mediterranean basin started at the end of fifties, thanks to the possibility to freeze the catch on board and to use antioxidants as catch preserving. Today most of traditional stocks has reached a full exploitation state and the few recently exploited stocks (located in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea: Ionian Greek Sea, Aegean Sea and South-Eastern Mediterranean Sea) show the first suffering signals.

International REDS project, financed by EU (Project ref FISH/2004/03-32) has the main aim to update knowledge on biology, population dynamics and state of exploitation of the two deep-sea Mediterranean shrimps.

The Animal Biology and Ecology Department of Cagliari University, under the scientific leading of Prof. A. Cau, coordinate this project that besides Italy (including five Research Centres) involves Greece (Hellenic Centre For Marine Research) and Malta (Malta Centre for Fisheries Sciences).

REDS project provides for the creation of a Mediterranean fisheries scientific net, planning and working according to a common protocol for:

• the construction of a common deep-sea shrimp database for Central-Southern Mediterranean sea, collecting data belonging to 11 experimental Trawl Surveys (from 1994 to 2004) made in Italian, Maltese and Greek waters.
• the definition of the status of these resources in Mediterranean waters, with particular interest to commercial yields.
• the description of deep-sea shrimps temporal changes in abundance, distribution, size, depth range, etc. These could be correlated to changes in climatic and hydrologic conditions, recently reported in Mediterranean waters.

The net of Research Centres in different areas of Mediterranean basin is an important opportunity to synergistically face up with problems correlated with the fishing management of these important resources.