Booth Id:
ANIM011T
Category:
Animal Sciences
Year:
2017
Finalist Names:
Barahona, Elvis (School: Puhung High School)
Bellido, Genesis (School: Bangor High School)
Abstract:
The catch size of Anadara tuberculosa is key to establish its condition and state of exploitation at the Chame mangroves. There are many families at El Espave community, in Chame, that depend economically on the exploitation of black cockle and it is part of their diet, as well. The size of capture of A. tuberculosa at the Charco Azul mangrove was evaluated on May, 2016. We performed a random sampling of the shell collection and measured the sizes of the collected specimens. The average catch size of A. tuberculosa during May, 2016 was of 50.97 mm. This average catch size is larger than the maturity sizes reported in the Pacific, and larger than the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recommended catch size (47 mm). 27.27% of the population of A. tuberculosa sampled specimens were below the size of catch recommended by the FAO, which suggests that there is no size discrimination by the shell collectors. We recommend Similar studies in the rest of the mangroves. Although our data indicates that there is no overexploitation of the resource, it is pertinent to select the A. tuberculosa by size for collectioning. It is necessary to generate economical alternatives for shell collectors and promote the conservation of the mangrove to make collection of shell more sustainable.