The enhancement of abalone stocks: lessons from Japanese case studies

The dramatic declines in abalone Haliotis spp. fishery production have been documented all over the world. Release of hatchery-reared juveniles into natural habitats has been considered as one measure to sustain and/or augment the current fishery production of abalone, as well as to restore collapsed abalone stocks. However, attempts at abalone release programmes have only been undertaken at experimental scales, except for Japan, where large-scale stock enhancement programmes for abalone have been undertaken since late 1960s. To evaluate the potential of stock enhancement for abalone, we analysed the release surveys of 13 case studies in Japan in terms of the overall recapture rate (number of recaptures through a lifetime/number of juveniles released), yield per release (YPR, yields from released individuals), the economic efficiency of releases (ratio of income from recaptured abalone to release cost) for each release year, and the contribution of hatchery releases to total catches for each fishing year. The average estimates for overall recapture rates (0.014-0.238) and YPR (3.1-60.3 g/individual) varied between locations and release years. The economic efficiency was estimated at 0.4-6.2. The released abalone contributed 6.9-83.5% to total catches. Hatchery releases could augment total production at some locations, but the success of release programmes would be limited by the carrying capacity at release areas, because density-dependent mortality occurred following releases in some cases. Throughout Japan, the annual catch of abalone has continuously declined from similar to 6500 t in 1970 to similar to 2000 t in the mid-1990s, despite the increase in the number of hatchery releases. Based on the estimates for YPR, the magnitude of the abalone releases on a national scale has not been sufficiently large to sustain the total production of Japanese abalone, which has primarily fluctuated according to the abundances of wild populations. Our results suggest that releases should be targeted at local populations in regions where stock enhancement is predicted to have the greatest chance of success, and the magnitude of releases should be considered carefully and determined for each region by taking the local carrying capacity into account. We also address the future prospects of abalone stock enhancement.