Reza Davoodi

Cutlassfish trawl fisheries have been used in the Persian Gulf, but very little information about species composition of the large rates of bycatch caught in this region is available. The data on total species composition of 40 hauls from vessels operating off the fishing grounds of Persian Gulf was collected from May 1st 2009 to 10th August 2010. From the estimated 952.3 tonnes of bycatch taken annually in the fishing grounds of cutlassfish, 39 species from 32 families were obtained which include: 30 teleost species with 88.3% of the total biomass (841.4 t) from the main composition of the catches and followed by 7 elasmobranchs with 8.3% (79.7 t) and 2 invertebrate with 3.3% (31.2 t) of the biomass. With 554.3 tonnes (58.2% of the total biomass), the major species in trawl bycatches were Nemipterus japonicas (234.1 t), Saurida tumbil (229.5) and Ilisha melastoma (90.5%).