Assessing the activities of illegal fisherman in the southeastern Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is valuable habitat ecologically and commercially for sturgeon fishes but their stocks severely decreasing for increasing illegal catches. This research was achieved different illegal fisherman activities and their motivation in the south east of Caspian Sea. In this study, data was collected from 203 illegal fisherman using analytical-description methods and questionnaire design with researcher in cities and villages on coast of south east of Caspian Sea. The reliability of the questionnaire based on Cronbach's alpha was 0.71. The results showed that most of the illegal fishing was in spring and autumn and most of fisherman with education low level and unemployed. Their method of fishing is the use of gill net, and they come even from further cities and villages for illegal catch. Their motivation was not related to age but decreased significantly with increasing education low level. There was a low, negative, and significant relationship between estimated motivation with answering to motivation question (r=-0.25**). Totally, preventing illegal supply and sale of fish in the province and identifying and responding to sales agents, illegal fishermen, increasing education and raising awareness of protecting valuable fish can reduce illegal activities.