Investigation of four economic benthic fish species in the North West waters of the Persian Gulf (Khuzestan Province)

Three research cruises were carried out using Ferdous 1 research vessel equipped with a bottom trawl net in the waters of Khuzestan province during 2018-2021 (except for 2020) to monitor the aquatic demersal resources of the northwestern waters of the Persian Gulf. During this three years’ survey, a total of 51 stations were randomly selected for sampling at 10-50 m depths for further Biomass and Catch Per Unit of Area (CPUA) estimation by Swept Area Method. Four important and commercial species including silver pomfret (Pampus argenteus), tiger-tooth croaker (Otolithes ruber), Sobaity seabream (Sparidentex hasta) and orange-spotted grouper (Epinephelus coioides) were selected. The estimated biomass for years 2018, 2019 and 2020 were 1.1,0.0 and 7.1 tons for silver pomfret; 46.8, 23.3 and 57.6 tons for tiger-tooth croaker; 59.8, 76.7 and 137.3 tons for sobaity seabream and 30.3, 3.1 and 0.0 tons for orange-spotted grouper, respectively. During this period, silver pomfret with 0.01% (in 2018), Sobaity seabream with 3.37% (in 2021) had the minimum and maximum ratio of total biomass, respectively. From point of fisheries management, the following recommendations are proposed:- Prevent any increase in catch per unit of effort (such as number of fishing vessels)          
- Control and supervise the fishing activities, fishing grounds and prohibit the illegal fishing