HARVESTING AND ECONOMIC-PATTERNS IN THE ARTISANAL OCTOPUS-MIMUS (CEPHALOPODA) FISHERY IN A NORTHERN CHILE COVE

We analyze intra- and inter-annual harvesting and economic patterns of the cephalopod Octopus mimus (pulpo) artisanal fishery at Caleta Colo so cove, Antofagasta, northern Chile, between 1991 and 1996. Informati on was collected daily, from 25 hookah divers that manually harvest pu lpo in the subtidal along 29 km of coastline. Inter-annual fluctuation s in catch, fishing effort, unit price and economic revenues increased from 1993 to 1996, when O. mimus landing and total revenues at Coloso were over 77 t and US$ 190 000, respectively. Contrary to the observe d annual trend, the inverse intra-annual correlation between catch/fis hing effort and price indicated short-term changes in price according to resource availability. A monotonic decreasing function between CPUE and price suggested a threshold catch rate economically feasible for harvesting. Interannual changes in the slope of the price-CPUE functio n indicated a marked increase in the demand of pulpo, jointly with war nings of stock depletion. We conclude that the 0. mimus temporal fishe ry patterns at Coloso are scale-dependent. Our results and general fis hery patterns in the Chilean pulpo fishery suggest that a precautionar y management scheme is urgently needed to prevent overfishing. (C) 199 8 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.