Abstract:The Bohai Sea, a landlocked body of water in China, provides spawning, feeding, and breeding habitats for many economically important species. The summer fishing moratorium in the Bohai Sea was implemented in 1995, and for more than two decades in place it has played an important role in alleviating the intensive fishing pressure on it as a fishery resource as well as in resource conservation. However, the evaluation of the implementation effect of a summer fishing moratorium system in the Bohai Sea has not yet to be reported. Based on the Chinese Fishery Statistics Yearbook and data from the fishery resource survey, we made a comparative analysis of the implementation effects of the summer fishing moratorium system on fishery resources in the Bohai Sea. The results showed that the capture and fishing efficiency in the Bohai Sea increased rapidly in the short term following the end of the summer fishing moratorium. This was especially true for economically important species such as Larimichthys polyactis and Scomberomorus niphonius, which harvests increased 3.96 times and 1.74 times, respectively, and their proportion of total capture yield increased significantly. After 1999, capture yield declined year to year and stabilized in 2008. According to the results of the fishery resources survey, signs of recovery have shown in recent years following the sharp decline of the fishery resources in the Bohai Sea from 1998 to 2014. The biomass of the economically important species increased during the period of 2014~2015, such as Engraulis japonicus, Pampus argenteus, and Portunus trituberculatus, but it was lower than the same period in 1992. During the period of fishing moratorium, the primary fishery species have time and space to grow and spawn. Giving the populations time to replenish has resulted in the total resources increasing more than three times since the beginning of the moratorium, and the average length and weight of fishery organisms has also increased significantly. However, the general trend of miniaturization and degradation of fishery resources has not improved for a long time. In order to ensure the implementation effect and improve the restoration of fishery resources, it is necessary to further enhance the summer fishing moratorium system.
