Cephalopod fisheries: A future global upside to past overexploitation of living marine resources? Results of an international workshop, 31 August - 2 September 1997, Cape Town, South Africa

Management strategies for cephalopod fisheries present similar challenges to those encountered in fisheries for finfish. Peculiarities of cephalopod life cycles and the fact that cephalopod fisheries can benefit from management experiences gained in other fisheries may help to preclude mistakes and management failures. During a three-day workshop, features of cephalopod biology, recommended areas of research and key conclusions for management were identified and points of differences between cephalopods and fish were highlighted. Among these, life-cycle understanding, spatial distribution, stock-recruitment relationship and age determination/growth studies were identified as key priorities for research. Physiological and genetic approaches to understanding basic aspects of the life cycle, and their importance for understanding population dynamics, were stressed. Similarly, theoretical ecology has a role to play in management, e.g. the role of a spatial distribution strategy in survival. Environmental studies are also emerging as being important in the possible prediction of population trends through links that operate at the level of spawning biology. In the interim, cephalopods can be managed using similar principles to those applied to short-lived fish species. Among these, constant proportion harvest strategies were identified as the most effective.