Ocean safaris or food: characterizing competitive interactions between recreational and artisanal billfish fisheries on the coast of Kenya

Users of marine recreational and artisanal fisheries share a great interest in common resources, driving potential competitive interactions. In the Western Indian Ocean (WIO), limited information exists about these fisheries in particular for billfish species. The importance of billfish as a highly sought-after game fish species in recreational fishing, a source of food and income for artisanal fishers, and their ability to transverse various national jurisdictions as a shared resource make it necessary to evaluate sectoral interactions. Herein, we ask the question: what is the nature of these interactions in Kenyan waters? We developed criteria for inferring competitive interactions based on time, space, and resource use and using billfish landings data collected through the creel survey, fishery-dependent sampling, and tagging. Results from tag recaptures show that both fishing sectors are capturing the same billfish resource, with a dominance of sailfish landings. We found no significant difference in the average landings between artisanal and recreational sectors, indicating equal demand for the billfish resource in terms of target species, geographic distribution, and seasonality. Therefore, our results suggest competitive interactions between the recreational and artisanal sectors, which have significant implications for management and socio-economic benefits for coastal communities.