Motorized pirogues in the harbor of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, used for octopus fishing near the end of the season when the catch has declined to the point where there is no longer enough to cover the cost of fishing. The boats are already waiting for the season to open in two months after the reproduction cycle is over. Octopus live only one year and reproduce in May/June. Overfishing has been decreasing the catch, and this year the catch was 17% over the maximum sustainable yield, according to IMPROP fishery expert Elimane Abou Kane. 70% of the motorized pirogues in Mauritania are used for octopus, a fishery commenced in 1985 and is primarily for the Japanese market. 25,000 tons is the total allowable catch according to the government. This year the catch was 38,000 tons. There are approximately 2,500 octopus boats in Nouadhibou, of some 4,000 in the country as a whole. The pirogues have a quota of 15,000 tons, and industrial boats 10,000 tons. The excess of max allowable catch is from the pirogues.
The official annual catch in Mauritania is 900,000 tons, but reconstructed catch estimates are more than 2M tons. Some 400,000 tons are landed overseas by foreign vessels, 380,000 tons are landed in Nouadhibou, 120,000 tons are landed at other Mauritanian ports.
Of the 380,000 landed here, some 300,000 are small pelagic fish converted to fish meal, and 80,000 are small octopus and other (sharks, etc.).
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