Selective fishing pressure on more highly valued marine living resources is
one of the key factors proposed to explain changes occurring in fish
communities and associated landings of commercial fisheries. The aim of this
paper is to establish the nature of changes in the landings of French
fishing fleets operating in the Bay of Biscay in the period 1973-2002, and
whether these changes could be related to the relative economic
attractiveness of different fish species. The analysis focuses on trends
observed in the landings of all commercial fish species over the last three
decades. It is based on data of annual quantities landed and ex-vessel
prices compiled from official French landings records, and on
bio-geographical descriptors of these species derived from published data.
Using simple index numbers and multivariate analysis, we examined changes in
total landings in terms of their volume and value, as well as changes in
their composition. We show that the composition of landings significantly
changed over the study period, with an increase in the proportion of pelagic
species, of lower economic value. The average ex-vessel price of production
by the fleets tended to decrease from the late 1980s; partly due to a
cross-species drop in prices, occurring mainly after 1993, but also to the
increased proportion of low-priced species in the landings. This caused a
significant drop in the total gross value of production in the second half
of the study period.