117 
NOAA 
National Marine 
Fisheries Service 
Abstract— Tourism is vital to the 
economy of small island states like 
The Bahamas and is closely linked 
to fisheries. Fish is a protein source 
for tourists and residents, and both 
groups expect to catch and eat local 
fish. To adequately manage these 
dual demands, we need to know total 
removals of fish, as well as patterns 
of demand by tourists and residents 
in the past and present. Using a re- 
construction approach, we performed 
a comprehensive accounting of fish- 
eries catches in The Bahamas from 
commercial and noncommercial sec- 
tors for 1950-2010 and estimated 
the demand from tourism over the 
same period. Our results distinctly 
contrast with national data supplied 
to the Food and Agriculture Organi- 
zation of the United Nations (FAO), 
which presents only commercial 
landings. Reconstructed total catch- 
es (i.e., reported catches and esti- 
mates of unreported catches) were 
2.6 times the landings presented by 
the FAO for The Bahamas. This dis- 
crepancy was primarily due to unre- 
ported catches from the recreational 
and subsistence fisheries in the FAO 
data. We found that recreational 
fishing accounted for 55% of recon- 
structed total catches. Furthermore, 
75% of reconstructed total catches 
were attributable to tourist demand 
on fisheries. Incomplete accounting 
for catches attributed to the tourist 
industry, therefore, makes it difficult 
to track potentially unsustainable 
pressures on fisheries resources. 
Manuscript submitted 19 January 2015. 
Manuscript accepted 3 December 2015. 
Fish. Bull. 114:117-131 (2016). 
Online publication date: 29 December 2015. 
doi: 10.7755FB. 114. 1.10 
The views and opinions expressed or 
implied in this article are those of the 
author (or authors) and do not necessarily 
reflect the position of the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
Fishery Bulletin 
fa~ established 1881 -o 
Spencer F. Baird 
First U S. Commissioner 
of Fisheries and founder 
of Fishery Bulletin 
Unreported catch and tourist demand on local 
fisheries of small island states: the case of 
The Bahamas, 1950-2010 
Nicola S. Smith 1 
Dirk Zeller 2 
Email address for contact author: nicolas@sfu.ca 
1 Earth to Ocean Research Group 
Department of Biological Sciences 
Simon Fraser University 
8888 University Drive 
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6 
2 Sea Around Us 
Global Fisheries Cluster 
University of British Columbia 
2202 Main Mall 
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z4 
Tourism is one of the largest and 
fastest growing industries globally 
(UNWTO, 2014a), and is vital to 
many small island developing states 
in which it can account for more than 
one-quarter of gross domestic product 
(GDP) (UNWTO, 2014b). In addition 
to its influence on island economies, 
tourism can have large effects on the 
extraction of natural resources like 
fisheries, particularly in the Carib- 
bean, where visitors can greatly out- 
number resident populations (Table 
1, Fig. 1). Tourism, through recre- 
ational fishing and the consumption 
of local seafood by tourists, increases 
the demand on local fisheries. 
Consider the case of the Common- 
wealth of The Bahamas, a nation of 
small islands, for which tourism is 
the primary industry, which account- 
ed for 51% of GDP in 2003 (Sacks 1 ). 
Located in the northern Caribbean 
east of Florida and northeast of Cuba, 
1 Sacks, A. 2006. The Bahamas total 
tourism economic impact: preliminary 
results, 8 p. Report prepared for Min- 
istry of Tourism, The Bahamas. Global 
Insight Inc, Waltham, MA. 
between 20-27°N and 72-79°W, The 
Bahamas form an archipelago of 
more than 3000 low-lying islands 
and cays. They comprise a total land 
area of just under 14,000 km, 2 and 
the area of its exclusive economic 
zone (EEZ) is more than 629,000 km 2 
(Fig. 2). Tourism did not become a 
year-round industry in The Bahamas 
until the 1950s, when the advent of 
air-conditioning in local hotels made 
the hotter months of the year bear- 
able for visitors (Cleare, 2007). Since 
then, the total number of visitors 
per year has grown substantially; by 
2010, visitors swelled to more than 
5.3 million per year (The Bahamas 
Ministry of Tourism 2 ) and outnum- 
bered the resident population of more 
than 350,000 (The Bahamas Depart- 
ment of Statistics 3 ) by an order of 
magnitude (Table 1, Fig. 1). 
2 The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism. 
2011. December 2010 preliminary re- 
vised foreign arrivals by first port of en- 
try. [Spreadsheet available at website.] 
3 The Bahamas Department of Statistics. 
2010. Percentage distribution of popu- 
lation by island:2000 and 2010 Census- 
es, 1 p. [Available at website.] 
