Smith and Zeller: Unreported catch and tourist demand on local fisheries in The Bahamas 
121 
Figure 2 
Map of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas showing the exclusive eco- 
nomic zone (EEZ), which has an area of more than 629,000 km 2 , and shelf 
areas (to a depth of 200 m) that cover more than 108,000 km 2 . 
FAO data that we accessed through the FAO applica- 
tion FishStatJ (Capture Production data set, available 
at website), and we concluded that there was a good 
transfer of data from the national to the international 
level for the postcolonial period (i.e., -1970-2010). We, 
therefore, used FAO data as the basis for further cal- 
culations for 1970-2010. National commercial landings 
from 1970 to 2010, however, were systematically under- 
reported because they were based on the sampling of 
a subset of landing sites (i.e., sites where commercial 
fishing boats “land” or dock) and there was no attempt 
to expand the data set to include sites that were not 
sampled (Braynen 6 ). Given that the total number of 
landing sites in The Bahamas is unknown, we relied 
on local expert opinion from staff of The Bahamas De- 
partment of Marine Resources regarding the fraction of 
commercial catch for each taxon that was likely not to 
be reported. We then retroactively adjusted FAO data 
from 1970 to 2010 to account for countrywide, unre- 
ported commercial landings (Braynen 6 ; Table 4). 
We concluded that FAO data on capture tonnage 
are underestimates of the actual tonnage of commer- 
cial catches during the colonial period because FAO 
data did not closely match national (colonial) statistics 
for the period 1950-1969. Colonial statistics for these 
years consisted almost entirely of domestic catches that 
were exported. For example, FAO reports a total catch 
of 600 metric tons (t) in 1950, but a Colonial Annual 
Report for The Bahamas states that more than twice 
that amount (i.e., 1381 t) was exported as Caribbean 
spiny lobster alone in that year (HMSO, report 1950- 
1952 7 ). To address the problem of underreported com- 
mercial catches, we calculated the average per capita 
commercial catch rate for the years 1970-1975 (on the 
basis of our expanded, countrywide commercial catch 
estimates) and applied this catch rate to the human 
population census data for 1950-1969. Our method 
resulted in an estimate of total commercial catch for 
the colonial period that was 11% higher than the level 
reported in the FAO data. We acknowledge that per 
capita commercial catch rates likely were greater in 
1970-1975 than in 1950-1969; however, our estimates 
for earlier time periods are still conservative because 
our assessment of total commercial catches in 1950 
(i.e., 1221 t) was less than the level reported for ex- 
ports of Caribbean spiny lobster alone. 
To determine the taxonomic composition of the com- 
mercial catches for 1950-2010, we combined FAO data 
with statistics from the annual reports published by 
the national government and with expert opinion of 
staff from the Department of Marine Resources (for 
details, see Smith and Zeller 5 ). 
Subsistence fishery 
We are unaware of any written reports that quanti- 
fy the extent of subsistence fishing in The Bahamas. 
Therefore, we relied on 2 sources to estimate catch 
from this sector: 1) resident population data and 2) ex- 
pert opinion of staff of the Department of Marine Re- 
sources (Table 4). 
Using the groupings and definitions used in The 
Bahamas, we divided the islands of The Bahamas into 
1) the more developed islands of New Providence and 
Grand Bahama and 2) the remaining, less developed is- 
lands, which are referred to collectively as the “Family 
