Smith and Zeller: Unreported catch and tourist demand on local fisheries in The Bahamas 
129 
are accounted for in official statistics, a practice that 
is common in many countries as a result of the histor- 
ic focus on commercial landings for economic develop- 
ment purposes (Ward, 2004). The lack of reporting on 
noncommercial sectors is justified currently by real or 
perceived costs and difficulties associated with quan- 
tifying spatially dispersed fisheries (Zeller et al., 2007, 
2015). Even official, commercial landings statistics for 
The Bahamas are deficient and known to be under- 
reported by up to 15% per year for some taxa (Table 
4). The second and more important cause of discrep- 
ancy is that catches by the recreational and subsis- 
tence fisheries are substantial and missing entirely 
in national statistics, accounting for roughly 55% and 
4% of reconstructed total catch during 1950-2010, re- 
spectively (Fig. 3A). These unreported, noncommercial 
sectors, therefore, represent major sources of impact 
on species and stocks of marine resources that would 
never be accounted for if one considers only official 
data. 
Another major discrepancy between our recon- 
structed estimate and official data is the year in 
which fisheries catches peaked. According to our re- 
construction, total catches peaked in the mid-1980s, 
not in 2003 as indicated by FAO national data (Fig. 
3A). The peak in reconstructed catches was driven by 
recreational fishing in which, before 1986, no maxi- 
mum allowable catch legislation existed for tourists. 
The primary reason for this legislation was that, be- 
fore 1986, tourists were thought to be removing large 
quantities of fish from the waters of The Bahamas 
by essentially engaging in commercial fishing “under 
the guise of sport fishing” (Thompson, 1989). Our re- 
construction indicates that a second peak in fisheries 
catches did in fact occur in 2003, but at more than 
22,200 t/year as opposed to 12,610 t/year (Fig. 3A). 
This second peak was driven by increased catches in 
the large-scale commercial fishery for Caribbean spiny 
lobster, where the annual catch totaled nearly 11,000 
t in 2003. The fact that the general trend in the re- 
construction for The Bahamas differs somewhat from 
the trend that was based on officially reported sta- 
tistics is common among reconstruction studies. For 
example, the synthesis of reconstructions for 25 Pacific 
island countries and territories showed that there was 
a distinct and significant difference in the time-series 
trends between reported and reconstructed catches 
(Zeller et al., 2015). 
The fact that, in 1986 and again in 2007, the gov- 
ernment of The Bahamas introduced maximum recre- 
ational catch limits for key taxa for tourists indicates 
that even in the absence of quantitative catch statis- 
tics, there was (and remains) a local perception that 
catches from this sector are substantial and in need of 
regulation (Braynen 6 ). Indeed, the magnitude of esti- 
mated recreational catches from 1950 through 2010 is 
astounding (55% of total reconstructed catch), equat- 
ing to 1.4 times the commercial catch over the same 
period. Although recreational catches can exceed com- 
mercial landings for some marine fish populations (e.g., 
see Schroeder and Love, 2002; Coleman et al., 2004), 
it is rare for recreational catches to dominate recon- 
structed estimates, as they do for The Bahamas. In 
comparison, recreational catches accounted for only 3% 
and 25% of total removals in reconstruction studies of 
marine fisheries in the Baltic Sea (1950-2007; Zeller 
et al., 2011b) and the Azores (1950-2010; Pham et al., 
2013), respectively. Yet, despite their significance, rec- 
reational catches remain unaccounted for in The Ba- 
hamas, as in most other parts of the world, but Freire 
et al. (in press) is using the reconstruction process to 
estimate catches from marine recreational fisheries for 
126 countries and territories. 
Our findings debunk the notion, at least for The 
Bahamas, that catches from recreational fisheries are 
generally relatively small and, therefore, negligible 
when compared with the catches from other major sec- 
tors. McClenachan (2013) makes a similar point for 
the Florida Keys, where recreational fishing, driven 
primarily by the tourist industry, has contributed to 
the decline of vulnerable nearshore fishes. Indeed, our 
findings take on added importance as evidence accu- 
mulates regarding the role of recreational fishing in 
the exploitation of fish populations that require con- 
servation (Coleman et al., 2004; Cooke and Cowx, 2004; 
Shiftman et al., 2014). 
The magnitude of the impact of tourism on fisheries 
removals is a concern. A major issue is the open ac- 
cess nature of recreational fishing, for which managers 
regulate per capita maximum allowable catch (at least 
in principle) but have no control over the number of 
visitors that fish recreationally (Coleman et al., 2004). 
Because, as we have noted previously, total visitors 
now outnumber resident populations in many small 
island states and territories in the wider Caribbean, 
including those in The Bahamas (Table 1), trends in 
tourist demand for local fish (through recreational 
fishing and seafood consumption in local hotels) are 
similar across the Caribbean. Incomplete or missing 
reports of fisheries removals by the tourist industry 
can lead to inadequate fisheries management, creat- 
ing a situation in which continued population growth 
and rising fisheries demands by residents and tour- 
ists could place unsustainable pressures on fisheries 
resources. 
Numerous studies of the reconstruction of catch 
time series have revealed that official landings data for 
most countries are incomplete (e.g., Zeller et al., 2006, 
2007; Wielgus et al., 2010; Zeller at al., 2011a, 2011b; 
Le Manacli et al., 2012; Belhabib et al., 2014; Zeller et 
al., 2015). The results of this study clearly illustrate 
that The Bahamas can be added to the growing list of 
countries with inadequate reporting and highlight the 
rare situation that recreational fishing (primarily driv- 
en by the tourist industry) dominates reconstructed to- 
tal catches. This rare situation is worrisome because of 
its obvious implications for effective conservation and 
resource management, particularly in light of the dual 
fisheries demands by a burgeoning tourist industry and 
a growing resident population. 
