Warrior swimming crab fishing zones along the southwest Baja California peninsula, Mexico

To improve the management of the warrior swimming crab (Callinectes bellicosus, Stimpson 1859) fishery along the west coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico, catch, economic value and trip ticket frequency data, from 1998 to 2010, were analyzed by month and locality. Based on the geographic locations of fishing localities and their use frequencies, five fishing zones were identified. The relative contributions to the regional catch, economic value and frequency of use, as well as catch trends and fishing seasons, revealed differences between zones. The proposed zones can be used to design spatial management units that facilitate the monitoring of fishing efforts and evaluate the impacts of these efforts on the resource, economic performance and interactions with other fisheries. We discuss the advantages of the method used and its potential for identifying benchmarks, mainly related to fleet dynamics, in the absence of information regarding resource dynamics.