Urgent call for sustainable management of Indian halibut, Psettodes erumei, resource in the Spermonde Islands

The Spermonde Islands are at the center of the world's coral triangle, crossed by the Wallace Line, so its resources must be managed sustainably. The Indian halibut Psettodes erumei is the most primitive species of flatfish, which is thought to have suffered from exploitation. This research aims to assess the utilization status of the P. erumei stock in the Spermonde Islands. The P. erumei samples were taken from the fishers catch who landed at the Fish Landing Port, Makassar City. The population and exploitation parameters observed were growth, mortality, selectivity curve, capture probability, virtual population, and recruitment. The number of P. erumei samples obtained during the research was 419, with an average length of 28.9 cm (between 6.7 and 77.5 cm). The asymptote length (L∞) was 78.75 cm and the growth rate (K) was 0.73, while the growth performance index (φ) was 3.85. The first capture length (Lc) was 16.39 cm, the capture length at probability 0.25 (L25) was 14.24 cm, at 0.75 (L75) it was 18.55 cm, and at the time of full recruitment to the capture fishery (L100) it was 22.5 cm. The total death rate (Z) was 4.07, the instantaneous natural death rate (M) was 0.72, and the fishing death rate (F) was 3.353. Current exploitation (E) was estimated at 0.82, indicating that the current exploitation level is far beyond the limit of sustainable utilization (0.5). The condition of being highly exploited indicates that a sustainable management is urgently needed