We analyze intra- and inter-annual harvesting and economic patterns of the cephalopod Octopus mimus (pulpo) artisanal fishery at Caleta Coloso cove, Antofagasta, northern Chile, between 1991 and 1996. Information was collected daily, from 25 hookah divers that manually harvest pulpo in the subtidal along 29 km of coastline. Inter-annual fluctuations in catch, fishing effort, unit price and economic revenues increased from 1993 to 1996, when O. mimus landing and total revenues at Coloso were over 77 t and US$ 190 000, respectively. Contrary to the observed annual trend, the inverse intra-annual correlation between catch/fishing effort and price indicated short-term changes in price according to resource availability. A monotonic decreasing function between CPUE and price suggested a threshold catch rate economically feasible for harvesting. Interannual changes in the slope of the price-CPUE function indicated a marked increase in the demand of pulpo, jointly with warnings of stock depletion. We conclude that the 0. mimus temporal fishery patterns at Coloso are scale-dependent. Our results and general fishery patterns in the Chilean pulpo fishery suggest that a precautionary management scheme is urgently needed to prevent overfishing. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
