Dr. Ahmed Riyaz Jauharee, Dean of the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (CFOS) at The Maldives National University, presented new research on tuna aggregation dynamics around anchored Fish Aggregating Devices (aFADs) at the 6th Maldives Marine Science Symposium. The presentation, delivered during the Fisheries, Governance and Society thematic session, drew on two years of acoustic monitoring data from the Maldivian aFAD array and offered fresh insights into how tropical tuna species interact with these anchored structures.

The study used echo-sounder buoys attached to anchored FADs across the Maldives to track tuna presence and absence over 2017–2018. The research found that occupancy at anchored FADs exceeded 60 per cent in both years, peaking above 80 per cent in April. Tuna aggregations showed an average continuous residence time of 7.96 days, while continuous absence periods averaged 3.89 days — both following exponential distributions, suggesting a time-independent biological process.

The Maldives tuna fishery is the second-largest economic sector in the country after tourism, with skipjack and yellowfin tuna accounting for 81 per cent and 18 per cent of total catch respectively in 2022. The fishery relies on a network of approximately 65 anchored FADs deployed by the government around the archipelago for tuna fishing. Understanding how tuna utilise these anchored structures is essential for developing science-based management approaches.