In Kuwait, fishing bears a significant cultural value as pearl diving used to be one of the country’s main economic activities—and today, seafood is a staple diet (Grandcourt, 2012). Fish per capita consumption has been steadily rising, from ~ 7 kg per capita to 15 kg between 1961–2021, and it is expected to continue growing in the future (Ritchie et al., 2023). Kuwait fisheries use different fishing gears to target a suite of species, but they can be broadly divided into two main types: shrimp fishery and finfish fishery (Al-Husaini et al., 2015). Trawlers mainly target the shrimp stock, and seasonality in shrimp fishery is defined by setting seasonal opening and closing dates, which start around August/September and approximately close in February/March (Al-Husaini et al., 2015).

For most finfish fisheries, however, seasonality is less well-known as seasonal closures are uncommon. Different fishing sectors target finfish in Kuwait: artisanal and industrial—both fishing for profit—and recreational, which fish to maximize their leisure and experience (Al-Abdulrazzak et al., 2015; Al-Husaini et al., 2015; Ben-Hasan and Daliri, 2022). Artisanal and industrial fisheries (collectively referred to as “commercial fisheries”) use different fishing gears—e.g., gillnets, traps, and trawling; on the other hand, recreational fishers mainly use the traditional hook-and-line (Ben-Hasan and Daliri, 2022).

We compiled landing and price datasets from the official Annual Bulletin of Fisheries Statistics found online on the Central Statistical Bureau website, published for 2000–2019 (Central Statistical Bureau, 2024). In these bulletins, both local landings and prices (wholesale prices) for 24 species/groups of exploited fish and invertebrates are recorded monthly and annually (Central Statistical Bureau, 2024). Because prices are reported in local currency, Kuwaiti Dinars (KWD), we have converted them to U.S. Dollars using the World Bank yearly exchange rate (World Bank, 2021). Specifically, we divided the official average prices reported as KWD/kg by 0.3, which is the average exchange rate for 2000–2019.

Out of these 24 species/groups, we omitted shrimp because seasonal closures regulate its landings; therefore, seasonality is well-recognized (Al-Husaini et al., 2015). On the other hand, while some fisheries regulations exist for finfish, such as size limitations and general spatial closures, seasonal closures are lacking for most exploited finfish species. We also omitted the “Others” or miscellaneous group since its species composition is unknown. Therefore, our analysis focused on the locally landed 22 finfish stocks ( Table 1 ). It should be noted that the recorded landings are generally caught by the artisanal and industrial sectors, though they are mostly caught by the former (Ben-Hasan and Daliri, 2022).

The rising income level of local people—due to the discovery of oil—significantly changed the fishing community: most locals now practice fishing as a recreational activity. On the other hand, commercial fisheries are mainly practiced by foreign fishers (Al-Abdulrazzak et al., 2015). While artisanal and industrial fisheries are the major sectors contributing to total landings, local fishers’ knowledge is concentrated within the recreational fishers in Kuwait.

Therefore, in addition to analyzing the commercial landing and price datasets, we developed and disseminated a digital survey to gather local fishers’ knowledge by focusing on recreational fishers ( Supplementary Material A ). The survey consisted of 10 questions that generally sought information on the seasonality of 13 finfish stocks commonly known by local recreational fishers (but may or may not be targeted) (Al-Husaini et al., 2015).

As most fishers speak Arabic, the survey was distributed and filled in Arabic; however, we provided both the Arabic and English versions in the supplementary section. We sought the perception of the local recreational fishers to gain insights independent of commercial landing data.

The total finfish landings showed strong seasonality: colder months (November–April) are, on average, associated with much higher landings than warmer months (May–October) ( Figure 1 ). The mean landing over the colder months is 10.7 tons, whereas it is 8.5 tons for the warmer months ( Figure 1 ). This highlights a seasonal switching between target stocks, which is common in multispecies fisheries in general (Jin and Tang, 1996; Henderson et al., 2007; Martínez-Ortiz et al., 2015). Indeed, we observed clear patterns in stock-specific landings: at the two ends of the spectrum, the (i) strongly winter-spring finfish, which are mostly (60% or more of landing proportions) caught during the colder months (December–first half of May); and the (ii) strongly summer-fall finfish, which are mostly caught during the warmer months (second half of May–November) ( Figure 2 , Table 2 ). ( Figure 2 ). To illustrate, the landing proportions of target stocks, such as Tigertooth croaker, Yellowfin seabream, Kingfish, and Indian-Pacific king mackerel are largest in colder seasons (December–March/April) relative to their total seasonal landings ( Figure 2 ). However, the landing proportions of these stocks drop in warmer seasons while the landing proportions of other stocks—particularly Klunzinger’s mullet and Silver pomfret—sharply increase ( Figure 2 ). It should be noted that, unlike the other finfish species, seasonality in Klunzinger’s mullet is largely determined by seasonal closure set by the management agency. Since 2014, the fishing season for Klunzinger’s mullet has been consistently closing in December and opening again in June ( Supplementary Material B , Supplementary Figure S1 ). While there is a seasonal closure for Silver pomfret, it is limited to only 45 days (Al-Husaini, 2003).

A weaker seasonality in commercial landings is observed for stocks categorized under winter-spring and summer-fall seasons. For instance, a larger fraction (50%–59%) of the landings for Fourfinger threadfin and Hilsa shad stocks occur in winter-fall, whereas Orange-spotted grouper and Notched threadfin bream are much more landed during summer-fall ( Figure 2 , Table 2 ). There are species that do not show seasonality, as shown by their relatively stable landing proportions over the season (Greater lizardfish and Spangled emperor); in contrast, Javelin grunter stock is highly seasonal, with more than half of the total seasonal landing occurring in only two months of the year ( Figure 2 , Table 2 ).

There are many drivers of seasonality in landings unrelated to regulatory initiatives (e.g., seasonal closures). One of the main causes that can influence within-season landings is the seasonal migrations/dispersal patterns of exploited species. For example, numerous fish species undergo onshore-offshore movement as they transition to adulthood (Longhurst and Pauly, 1987; Walters and Martell, 2004). Such a behavior potentially makes exploited species available to the fishery only for part of the season. Klunzinger’s mullet, for instance, inhabit the nearshore areas when they are juveniles (< 9 cm) between March and June, and they have no commercial value (Alsaffar et al., 2019). As fish grow in size, they recruit to fishing grounds and so become vulnerable to fishing gear. Silver pomfret is believed to migrate southward to deeper waters from November to March, but between March and October, it migrates northward, where it is exploited by fisheries in Kuwait and Iran (Al-Husaini, 2003; Ben-Hasan et al., 2020). The perceived migratory pattern of Silver pomfret is consistent with the in-season landing proportions, which increase starting from March—with the exception of the 45-day ban over the May–June period—and the largest proportion (60%) of the total seasonal landings occur between July to October ( Figure 2 ). In addition to Klunzinger’s mullet and Silver pomfret, Kingfish is known to conduct long-distance migrations in the Gulf region (Hoolihan et al., 2006); however, for most exploited finfish species in Kuwait, there is a significant gap in the knowledge of life history trajectory.

Another possible driver of landing seasonality is fishers’ switching to target alternative species. A likely switching behavior in the examined within-season landings can be seen when comparing the landings of the two similar species, the Flathead mullet and Klunzinger’s mullet ( Supplementary Material B , Supplementary Figure S1 ). The monthly landing patterns for these two species suggest that once a seasonal closure for Klunzinger’s mullet is initiated (i.e., when landings are zero), landings for Flathead mullet soar. Nevertheless, when fishers can catch and land Klunzinger’s mullet, landings of Flathead mullet are notably lower ( Figure 2 ; Supplementary Material B , Supplementary Figure S1 ). A similar switching behavior is seen in, for example, the Gulf of Carpentaria prawn fishery, where fishers switch from day-time trawling for banana prawns to night-time trawling for other prawn species. When banana prawns are scarce, the fishery is either closed early or the fishers cannot find them and so switch earlier and generate more impact on the other species (Somers and Wang, 1997).

For the majority of finfish stocks, the mean within-season price of fish landed is in contrast with the proportion landed: higher fish prices are associated with fewer landing proportions and vice versa ( Figure 3 ). For instance, the mean within-season prices for Tigertooth croaker and Yellowfin seabream are lowest between December and March when landing proportions are highest. This landing-price trend is also applicable to the highly-seasonal species (e.g., Fourfinger threadfin and Javelin grunter), where prices drop in the few months of high landing proportion but rapidly rebound once the landing proportion falls. The seasonal price trends for Klunzinger’s mullet and Silver pomfret are exceptions to this trend—the prices increase dramatically with higher landing proportions after the fishing ban is lifted ( Figure 3 ). The increase in prices with landings is likely primarily driven by the high demand after seasonal closures. Indeed, this can be clearly observed in the shrimp stock, where landing quantities and prices increase after opening the shrimping season ( Supplementary Material B , Supplementary Figure S2 ).

A total of 227 local fishers completed the survey online, with the majority (90%) identified as recreational fishers ( Supplementary Material B , Supplementary Figure S3 ). Most fishers had extensive fishing experience: 71% have over a decade, and about a quarter have more than 25 years of experience in fishing ( Supplementary Material B , Supplementary Figure S4 ). Also, most local fishers indicated that they have knowledge of the seasonality of the most commonly caught finfish ( Supplementary Material B , Supplementary Figure S5 ). Although they perceived the concept of fishing seasons in different ways, about half of the respondents (53%) associated the term “seasonality” with the time when fish are available to catch ( Figure 4 ); most of the other half interpreted “seasonality” to be pertinent to official seasonal closures and the size of fish ( Figure 4 ). The interpretation of seasonality by half of the respondents—i.e., the availability of fish—does not only indicate the “meaning of seasonality”, but also suggests that the availability of fish drives the fishing behavior. However, variation in the availability of fish to at least some fishing gears may vary seasonally due to two possible factors: (i) seasonal onshore-offshore movement of fish and (ii) fish migrations out of Kuwait’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to nearby EEZs (Al-Husaini et al., 2015; Alsaffar et al., 2019; Ben-Hasan et al., 2020). Thus, “availability” may be species-specific in terms of causes of seasonal variation.

Additionally, when asked about the seasonality of selected finfish stocks, local fishers’ responses were consistent with the commercial seasonal landings for the majority of stocks while widely diverged for others ( Figure 5 , Table 3 ). Fishers’ responses agreed or closely overlapped with the landing proportions of 6 of 11 selected stocks ( Table 3 ). For example, for strongly seasonal finfish, including Tigertooth croaker, Kingfish, Indian-Pacific king mackerel, Silver pomfret, and Klunzinger’s mullet, fishers’ responses and landing proportions were in agreement; while the landing proportions of Javelin grunter are strongly winter-spring, the majority of fishers’ responses were winter-spring ( Figure 5 , Table 3 ). It should be noted, however, that the knowledge of Klunzinger’s mullet fishing season is likely influenced by the 6-month seasonal closure rather than having emerged from the fishing experience. This agreement between local fishers’ knowledge and commercial landings supports the strong seasonality of these finfish stocks. This could also explain the difference in seasonality for stocks with less seasonal variation, including Fourfinger threadfin and Orange-spotted grouper ( Table 3 ). Indeed, the interannual landing proportions for these two finfish do not vary dramatically over the season—except for Fourfinger threadfin landings in March ( Figure 2 ). Similarly, fishers’ responses to seasonality in Fourfinger threadfin and Orange-spotted grouper seem to be more evenly distributed over the season; for instance, the largest fractions of the total responses for the best fishing season of Orange-spotted grouper were 38.9% for spring, 23.5% for summer and 24.8% for year-round ( Figure 5 ). In general, our results are consistent with those from other studies, which suggest that local fishers show a deep understanding of fishery seasonality. For example, in some parts of the Solomon Islands and Brazil, local fishers identified fishing seasons of targeted species and categorized fish based on seasons and depth (e.g., “fishes of winter”, “fishes around all year” or “bottom fish”) (Neis et al., 1999; Johannes et al., 2008; Medeiros et al., 2018).

For three finfish stocks, however, there is a wide divergence between local fishers’ responses to the best fishing season and the within-season distribution of commercial landings ( Table 3 ). These include identifying the best fishing season for Yellowtail scad, Flathead mullet, and Hilsa shad. The landing proportions for Yellowtail scad show strong seasonality in summer-fall ( Figure 2 , Table 2 ), but most local fishers’ responses identified winter-spring as the best fishing season ( Table 3 ). Likewise, this wide divergence was also noted for Flathead mullet and Hilsa shad ( Table 3 ). The wide divergence can arise due to, for example, a limited experience in targeting these finfish, the use of different fishing gears, and fishing taking place at different life-history stages (Gerhardinger et al., 2006; Johannes et al., 2008). For instance, although known by local fishers, these finfish are primarily fished and caught by commercial fishers (Al-Husaini et al., 2015). In addition, Hilsa shad, for example, is commonly caught using gillnet rather than the hook-and-line used by local fishers (Al-Baz, 2001).