Definitions for "Exploitation rate"
The proportion of a population alive at the beginning of the year that is caught during the year. That is, if 1 million fish were alive on January 1 and 200,000 were caught during the year, the exploitation rate is 0.20 (200,000 ΒΈ 1,000,000) or 20%.
The percentage of a fish population that are caught by all fisheries combined. For example, if 650,000 fish were caught out of a population of 1 million fish, the exploitation rate would be 0.65 or 65 per cent.
Applied on a fish stock, it is the proportion of the numbers or biomass removed by fishing. A 10% exploitation rate means that 10% of the available stock is being harvested within the time frame considered (per year, per month, etc.). As a measure of fishing pressure, it is proportional to fishing mortality