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Federal Protection for Snapper Reaps Benefits

December 01, 2011 | WMFE - Grouper and Red Snapper are two very popular and high value fish in South Florida and because of the high demand, the federal government says they've been overfished. Red Snapper is banned from commercial fishing in federal and state waters of the Atlantic,for at least another year. But another way to protect this valuable species from overfishing is to understand where and how they spawn. WLRN Miami Herald reporter Patricia Sagastume visited some scientists in the Florida Keys who are uncovering some secret behaviors of these popular fish.

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Not much is known about the biology of Snapper  fish, but what is certain is that they are fished heavily.
In 2005, a no-take zone was established in the Dry Tortugas region near the Florida Keys.
Three years later, scientists began implanting acoustic tags in some species of grouper  nd snapper fish.
This way they could follow the fish and determine whether the protected zones were helping maintain the stocks.

Daniel Morley, assistant research scientist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says they’ve discovered that when there’s a full moon, these fish swim to the protected areas.
“This is potentially the only opportunity that these fish have to reproduce.” Morley said.  “So they all meet together, they hang out in a full moon and release gametes into the water column together so they release their eggs and sperm into the water at the same time in the water column and then they leave.”
 
Sixty-nine receivers have been strategically placed throughout the waters of the Tortugas area. As the fish swim by their movement is logged.

Another important finding is that the tagged fish are revealing an underwater corridor.
Here, the fish swim back and forth between protected and non-protected areas. 
John Hunt, is the director of the Keys Finfish Research Project.
“Why is this very important?” Hunt asked. “Most of the time the mutton snapper are protected at each end and they are at risk only for a small amount of time but they’re still allowed to be fished for during that time period and what’s happening is that the stock is being rebuilt because of that protection.”

There are still a lot of unanswered questions. No one knows if these fish return to their same spawning site every year or if they’re loyal to one location.
And Hunt, of the Keys Finfish Research Project, says researchers want to find out how long their spawning cycle actually lasts.
“It is allowing our fishery managers to understand that some of these protected areas are very critical for their management and allows them not to have to reduce bag limits or reduce the amount of catch that people have so this is actually one mechanism to get more fish in the ocean, which is good for the consumer.” Hunt said.
 
The research covers a three-hundred-nine square mile area.
With one hundred and eighteen fish already tagged, scientists hope to shed more light on the long range migrations of these important fish.

 

 

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