Shallow Water Reef Fish Stock Assessment for the U.S. Caribbean

Appeldoorn, Richard; Beets, James; Bohnsack, James; Bolden, S; Matos, D; Meyers, S; Rosario, A; Sadovy, Yvonne; Tobias, William

A stock assessment workshop examined fishery trends for shallow water reef fishes in the U.S. Caribbean based on available fishery landings and biostatistical data. Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and the combined St. Thomas/St. John areas were chosen as appropriate geographical units for analysis. The workshop focused on comparing 1985 with 1990 because the data for these years were nearly complete. Trends in catch-per-unit effort were examined using data from other years when sufficient data were available. Deep water reef fishes, although technically not included in the Shallow-Water Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan, were also examined because of their importance to the reef fish fishery. Significant improvements were noted in data collection, management, and coverage since 1987, particularly in Puerto Rico. Continued improvements are possible and were encouraged. Insufficient data were available to calculate spawning potential ratios to measure overfishing, although there was reasonable direct and anecdotal evidence to suggest that many species continue to be overexploited. Catch per unit effort based on fish traps has declined in both the USVI and Puerto Rico. Landings of larger individuals of groupers such as coney and red hind have decreased; and Nassau grouper in particular continue to be very scarce. Biostatistical data were used to examine size-frequency trends by area and gear type. Growth overfishing appears to be a major problem based on the large number of small fishes being landed and the recent declines in total landings. A yield-per-recruit analysis would help quantify this situation, however, the review team was unable to conduct an analysis because of the lack of essential biological data specifically tuned to Puerto Rico and the USVI. Although simple evaluations were made to note changes in mean capture length over time, too few data existed to interpret the causes of changes for most species. Recruitment variability was shown for red hind and coney in Puerto Rico and St. Croix. Relatively poor recruitment for red hind in recent years in both the USVI and Puerto Rico should be a particular source of management concern although whether this variability was due to natural events or as the result of fishery exploitation cannot be determined from available data. Fishing appears to be the cause for the recent decline of large coney in St. Croix because recruitment appears consistent. The workshop showed that long-term data sets are necessary for analyses to determine recruitment effects and allow proper interpretation. Recruitment variation and the effect of this variation on length-frequency distribution indicate that pair-wise, comparisons of annual length-frequency distributions may give misleading results.