The Status of Snook in Florida Bay and adjacent waters, Everglades National Park [Draft]

Schmidt, Tom; Delgado, Gabriel; Kalafarski, John

National Park Service (NPS) management policies state that recreational fishing is permitted in parks where it is authorized by federal law or is not specifically prohibited, and is in accordance with applicable federaVstate laws and regulations. However, the NPS may restrict fishing activities whenever necessary to achieve management objectives. NPS goals and management objectives are based on the preservation and restoration of the natural diversity and ecological integrity of fish populations. When harvest is permitted, in no case should it be allowed to reduce the reproductive potential of the population or to radically alter its natural (unfished) age structure. Fishing activity and harvest of sportfish from Everglades National Park have been monitored nearly continuously since 1958. The objectives of fisheries monitoring in the park are:1) to estimate catch rates, relative abundance, age structure, and total harvest, and 2) to estimate boating and fishing activity in park waters. This monitoring program was originally initiated because of concern over greatly increased fishing pressure resulting from the construction of a highway, marina facilities, and an access canal to Whitewater Bay in 1958. The first ten years of the park's fishery monitoring program (1958-1969) were conducted through a contract with the University of Miami's Institute of Marine Science and were directed at evaluating only the sport fishery. Under the University of Miami program, measures of catch and catch-per-unit-of-effort (CPUE) were made only from those fishermen operating out of Flamingo. These data covered a major area of the fishery, but largely missed two other major areas: eastern Florida Bay and the lower Ten Thousand Islands. In 1965, a permitting system was established for commercial fishermen operating in the park. These fisheries included commercial hook & line (primarily spotted seatrout), netting (mullet and pompano), stone crab trapping, and professional guides. Until 1972, these catch data consisted of monthly total harvest, by species, for each fishermen. The harvest reports did not include any measure of fishing effort or specific area of harvest so it was not possible to monitor populations by ecosystem or management unit, nor to evaluate the degree to which fishermen complied with the reporting requirements of their permits. In 1972, the NPS expanded the harvest monitoring program. Censusing techniques were developed to evaluate total parkwide fishing effort (sport and commercial). The primary emphasis of the expanded monitoring was to improve the precision of the catch rate and total fishing effort estimates for both sport and commercial fisheries. In 1974, fish size data was added to the information recorded and, in 1980, Chokoloskee-Everglades City boat ramps were added on a routine basis.

The Status of Snook in Florida Bay and adjacent waters, Everglades National Park [Draft]

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