Abstract

This collaborative research was initiated to collect basic fisheries data on Nassau grouper (E. striatus) landed in New Providence and Long Island. Although The Bahamas has a comprehensive fisheries management plan in place for E. striatus, there are few programs in place to judge the success of size limits, regulation on gear used, limited closures of spawning sites and some marine fisheries reserves. Data was collected on whole fish landed by day fishers in four categories:\i) Profile of the fishers including age, length of time fishing and economic dependence on fishing,\ii) Capital investment of fishers in boats and equipment,\iii) Catch data for the day including total number of species caught, fishing location, and time spent fishing, and\iv) The whole weight, length, gonad weight, and gonad sample from E. striatus landed.\From 24 November 1999 to 15 February 2000, 311 groupers were measured and weighed at points of landing, 258 gonad samples collected, and 26 fishermen interviewed. Of all fish landed, over 30% were immature, with a 1:1 sex ration between the remaining identified males and females. Female gonads were examined and identified as one of five stages from immature, maturing, ripening, ripe, and spent. Most females examined were "ripening" with a mean oocyte diameter of 1200 microns. No ripe females were landed, and only a small number of spent females were collected. Mean length of all females was 637 mm, but spent females were significantly larger at a mean total length of 673 mm. Of all fish with a gonadsomatic index of greater than 10%, females out numbered males almost 2:1.

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