Abstract

The National Park Los Caimanes has one of the most important spawning aggregation sites of marine commercial fish in Cuba. Scientific Literature indicated that in this place five species of snappers and groupers aggregated to reproduce, this amount is considered large. In addition to the number of species that spawn in Los Caimanes, the importance of the site is incremented by the predominant and strong currents, that disperse the larvae towards the western region and, presumably, towards the Bank of Bahamas. In this work three commercial species of groupers are added to the list of five (Micteroperca poisonous, Micteroperca tigris and Epinephelus guttatus), which elevates the number of species to eight, making this site the site which the largest number of spawning aggregations in Cuba. However, an evident symptom of stress in the reproduction of mutton snapper has been observed. This aggregation has been moving SE in a range of around three kilometers; this is presumably do to overfishing of the aggregation. An aggregation and feeding site is observed at the south end of the park, this is associated two regions massive corals

PDF Preview