Volume 66
Management of St. Thomas Grouper Fishery
Authors
Olsen, D., R. Nemeth, and J. Nowlis Download PDF Open PDF in BrowserOther Information
Date: November, 2013
Pages: 228 231
Event: Proceedings of the Sixty six Annual Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute
City: Corpus Christy
Country: USA
Abstract
St. Thomas Grouper landings have been nearly constant since the 1980s seldom deviating more than one standard deviation from the mean. St. Thomas fishermen report that following the protection of the Hind Bank MCD in 1999, they are catching more and larger fish. In 2010, the Caribbean Fishery Management Council set an allowable catch limit of 51,999 lbs based on recent average landings. In 2013, the CFMC announced that the ACL had been exceeded and that the fishery would be closed in December of 2013. Fishermen asked whether this quota was appropriate to the fishery and necessary to protect the resource? The St. Thomas Fishermens Association commissioned a resource evaluation. Based on the results, the STFA proposes that quotas be set annually based on a census of the spawning aggregation. This approach was presented at the August 2013 CFMC meeting. An evaluation of this approach is presented.