Category Archives: Conservation

Tarpon Tagging Program Yields Results

Bonefish and Tarpon Trust Tarpon Tagging Program Yields Results

It’s hoped the 5-year acoustic tagging program will help answer many questions about tarpon movements around Florida’s coasts. The Tarpon Acoustic Tagging Project is a collaborative, five-year program designed to broaden our understanding of tarpon movement and habitat uses. The results will help shape future conservation measures, including the protection of critical habitats and improvements to fishing regulations.  The project is generously sponsored by Maverick Boat Group. Tarpon Acoustic Tagging is addressing the following questions: Is the tarpon population large and robust or small and vulnerable? If anglers in a particular location are fishing for the same fish every year, then the tarpon population is probably smaller than we think, and issues like shark predation will become a bigger concern. If fish move among regions every year, and anglers are fishing for different fish each year, the tarpon population is probably relatively large. Do tarpon gather in the same areas for spawning each year or move among areas? On average, ocean currents will carry the larvae from a spawning site to juvenile habitats in a specific geographic region. If it’s the same adults at the spawning site every year, then local adult losses will cause local declines in juveniles. If tarpon move among spawning sites, then the population will be more resilient. How do changes in freshwater flows into coastal waters influence tarpon movements? Do the problems with Lake Okeechobee and Everglades restoration impact tarpon? Are the water issues in Apalachicola causing changes in tarpon movements? What are the movement patterns and habitat use of mid-size tarpon (20-50 pounds)? How will these tarpon be impacted by coastal water quality issues? This size class, which is the future of the fishery, is very vulnerable to changes in coastal habitats and water quality.Until the Tarpon Acoustic Tagging Project began, there was little information available to answer these questions. Satellite tagging provided spatial and temporal data that was limited to tarpon weighing 80 pounds and larger. After a few months, most satellite tags detached from the fish, making it difficult to study their movements over the important multi-year time frame. Acoustic telemetry has helped to combat these limitations.Why Acoustic Tagging?Acoustic tags provide the ability to track tarpon for five years. They are also small enough that they are being used on tarpon as small as 5 and as large as 200 pounds! Acoustic telemetry has helped to broaden the scope of tarpon research. When deployed, a tag is surgically implanted in the fish’s abdomen before safe release. The tagged fish swims within range of an underwater receiver, which detects and stores the tag’s unique code. BTT and collaborators have approximately 100 receivers deployed, but we are also able to take advantage of the network of receivers being used by collaborators studying everything from redfish to sawfish. This vast network exceeds 4,000 receivers deployed from Chesapeake Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. As scientists detect tagged fish on their receiver networks they share data with other scientists, effectively expanding the study area. All years are concurrently playing with the date displayed in the upper left corner. The movements shown here are represented “as the crow flies”, thus the movement tracks may cross land. How You Can Help Sponsor a Tarpon: Sponsor an acoustic tag for $3,000. You can name your tarpon and will receive a certificate with its name and initial capture info (general location and measurements).  Sponsors will receive access to a password protected site where they can see periodic updates of their tarpon’s movements. Sponsor a Receiver: Sponsor and name an acoustic receiver (listening station) for $3,000.  Sponsors will receive periodic reports summarizing the tarpon detections it has recorded. Help us tag tarpon: Prior to every tagging trip, our team of scientists will notify sponsors  about when and where they will be working, along with contact information. If you are fishing in that area on tagging dates, all you need to do is call us when you catch a tarpon. We’ll come to your boat, transfer the tarpon to our sling, and take implant a transmitter. Remember to always keep the tarpon in the water! Contact Us Today! For more information and to sponsor a tag or receiver, please contact Mark Rehbein, Director of Development at 703-350-9195 or mark@bonefishtarpontrust.org

Lionfish

Impacts of Invasive Lionfish

Lionfish are native to coral reefs in the tropical waters of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. But you don’t have to travel halfway around the world to see them. This is an invasive species that threatens the well-being of coral reefs and other marine ecosystems, including the commercially and recreationally important fishes that depend on them. NOAA and its partners are working hard to develop ways to prevent further spread and control existing populations. Lionfish have become the poster child for invasive species issues in the western north Atlantic region. On par with zebra mussels, snakeheads, and even Asian carp in notoriety as invaders, lionfish populations continue to expand, threatening the well-being of coral reefs and other marine ecosystems, including the commercially and recreationally important fishes that depend on them. NOAA and its partners are working hard to develop ways to prevent further spread and control existing populations. History The common name “lionfish” refers to two closely related and nearly indistinguishable species that are invasive in U.S. waters. Lionfish, which are native to the Indo-Pacific, were first detected along Florida coasts in the mid-1980s, but their populations have swelled dramatically in the past 15 years. Lionfish are popular with aquarists, so it is plausible that repeated escapes into the wild via aquarium releases are the cause for the invasion. Lionfish now inhabit reefs, wrecks, and other habitat types in the warm marine waters of the greater Atlantic. Lionfish continue to expand at astonishing speeds and are harming native coral reef ecosystems in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean. Biologists suspect that lionfish populations have not yet peaked in the Gulf of Mexico, which means that their demand for native prey will continue to increase. Recent research has also revealed that lionfish can tolerate brackish coastal zones, so mangrove and estuarine habitats may also be at risk of invasion. Impacts to Native Fish and Coral reefs Adult lionfish are primarily fish-eaters and have very few predators outside of their home range. Researchers have discovered that a single lionfish residing on a coral reef can reduce recruitment of native reef fishes by 79 percent. Because lionfish feed on prey normally consumed by snappers, groupers, and other commercially important native species, their presence could negatively affect the well-being of valuable commercial and recreational fisheries. As lionfish populations grow, they put additional stress on coral reefs already struggling from the effects of climate change, pollution, disease, overfishing, sedimentation, and other stressors that have led to the listing of seven coral species in the lionfish-infested area. For example, lionfish eat herbivores and herbivores eat algae from coral reefs. Without herbivores, algal growth goes unchecked, which can be detrimental to the health of coral reefs. What’s Next? NOAA has created an Invasive Lionfish Web Portal—a clearinghouse for all things related to lionfish outreach and education, research, monitoring, and management. Interested parties will no longer need to browse through multiple web pages to find accurate information; it will be available in a centralized location.NOAA researcher and lionfish expert Dr. James Morris recently hosted the 7th annual lionfish symposium at the 2014 meeting of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute in Barbados. More than 35 presentations were given on lionfish research around the region. This meeting built upon the results of a 2013 GCFI lionfish workshop focused on harvesting invasive lionfish: An invasive lionfish food fish market is practical, feasible, and should be promoted.Alternative invasive lionfish end-uses, such as the curio and aquarium trade, are also viable markets. Regarding consumption and the risk for ciguatera poisoning, invasive lionfish should not be treated differently than other tropical fish species and a general caution statement should be displayed within all establishments that serve fish and on all fish products.Local control is effective at minimizing invasive lionfish impacts at local scales and should be encouraged where possible. Though no confirmed cases of ciguatera poisoning from eating lionfish have occurred, fears persist. A Caribbean-wide assessment of lionfish ciguatera levels is nearly complete and a report will be publicly available in the coming months. If lionfish are proven to be safe, and if cost-effective harvest and distribution mechanisms are developed, small-scale fishermen may be able to capitalize while simultaneously helping to control the invasion. Cooperation and communication among local, state, federal, and international partners is crucial for proper management of lionfish and other widespread invasive species. Accordingly, a National Invasive Lionfish Prevention and Management Plan was developed by members of the Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force—an intergovernmental organization co-chaired by NOAA. The plan will be publicly available in spring 2015 pending final review and approval. NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries Program is working to finalize their own lionfish plan that will guide the management of this invasive species in the affected sanctuaries in the Gulf and southeastern United States. Together, these plans will guide the management of invasive lionfish and ensure that all are working toward common objectives.More information on NOAA’s lionfish research programs can be found online.An animated map of lionfish spread is available on the U.S. Geological Survey’s Nonindigenous Aquatic Species web page.

What Is the Oldest Fish Alive?

112-Year-Old Fish has Broken a Longevity Record

By Sean Landsman from The Fishing Wire Scientists just added a large, sucker-mouthed fish to the growing list of centenarian animals that will likely outlive you and me. A new study using bomb radiocarbon dating describes a bigmouth buffalo that lived to a whopping 112 years, crushing the previous known maximum age for the species—26—by more than fourfold. That makes the bigmouth buffalo, which is native to North America and capable of reaching nearly 80 pounds, the oldest age-validated freshwater bony fish—a group that comprises roughly 12,000 species. “A fish that lives over 100 years? That’s a big deal,” said Solomon David, assistant professor at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, who was not involved in the study. In recent years, thanks to more advanced aging techniques, scientists have discovered many species of fish live longer than originally thought—the Greenland shark, for instance, can live past 270 years. Despite the age of fish being a basic aspect of their biology, we often know very little about a fish’s expected lifespan. Carbon dating Before the study authors even aged a single fish, they had a hunch that these fish, which live mostly in the northern U.S. and southern Canada, lived longer than thought. The team removed thin slices of otolith—small calcified structures that help fish balance while they swim—from 386 wild-caught bigmouth buffalo, most of which were harvested by bowfishers. The researchers then used a microscope to count the growth rings on each slice of otolith. Their first counts yielded estimates of fish that live more than 80 and 90 years old. (Related: “Meet the animal that lives for 11,000 years.”) When study leader Alec Lackmann first saw those numbers, he says his reaction was: “There’s no way!”To validate these extraordinary age estimates, Lackmann, a graduate student at North Dakota State University, and colleagues turned to bomb radiocarbon dating, a well-established method that compares the amount of the isotope carbon-14 in animal tissue to concentrations of carbon-14 released in the mid-1900s during atomic bomb testing. The method has been used to age everything from human remains to sharks. They then cross-checked their otolith results with bomb radiocarbon dating and found a match—validating the estimates of a lifespan between 80 and 90 years, according to the study, recently published in the journalCommunications Biology. In total, five bigmouth buffalo surpassed 100 years of age, but a 22-pound female caught near Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, became the 112-year-old record-setter. “She was actually on the smaller end of the mature individuals,” Lackmann notes. Aging population The first 16 fish Lackmann aged were all over 80 years old, highlighting another surprising finding: Many of the fish were born prior to 1939, suggesting a reproductive failure spanning decades. The likely cause of this failure is dam construction, which impedes—or outright blocks—upstream movement to spawning grounds. (See “Rare whales can live to nearly 200, eye tissue reveals.”) Indeed, bigmouth buffalo are often called “trash fish,” because they’re not usually eaten and are erroneously lumped in with invasive U.S. species like common carp. But Lackmann argues “we should move away from that term, because it maligns far too many native species. ”David agrees, saying that it “automatically detracts value from the organism itself,” which, in the case of the bigmouth buffalo, has an important role in maintaining the health of its native rivers—displacing invasive carp. (See the overlooked world of freshwater animals.) Though historically unpopular as a sport fish, the bigmouth buffalo is increasingly a target of bowfishers, which shoot fish with bow-and-arrow, often at night with spotlights. Almost all U.S. states where bigmouth buffalo are found have no limits on sport or commercial harvests. The fish is not considered threatened in the U. S. but is of special conservation concern in Canada. Lackmann and David hope the discovery of the bigmouth buffalo’s amazing longevity will help boost its profile.“I hope that knowing this cool fact about them will have people look at this species more closely,” David says.

Mako Shark Tracking

Mako Shark Tracking Reveals “Impressive” Memory and Navigation

from The Fishing Wire These top predators travel far across the Pacific, returning to the same areas in the Southern California Bight each year. The largest effort ever to tag and track shortfin mako sharks off the West Coast has found that they can travel nearly 12,000 miles in a year. The sharks range far offshore, but regularly return to productive waters off Southern California, an important feeding and nursery area for the species. The findings demonstrate “an impressive show of memory and navigation.” The sharks maneuver through thousands of miles of the Pacific but return to where they have found food in years past, said Heidi Dewar, a research fisheries biologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California.Researchers tagged 105 mako sharks over 12 years—from 2002 to 2014. The tags record the sharks’ movements, as well as the environments the sharks pass through. Researchers have long recognized that ocean waters from Santa Barbara south to San Diego, known as the Southern California Bight, are an important habitat for mako sharks. Prior to this study, however, they knew little about what the sharks do and where they went beyond those waters.The researchers are from NOAA Fisheries, Stanford University, Tagging of Pacific Predators, and the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education in Baja California. They reported their results in the journal Animal Biotelemetry. “We did not know what their overall range was. Were there patterns that they followed?” asked Nicole Nasby-Lucas, a NOAA Fisheries research scientist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the new research. “It turns out they have their own unique movement patterns. ” Sharks tracked over multiple years returned to the same offshore neighborhoods year after year. Long-Range Travelers The tagging data overall revealed that the sharks travel widely along the West Coast. They venture as far north as Washington, as far south as Baja California, and westward across the Pacific as far as Hawaii. The sharks tagged off California remained on the eastern side of the Pacific east of Hawaii. This indicates that they do not mix much with mako sharks in other parts of the Pacific. A roughly seven-foot female mako shark followed similar courses into the Pacific and back to the California Coast over three consecutive years. Although there are examples of mako sharks crossing the ocean, it is probably the exception rather than the rule, said Dewar, a coauthor of the new research.The finding provides insight into population dynamics of mako sharks across the Pacific. It also allows scientists to identify which fisheries the tagged mako sharks might encounter. Muscular mako sharks are a popular sport fishing target. They are also caught in U.S. longline and drift gillnet fisheries and are common in the international trade in shark fins. Mako sharks are overfished in the Atlantic Ocean, but not in the Pacific.The researchers used two types of tags to track the sharks. One type, called pop-up tags, collect data and eventually pop off the animal and float to the surface, where they transmit their data via satellite. The second type transmits data to satellites each time the shark surfaces, determining the animal’s location by measuring tiny shifts in the frequency of the radio transmission. Remembering Southern California Mako sharks are among the fastest swimmers in the ocean, hitting top speeds of more than 40 miles per hour. The larger tagged sharks traveled an average of about 20 miles a day and a maximum of about 90 miles per day. They travel long distances in part because they must swim to move water through their gills so they can breathe, Dewar said. Large numbers of juvenile sharks caught in the Southern California Bight indicate that it is a nursery area for the species. Tagged mako sharks returned there annually, most typically in summer when the waters are most productive. The tracks of the tagged sharks may look at first like random zig-zags across the ocean, Dewar said. They actually illustrate the sharks searching for food and mates based on what they remember from previous years. “If you have some memory of where food should be, it makes sense to go back there,” Dewar said. “The more we look at the data, the more we find that there is a pattern behind their movements.”The tagging results also provide a wealth of data that scientists can continue to plumb for details of the sharks’ biology and behavior. About 90 percent of the time the sharks remained in the top 160 feet of ocean, for example, occasionally diving as deep as 2,300 feet. Although the sharks traveled widely, they mainly stayed in areas with sea surface temperatures between about 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. “We can continue to ask new questions of the data to understand these unique movement patterns,” Nasby-Lucas said. “There’s a lot more to learn.”

West Coast Rockfish Boom

West Coast Rockfish Boom with Warm Water “Blob”

Young groundfish, including great numbers of rockfish as well as other marine creatures thrived under unprecedented ocean conditions, according to new research. The high temperatures that came with the marine heatwave known as the Blob led to unprecedented mixing of local and subtropical species. There were, often with new and unpredictable outcomes. Out of that mix came one unexpected winner: West Coast rockfish. These bottom-dwelling species, which that had previously collapsed in the face of overfishing during the 2000s, thrived under the new conditions. Scientists from Oregon State University and NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center recount the boom in young rockfish in a new research paper in the journal Fisheries. It examines the effects of the Blob as documented by NOAA Fisheries offshore surveys. Scientists have been conducting the surveys for more than 20 years. The Blob years brought some of the most dramatic changes in marine life off the West Coast they’ve ever seen. Unexpected interactions may have also altered the abundance of some species, from plankton that support the food web to fish that depend on them, the researchers wrote. In the waning months of the Blob in 2016, juvenile rockfish increased over a large area from California to Alaska. Since juvenile rockfish are very difficult to distinguish from one another, scientists could not tell which species benefited. They could not tell what specifically drove the boom in their numbers and or whether they will support fisheries in future years. They suggested that the surge in rockfish may have been part of an unusual cascade of effects resulting in large part from a shift in the dominant jellyfish off the West Coast. The typically abundant sea nettle declined in number while the less common water jellyfish multiplied to become the most abundant jellyfish in their catches. That may have reduced predation by sea nettles on juvenile rockfish, as well as competition between the species.A catch of mostly water jellies and only a few fish from a 2015 research survey off the West Coast. “When organisms from different regions suddenly come together, they can interact in unexpected ways,” said Brian Beckman, a research fish biologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center and co-author of the new study. “The question is whether this is a lasting change, or one that will shift back toward something we’ve seen before. ”The scientists also described the sudden and extremely high abundance of gelatinous pyrosomes. They, which had never been previously observed in the Northern California Current off the West Coast. Pyrosomes have such voracious appetites that their increase may explain low concentrations of chlorophyll documented off the West Coast in 2017, the scientists suggested. Pyrosomes found off the Oregon Coast range in size from a few inches to more than two feet long. (Photo by Hilarie Sorensen/University of Oregon)“If this organism remains abundant in subsequent years, it could produce lasting effects upon the ecosystem by outcompeting other filter feeders, which in turn might reduce the food supply to organisms higher in the food web,” they wrote. The effects of the Blob may be evident in the species mix off the West Coast for many years to come, they added. The scientists emphasized that continued ocean surveys should track those changes over time. This will to help us understand the interaction among species and inform ecosystem-based fisheries management.Read more like this at NOAA Fisheries

Winter Feeding Area for Great White Sharks

OCEARCH Defines Winter Feeding Area for Great White Sharks

Tracking data from white sharks equipped with OCEARCH satellite tags reveals that the Atlantic continental shelf waters off North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the east coast of Florida are a winter hot spot for large white sharks. As seen on the OCEARCH Tracker, the heavy concentration of our adult and near-adult white sharks in this region suggests it’s an important winter habitat, which OCEARCH and collaborating scientists are now referring to as the Northwest Atlantic Shared Foraging Area (NASFA). This is in concordance with fisheries data that showed this area to be a wintering ground for white sharks, as previously published by OCEARCH collaborator Dr. Tobey Curtis and his colleagues.The OCEARCH Tracker shows at least eight white sharks have been detected in the NASFA in the past week, including adult white sharks Hilton and Katharine. The eight sharks are a good indication there are plenty more white sharks in the area with them. The waters off Charleston, South Carolina and Cape Canaveral, Florida have seen the highest concentration of detections. The sharks were tagged as part of an ongoing study started in 2012 by OCEARCH to uncover the mysteries of white sharks’ life history in the Northwest Atlantic. Since the beginning of the study, OCEARCH has consistently observed that nearly all tagged, large white sharks in the Northwest Atlantic visit the NASFA at some point during their migrations, with most visiting in the winter. OCEARCH has tagged white sharks as far south as Florida and as far north as Nova Scotia, Canada, and all of the larger tagged sharks have spent some time in the NASFA. “The body of colder water trapped between the Gulf Stream and the coast is a key feature of this region,” says Assistant Professor of Marine Science at Jacksonville University and OCEARCH collaborating scientist Dr. Bryan Franks. “This ‘wedge’ of cold water extends from the Outer Banks in North Carolina down to Cape Canaveral in Florida. This feature results in a range of water temperatures in a relatively short horizontal distance from the coast out to the Gulf Stream. In addition, there is the potential for abundant prey in the migrating populations along the coastlines and in the dynamic mixing zone on the Stream edge. ”The tendency for white sharks to migrate to the NASFA bears some similarities to white shark behavior observed in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the United States. In the Northeast Pacific, different shark populations migrate from the Farallon Islands and Guadalupe Island to a Shared Foraging Area (SOFA), also popularly referred to as the White Shark Cafe, between the Baja Peninsula and Hawaii. OCEARCH tracked this white shark behavior in 2007-2009 and conducted a 30-day expedition to the SOFA in 2009. Studies by other scientists since then have tracked similar shark behavior. OCEARCH tracking data in the Atlantic suggest there could be more than one population, or subpopulation, of white sharks inhabiting the Northwest Atlantic. These populations are differentiated by where the sharks aggregate in the late summer and fall, which is suspected to be mating season for the species, although that remains to be confirmed. Cape Cod, Massachusetts is one such summer/fall aggregation site and OCEARCH data indicates there is at least one more summer/fall aggregation site in Canada. Regardless of which summer/fall aggregation site a shark uses, however, it appears nearly all of the adult and near-adult sharks visit the NASFA during the colder winter months. OCEARCH is planning an expedition to the NASFA in February and has two other expeditions planned to try and tag more sharks off Massachusetts and Nova Scotia later in 2019. These expeditions aim to increase the sample size of tagged white sharks to get a clearer picture of white shark movements in the Northwest Atlantic and test scientific hypotheses about white shark movement and migration. “This is the beauty of OCEARCH’s North Atlantic White Shark Study,” said Dr. Bob Hueter, OCEARCH Chief Science Advisor. “The sharks lead us from one step to the next, so that we can steer our ship to where we’re needed to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of this incredible predator. Each expedition builds on the previous ones to reveal the life of the white shark from birth to death in the North Atlantic. This is the best kind of science, and it’s exciting to be sharing these discoveries with our peers and the public. ”Follow the sharks through their migration cycles by accessing the near-real-time OCEARCH Tracker; https://www.ocearch.org/white-sharks-gather-in-northwest-atlantic-shared-foraging-area-off-southeast-coast-of-the-us/

Non-Navigable Waters Rule

New Mexico Fish and Game Acts on Non-Navigable Waters Rule

The New Mexico Fish and Game Commission (NMFGC) has voted to amend or repeal an agency rule allowing landowners to certify non-navigable waters as private property, subjecting anglers wading these waterways to a trespass statute. Days before the vote, the state Attorney General’s office (AG) issued its opinion that the commission can’t legally block the public from waterways that cross private property, as long as people don’t trespass across that property to reach the waterways. In 2015 (by a one vote margin) state legislators amended a trespass law, essentially barring the public from wading in streams that run through private property without written permission from the landowner.  Three months later the NMFGC called an “emergency meeting” to allow a hearing on the rule, which limited public comment to 10 days, rather than the 30 days set by the Legislature. In 2017 the Commission began allowing landowners to certify streambeds as “non-navigable,” and to fence, and declare the streambed as private property. Five certification applications have been issued by the Commission since adoption of the rule. One certification was issued to the Texas owner of the Rio Dulce Ranch in San Miguel County, privatizing a segment of the upper Pecos River. Another certification was issued to Chama Troutstalkers, owned by Dan Perry, and ended public access to a segment of that northern New Mexico river. Perry owns a ranch and outfitting business that offers fishing trips there for about $500 a day.  An organization he founded, the Habitat Conservation Initiative, spearheaded the effort to pass the 2015 change to state law.Zane Kiehne is also seeking certification for his Texas-based Z&T Cattle Company on the Mimbres River in the southwestern part of the state. Kiehne also gained certifications for waterways running through separate properties on the Alamosa and Penasco rivers. The bill’s supporters contend allowing public access to streams on private property could disturb riparian habitat improvements that landowners had invested in. Opponents say the law, and commission rule, are vague and unconstitutional, and that courts should decide whether streambeds are public. The New Mexico Wildlife Federation, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, New Mexico Avid Anglers, Dona Ana County Associated Sportsmen, Southwest Consolidated Sportsmen, Wild Turkey Sportsmen’s Association, River Reach Foundation, Adobe Whitewater Club, American Canoe Association, American Whitewater and the New Mexico River Outfitters Association are all seeking to overturn the law and game agency rule. The “non-navigable” clause maintains that as long as a river or creek is considered navigable under New Mexico state law the public can float and access it, but the NMFGC’s rule has effectively removed that right on non-navigable waters. Three Attorneys General have concurred that a 1945 New Mexico Supreme Court decision in “State Game Commission vs. Red River Cattle Co.” allows the public to utilize streams and streambeds where they run through private property, providing they don’t trespass onto private land from the stream. Jesse Deubel, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, said, “New Mexico anglers and sportsmen who rely on our public lands need a fair shake from the game department.” Attorney Marco Gonzales, who represents the landowners who had certified stretches of waterways, told the commission to let the issue be resolved by the Legislature and the courts. Last July, when the Commission issued a 90-day moratorium on the certifications, Perry told “The Santa Fe New Mexican” trespassers had damaged the area he had posted and killed many fish.“It’s really hard on the environment,” Perry said. “And it’s our private property, too.” “New Mexican families and landowners deserve access to our waterways,” said AG Hector Balderas. “I will be directing the commission to strengthen the process to protect private property rights and minimize trespass, while respecting access rights and outdoor activities of sports enthusiasts.” Gonzales said at a public heating recently, “This is an important constitutional issue about ownership of private property. New Mexico’s waters are public waters — you are able to float and fish, you just can’t wade, because of the streambed.” NMFGC Chairwoman Joanna Prukop said, “We were told by the state attorney that the rule was invalid, and our offices are subject to liability for enforcing it. We directed the department yesterday to enforce criminal trespass as they would on any other water in the state until we have resolved this rule. ”While the Commission did not set a timeline to produce a new plan, it could act on the directive at its January meeting in Las Cruces.—Etta Pettijohn

Shark Facts

12 Shark Facts That May Surprise You

From NOAA Fisheries from The Fishing Wire 1. Sharks do not have bones. Sharks use their gills to filter oxygen from the water. They are a special type of fish known “elasmobranch”, which translates into fish made of catilaginous tissues—the clear gristly stuff that your ears and nose tip are made of. This category also includes rays, sawfish, and skates. Their cartilaginous skeletons are much lighter than true bone and their large livers are full of low-density oils, both helping them to be buoyant. Even though sharks don’t have bones, they still can fossilize. As most sharks age, they deposit calcium salts in their skeletal cartilage to strengthen it. The dried jaws of a shark appear and feel heavy and solid; much like bone. These same minerals allow most shark skeletal systems to fossilize quite nicely. The teeth have enamel so they show up in the fossil record too.Scalloped hammerhead shark. 2. Most sharks have good eyesight. Most sharks can see well in dark lighted areas, have fantastic night vision, and can see colors. The back of sharks’ eyeballs have a reflective layer of tissue called a tapetum. This helps sharks see extremely well with little light.A night shark’s green eye.3. Sharks have special electroreceptor organs.Sharks have small black spots near the nose, eyes, and mouth. These spots are the ampullae of Lorenzini – special electroreceptor organs that allow the shark to sense electromagnetic fields and temperature shifts in the ocean.4. Shark skin feels similar to sandpaper.Shark skin feels exactly like sandpaper because it is made up of tiny teeth-like structures called placoid scales, also known as dermal denticles. These scales point towards the tail and help reduce friction from surrounding water when the shark swims.Sandbar shark skin. 5. Sharks can go into a trance.  When you flip a shark upside down they go into a trance like state called tonic immobility. This is the reason why you often see sawfish flipped over when our scientists are working on them in the water.Tagging smalltooth sawfish Florida Everglades6. Sharks have been around a very long time.Based on fossil scales found in Australia and the United States, scientists hypothesize sharks first appeared in the ocean around 455 million years ago.Grey reef shark. 7. Scientists age sharks by counting the rings on their vertebrae. Vertebrae contain concentric pairs of opaque and translucent bands. Band pairs are counted like rings on a tree and then scientists assign an age to the shark based on the count. Thus, if the vertebrae has 10 band pairs, it is assumed to be 10 years old. Recent studies, however, have shown that this assumption is not always correct. Researchers must therefore study each species and size class to determine how often the band pairs are deposited because the deposition rate may change over time. Determining the actual rate that the bands are deposited is called “validation”. 8. Blue sharks are really blue. The blue shark displays a brilliant blue color on the upper portion of its body and is normally snowy white beneath. The mako and porbeagle sharks also exhibit a blue coloration, but it is not nearly as brilliant as that of a blue shark. In life, most sharks are brown, olive, or grayish.Blue shark. 9. Each whale shark’s spot pattern is unique as a fingerprint.  Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the ocean. They can grow to 12.2 meters and weigh as much as 40 tons by some estimates! Basking sharks are the world’s second largest fish, growing as long as 32 feet and weighing more than five tons.Whale shark. 10. Some species of sharks have a spiracle that allows them to pull water into their respiratory system while at rest. Most sharks have to keep swimming to pump water over their gills.A shark’s spiracle is located just behind the eyes which supplies oxygen directly to the shark’s eyes and brain. Bottom dwelling sharks, like angel sharks and nurse sharks, use this extra respiratory organ to breathe while at rest on the seafloor. It is also used for respiration when the shark’s mouth is used for eating.Nurse shark. 11. Not all sharks have the same teeth. Mako sharks have very pointed teeth, while white sharks have triangular, serrated teeth. Each leave a unique, tell-tale mark on their prey. A sandbar shark will have around 35,000 teeth over the course of its lifetime! Shortfin mako shark.12. Different shark species reproduce in different ways. Sharks exhibit a great diversity in their reproductive modes. There are oviparous (egg-laying) species and viviparous (live-bearing) species. Oviparous species lay eggs that develop and hatch outside the mother’s body with no parental care after the eggs are laid.

Over-harvest Causing Walleye Decline

U. of Wisconsin Study Says Hidden Over-harvest Causing Walleye Declines

A new study by UW–Madison Center for Limnology graduate student Holly Embke shows that the state’s walleye fishery is being overharvested at a rate ten times higher than fishery managers anticipated. By Adam Hinterthuer, University of Wisconsin from The Fishing Wire A new study by UW–Madison Center for Limnology graduate student Holly Embke shows that the state’s walleye fishery is being overharvested at a rate ten times higher than fishery managers anticipated. Over the last few decades, walleye in Wisconsin have been on a downward trend. As lakes in the upper Midwest warm due to climate change, this cool-water species has found itself with less habitat in which to thrive. Add in factors like lakefront development and loss of shoreline habitat, and the iconic fishery isn’t what it used to be. Despite this decline, the fish remains as popular as ever with anglers. Though they are catching fewer individual fish than before, the percentage of walleye that state and tribal resource managers allow to be harvested each year has stayed about the same. Given the cultural and economic importance of this inland fishery, it’s time to reassess current regulations, says University of Wisconsin–Madison Center for Limnology graduate student, Holly Embke, lead author of a study published this week [Nov. 18, 2019] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It finds that “40 percent of walleye populations are overharvested, which is ten times higher than the estimates fisheries managers currently use,” she says. A big reason for this “hidden overharvest,” says Embke, is that, for the last 30 years, resource managers have focused on fish abundance and not fishery productivity when calculating harvest limits.In the late 1980s, after a U.S. District Court judge ruled that federal treaties gave Ojibwe tribes the right to hunt and fish in their former territories, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission were tasked with working together to set sustainable harvest limits on walleye for both recreational and tribal fisheries. These fisheries today consist of more than 1 million recreational anglers who account for about 90 percent of the total annual harvest on the state’s 900 “walleye lakes.” The other 10 percent comes from the 450 tribal members who spear walleye on roughly 175 lakes each spring.Using the best available science at the time, the agencies developed a management plan based on fish abundance. They used adult walleye population estimates to set regulations that ensured a maximum harvest amount of 35 percent of the adult walleye in any given lake. The average exploitation rate for walleye stocks is closer to 15 percent, so the agencies assumed these regulations were sufficiently conservative to be sustainable. These regulations “worked for a long time,” says co-author Steve Carpenter, director emeritus of the Center for Limnology, “and then they stopped working. Over the last couple of decades, there began to be walleye recruitment failures scattered around the state.”In these last few decades, annual walleye production in many of the state’s lakes has declined by 35 percent. On top of that decline, walleye stocks now take one and a half times longer to replenish themselves than they did in 1990. State fisheries managers responded by changing angler regulations to protect large female walleye, boosting walleye populations by stocking hatchery-raised fish in struggling lakes, and managing individual lakes according to their productive capacity, says Greg Sass, fisheries research team lead in the DNR’s Office of Applied Science. But these efforts didn’t reverse the broader walleye decline. So, Embke and her colleagues set out to better understand other factors fisheries managers might consider when setting harvest rules. By focusing on production, they hoped to get a clearer picture of how well populations withstand fishing pressure and continue to reproduce and grow.“We wanted to take a more nuanced approach and ask not only how many fish are in a lake but also consider how fast they’re growing, how big they are, and how many are produced every year,” she says. One way to think of it, Embke says, is in terms of a bank account. “Abundance tells you the money in the bank while production tells you the interest rate,” she says.In other words, if you start taking more money out of your account than the interest rate contributes each year, your savings shrink. Do this several years in a row, and those annual withdrawals begin to have an outsized impact on what little money is left in the bank. Using data that state and tribal researchers had already collected, Embke and her colleagues calculated how walleye biomass had changed over a 28-year period in 179 lakes. Measuring biomass is akin to throwing all of the walleye in a lake on a scale and recording the overall weight. Production is a reading of how much biomass grows each year, an indication of a population’s ability to replenish its losses. By comparing walleye production to the total fishery harvest in these study lakes, they found that overharvest is ten times higher than the 4 percent estimates generated when fisheries managers consider abundance alone.What’s more, Embke says, the study found great variation in walleye production from lake to lake. Some lakes remain walleye strongholds and can handle current fishing pressures, while others can’t sustain even current average harvest rates of 15 to 20 percent, much less the 35 percent harvest benchmark. By considering production, fisheries managers may be better equipped to set limits for individual lakes. These results, the researchers write, “highlight the urgent need for improved governance, assessment, and regulation of recreational fisheries in the face of rapid environmental change.”“Nature has changed,” says Carpenter. “The climate now is different from what it was in the 1980s and it’s not going back. That means habitat is decreasing and, on average, walleye stocks can’t take the harvest levels they have seen. ”The good news, he says, is that the data fisheries managers already collect can be plugged in to Embke’s method for estimating production and help chart a way forward. By better understanding the resilience of Wisconsin walleye populations and by acknowledging the role that anglers play in reducing stocks, the future of this iconic fishery just may have a fighting chance.

Tagging Bonefish

Bonefish Tagging in the Florida Keys with Bonefish & Tarpon Trust

By Nick Roberts, BTT from The Fishing Wire A subtle, V-shaped wake appeared on a sun-drenched flat near Big Pine Key. As it approached the skiff, poled by Dr. Ross Boucek, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust’s Florida Keys Initiative Manager, its source was revealed: a pair of bonefish foraging on crustaceans hiding in the sand and seagrass. When the ghostly silhouettes came within range, I cast a couple feet ahead of them. One of the fish tracked the spawning shrimp fly and suddenly pounced. I set the hook and the gray blur tore across the flat, peeling line from my reel as it headed for deeper water. Within seconds, I was down to my backing. The pressure to land the bonefish was much greater than usual; a pulled hook would mean losing not only a prized catch, but the opportunity for Dr. Boucek to tag the fish and collect important tracking data.Anglers from around the world have pursued bonefish in the Florida Keys, the birthplace of saltwater fly-fishing, since the 1940s and ‘50s, when legends like Joe Brooks and Ted Williams pioneered the sport in the now hallowed waters of Islamorada and Florida Bay. In the sport’s early years and through its glory days of the 1960s to the mid-1980s, the Keys’ bonefish population seemed as boundless as the pristine flats and mangrove shorelines the fish inhabited. But in the late ‘80s, the population began to decline, prompting a group of concerned anglers to found Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT), a science-based nonprofit organization, in 1998. Not only did BTT seek to determine the causes of the decline, it endeavored to fill in critical knowledge gaps; at that time, only a handful of research studies on bonefish existed, leaving many basic questions to be answered. Since its founding, BTT has directed research on the life cycle of bonefish, their habitat use, movement patterns, and spawning behavior, and worked with the state of Florida to protect the species under catch-and-release regulations. BTT has also uncovered a number of causes of the decline, including: reduced water quality throughout the Everglades, Florida Bay, and the Florida Keys; habitat destruction (the number of Keys flats classified as “severely degraded” due to propeller scarring has increased 90% in the last 20 years); poor fish handling practices; and diminished numbers of bonefish larvae coming from spawning at “upstream” locations, such as Belize, Mexico, and southwest Cuba. Reduced spawning and reproduction within the severely reduced Keys’ bonefish population has also played a major role in the decline, and the record cold snap in January 2010 likely killed a substantial number of fish. Dr. Boucek and Nick in search of bonefish in the Lower Keys.Yet there is good reason to be hopeful. Over the past few years, the population has begun to rebound, with guides and anglers reporting increasing numbers of sightings and catches.”There are a lot of bonefish around in three different sizes, all born a year apart from one another,” said Dr. Boucek. “Starting in 2014, a new wave of babies came in, followed by two more new generations in 2015 and 2016. The size classes are approximately 15 to 18 inches (2016 fish), 18 to 20 inches (2015 fish), and 22 to 25 inches (2014 fish). ”Although these new fish are encouraging, we don’t know where they came from, why they are doing so well after years of decline, or if more new fish will continue to enter the Keys population. So it is still critically important that we understand and address the causes of the historic decline, to ensure that a similar downturn does not occur in the future.“The Keys went about 20 years without a good new generation of bonefish coming into the population,” said Dr. Boucek. “That’s a sign of stress on the habitats and the fishery. When habitat gets degraded, fish reproduction is impacted, juvenile fish struggle to survive, and adults don’t grow as fast. And new generations of fish become fewer and farther between. ”Dr. Ross Boucek poles a flat.Among the most important habitats to protect are bonefish spawning sites. If bonefish cannot reproduce successfully, there will be no fishery. From its work in the Bahamas, BTT knows how bonefish reproduce. During full and new moon cycles from fall through early spring, fish from as far away as 70 miles instinctively gather at nearshore sites, where they prepare to spawn by porpoising at the surface and gulping air to fill their swim bladders. At night, they go offshore and dive hundreds of feet before surging back up to the surface. The sudden change in pressure makes their swim bladders expand, causing them to release their eggs and sperm. After fertilization takes places, the hatched larvae drift in the ocean’s currents for over a month before settling in shallow sand- or mud-bottom bays, where they develop into juvenile bonefish.With the help of guides and partners, BTT has identified spawning sites in the Bahamas and along the Belize-Mexico border, yet the locations of the spawning sites in the Florida Keys remain a mystery, one that must be solved if we are to ensure the future health of the Keys’ bonefish fishery and help it reclaim its former glory.“There are a couple possible reasons that might explain the lack of known spawning sites in the Keys,” said Dr. Boucek. “First, nobody knew what bonefish spawning sites looked like until we discovered one in the Bahamas in 2011. Maybe by then the size of the spawning school in the Keys had shrunk to the point that it wasn’t noticeable to us. Or maybe the size of the Keys population became so small that the fish completely stopped spawning for a period of time. Fish won’t spawn if there aren’t a critical number of spawning fish.”Over the past couple years, several Keys guides have reported seeing schools of bonefish in nearshore waters. Now, Dr. Boucek is counting on the fish he tags to lead him to their spawning sites.As soon as I land the bonefish, Dr. Boucek places it in a submerged inflatable pen. While I hold the fish upside down in the water to keep it calm, he makes an incision in its abdomen. Right away, he notices that the fish is female—ovaries are evident and filled with developing eggs. He inserts a small acoustic transmitter into the abdominal cavity and skillfully stiches the incision closed. The transmitter emits an ultrasonic ping with a unique ID code every couple of minutes. Whenever this tagged bonefish swims past one of the several thousand acoustic receivers, belonging to BTT and other research groups, moored to the ocean floor throughout the Keys, the receiver records the date and time of the transmitter’s ping. The tracking data will allow Dr. Boucek to chart the fish’s habitat use and, hopefully, locate its spawning site this winter.With the Nick’s assistance, Dr. Boucek (right) tags a bonefish with an acoustic transmitter.An acoustic transmitter.I release the bonefish and we watch as it glides away across the flat and vanishes into the glare.Dr. Boucek (left) and Nick celebrate the successful tagging of a Florida Keys bonefish.   Nick Roberts is the Director of Marketing & Communications at Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (www.BTT.org) and the editor of the Bonefish & Tarpon Journal. All photos by: Ian Wilson Learn more about the work of Bonefish & Tarpon Trust at www.bonefishtarpontrust.org.