Analysis of Commercial Parrotfish Landings in the U.S. Caribbean Southeast Regional Office St. Petersburg, Florida

Parrotfish Herbivorous grazers removing algae which enhances settlement and survival of coral recruits (Brock 1979; Mumby 2006; Burkepile and Hay 2010). Ecological role of parrotfish has become more relevant in the past 30 years due to Caribbean-wide decline of longspine urchin (Mumby 2006).

U.S. Caribbean Parrotfish Regulations Caribbean Fishery Management Council (EEZ) Prohibition of Gill and Trammel Nets November 2005 Prohibition of Blue, Midnight, and In process Rainbow parrotfish USVI State Waters Prohibition of Gill and Trammel Nets July 2006

Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act of 2006 set Annual Catch Limits (ACL) Parrotfish ACLs were calculated from the average landings generated from year sequences chosen by the Council Puerto Rico ACL similar to recent reported parrotfish landings St. Thomas/St. John ACL similar to recent reported parrotfish landings St. Croix ACL is 40% lower than average of recent reported parrotfish landings (2006-2008)

Parrotfish Regulations Objective Future parrotfish landings will be at or below ACL levels Satisfy fishermen’s demands (i.e. ability to harvest “plate” sized parrotfish) Maintain reproductive viability of the stock

Parrotfish Landings by Island Data: Commercial Catch Records

Parrotfish Landings by Gear Type Data: Commercial Catch Records for all 3 islands.

Percentage of TIP records by parrotfish species for each island Numbers in parenthesize are sample size Data: Trip Interview Program Years of Data St. Croix 2008-2010 St. Thomas 2008-2010 Puerto Rico 2006-2008

Parrotfish are protogynous hermaphrodites (female to male) Boxplot: Horizontal line is the median, bottom and top of the box shows the 25th and 75th percentiles (also called first and third quartiles, essentially the location of 50% of the data). The whiskers represent 2 standard deviations of the data. Points beyond the whiskers are outliers. Redtail parrotfish: nearest available data is Puerto Rico (Figuerola et al. 1998). This paper only gave length of first maturity (9 inches FL) and did not give the sex. Stoplight parrotfish: nearest available was Turks and Caicos from Koltes 1993. Redfin parrotfish and redband parrotfish information came from the Virgin Islands (Randall 1963). This does not make sense because the males reach maturity at a smaller size then the females. I don’t have a copy of the reference. No maturity information available for Princess, Queen, and Redband parrotfish. Data: Trip Interview Program Years of Data St. Croix 2008-2010 St. Thomas 2008-2010 Puerto Rico 2006-2008 Parrotfish are protogynous hermaphrodites (female to male)

Size Limit Analysis Example Imposed Minimum Size Limit of 11 inches Removes 19% of landings i.e. % Reduction = 19%

Percent reduction for each slot limit Size Limit Results Data: St. Croix TIP data for years 2008 to 2010 n is numbers of parrotfish, % RED is percent reduction Potential percent reductions are highlighted in green, extreme reductions are highlighted in yellow Size Limit Minimum size Maximum Size (inches FL) N % RED n No Limit 5,496 100 8 34 0.6 5,462 99.4 9 367 6.7 5,129 93.3 10 1,068 19.4 4,428 80.6 11 2,416 44.0 3,080 56.0 12 4,077 74.2 1,419 25.8 13 5,036 91.6 460 8.4 14 5,336 97.1 160 2.9 15 5,430 98.8 66 1.2 Percent reduction for each slot limit

Trip Limit Results for St. Croix Data: landings data for 2007 and 2008 Potential percent reductions are highlighted in green, extreme reductions are highlighted in yellow Trip Limits Landings Percent (lbs)  Reduction (lbs) Reduction No Harvest 774,888 100 10 683,642 88.2 20 605,061 78.1 30 539,252 69.6 40 481,995 62.2 50 432,122 55.8 60 389,105 50.2 70 352,679 45.5 80 321,243 41.5 90 293,794 37.9 269,497 34.8 150 194,548 25.1 200 140,658 18.2 300 59,483 7.7 400 16,845 2.2 500 7,985 1.0 Toller (2007) determined a cut-off threshold of 162.5 pounds to separate net-scuba from scuba-only landings.

St. Croix percent reduction of landings from a combination of slot limits and trip limits

Caveats Assuming previous year’s landings are a reasonable predictor of future landings trends Trip limit reductions do not account for shifts in fishing effort or other behavior changes.

Regulation Impacts Minimum size limit: potentially allows fish to spawn before being harvested, but allows harvest of larger more fecund fish. Maximum Size Limit: protects larger more fecund fish, but allows harvest of smaller and possibly immature fish. Slot Limit: potentially protects both small immature and large fecund fish Bag limit: Can reduce illegal netting if set below 162 pounds. Also, contributes to landings reductions and allows more liberal slot limit