Tarpon Week would not be complete without discussing the conservation concerns surrounding the silver kings. GoFISHn's Brian McClintock talked with Aaron Adams, Ph.D., director of operations for the Bonefish&Tarpon
Trust and manager of
the fisheries habitat ecology program for Mote Marine
Laboratory about the biggest problems that Tarpon face, what BTT is doing to help conserve the species, and what you can do to help.
GoFISHn: What are the biggest conservation concerns facing Tarpon today?
Aaron Adams: Well, the big picture is that there just is really a lack of information out there. It’s 2010 and there’s a lot we don’t know about Tarpon. We don’t know where they spawn. We know their general migratory patterns (that they are inter-state and international migrators, for example) but don’t yet know a lot of the specifics.
We know that juvenile Tarpon rely heavily on backwater and mangrove habitat, but we don’t know where the most important juvenile habitats are located.
We don’t know the full economic value of the Tarpon fishery.
There are too many things that we don’t know, and it’s tough to develop a complete conservation management plan for Tarpon without this information.
On a more specific level, habitat loss is a very serious concern. The mangrove wetlands that juvenile Tarpon use are disappearing. Juvenile Tarpon need this habitat to support a population that future generations of angler can then fish for.
The poor water quality and diversions of freshwater in the Everglades are impacting Tarpon populations as well.
Water quality in open water is also a problem. Declining water quality has the potential to influence Tarpon behavior, and now all the oil and dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico are a serious concern. We don’t know how it will impact Tarpon migrations, spawning, or larvae, but that’s a current problem Tarpon are facing.
There’s also a lack of regulations out there surrounding Tarpon. You can still harvest Tarpon in some locations,Mexico and Central and South America, for example. In the US, Louisiana is an example of a state that does not have any regulations on tarpon fishing, and people are definitely harvesting Tarpon in those waters.
Generally, there has been a lack of attention paid to the Tarpon fishery and their habitat by resource managers, and that is what BTT is trying to fix.
GFN: How is Bonefish and Tarpon Trust working to overcome these issues?
AA: One thing we’re doing is determining habitat hotspots for juvenile Tarpon. We are funding research to create a map of juvenile Tarpon habitats in Florida. Once we determine where the hotspots are, we will work to protect the most important areas.
For adult Tarpon, we’re funding research on satellite tagging to determine migration patterns to study where Tarpon are going in the summer, winter, and fall. This will be important to formulating a regional management plan. One thing that we are seeing with the tagging is that it appears as though the Tarpon in the Gulf of Mexico and southeast United States are all one big population. There’s some older genetic testing that suggests this as well.
We’ve supported tagging in Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, throughout the southeast United States, and the Caribbean. Recently, our collaborating scientists tagged 10 or so in the Everglades, five in Charlotte Harbor, and in Belize. Tagging is planned for South Carolina in September, and more tagging is planned for Belize.
We’re hoping to collect enough data that we can establish movement patterns and population connections. We also want to determine where they spawn. All indications are that they spawn off shore, but we don’t know if it’s scattered or if spawning takes place at specific locations. If they do spawn at specific locations, we can try to protect those areas, keep the habitat unchanged, and the fish from being targeted.
We’re studying catch and release effects on Tarpon, and we’re working with the state of Florida on their Tarpon research.
We also just funded a study, in conjunction with the Everglades Foundation, on the economics of the Bonefish, Tarpon, and permit fisheries in the Florida Everglades. We found that in the Everglades alone, Tarpon was part of a saltwater fishery worth more than $800 million-a-year.
GFN: So what is the current state of the Tarpon population?
AA: That’s something that is hard to even comment on. Almost all species that have good information are because there is a commercial value on the species. Tarpon, Bonefish, and permit are strictly recreational.
So, there’s no historical data. None. No one collected data on Tarpon until around 2000. We rely on anecdotal reports from people who have been fishing for 30, 40, 50 years.
We know that Port Aransas, Texas was arguably the capital of tarpon fishing in the mid-1900s, and that vanished in the 1960s and 70s. We don’t really know why. We know there were a lot of big fish killed in Texas, but that also occurred elsewhere before the catch and release ethic took hold. The freshwater flows from Texas into the Gulf are all but gone now. That’s when offshore drilling started. All of these could be factors.
The folks around Boca Grande who have been fishing there for 30 years or more have said that they see fewer fish, but that could be from pressure or a number of other reasons.
It’s tough to know what the populations are with no historical information. When you assess a fishery, you usually do it on commercial catch. It’s hard to do it with a catch-and-release fishery, like Tarpon.
We’re working on starting a logbook program that anglers could provide details about their catches that we could then use to develop a database.
The other hard thing is that a Tarpon isn’t mature until it’s 10 years old, so there is a long delay between loss of juvenile habitat and declines in the adult portion of the population.
GFN: So what can Tarpon anglers do to help conserve this species?
AA: Well, catch and release handling is very important.
Keep the fish in the water. Lifting it up by its lower jaw can cause damage down the road. Lifting a Tarpon under the gill plates is even worse. That’s really bad news and greatly increases mortality.
If you’re using bait use circle hooks. There are actually some guys starting to use circle hooks for their flies too, me included. Or debarb your hooks, which, if the Tarpon breaks off, it increases its odds to shed the hook.
If you’re fishing in an area that has a lot of sharks, move. Big predators greatly reduce a survival rate. They prey on the weak fish. For example, if Bonefish are handled and released properly, they have a nearly 100 percent survival rate. Release them in an area with a lot of predators, and that drops to 60 percent. Early research suggest similar implications for Tarpon.
Keep our fight time short. The shorter the fight, the shorter the recovery period.
Practice responsible boating and fishing behavior. Don’t buzz your boat over Tarpon or disrupt them by being careless. That changes their behavior.
Joining the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust would be a huge help. A lot of what we do is made possible by memberships and individual donations. Joining the BTT shows that you’re committed to the long-term health of the species and the habitat.
Unfortunately the grouper and snapper fisheries have crashed, and they are examples of reactive fisheries management is reactive. We’re being proactive.
Chico Fernandez said it best. The days of going fishing, having a good time, and going home are over. We have to be active and involved in conserving these resources. Recreational anglers are the ones who will benefit the most from getting out there and making a positive difference. Just the dues from being a BTT member are a big help. We have other sponsorship opportunities, too, like purchasing
a satellite tag. They are very expensive, but very valuable, and then you’re directly involved with our research.
The biggest thing I tell people is that we have to start letting our political representatives know that we need them to pay attention to this recreational resource. In corporate America, it’s typical for 20 percent of a company’s value to be devoted to research. Our estimations of the value of the Tarpon fishery from Virginia to Texas is about $6 billion a year. The Bonefish and Tarpon Trust budget for Tarpon is around $150,000 a year. It’s nowhere close to where it needs to be.
If we’re going to make sure we have this fishery, we need to make sure it’s a top priority.
For more information on BTT's Tarpon work, click here.
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