Floridas Marine FisheriesIndependent Monitoring Program: How we got where we are and where we are go

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Floridas Marine Fisheries-Independent Monitoring
ProgramHow we got where we are and where we are
going
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
(FWC) Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI)
Saltwater Recreational Fishing License
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FIM - Mission Statement

• To provide timely, accurate, and consistent
  fisheries-independent data and analysis to
  fisheries managers for the conservation and
  protection of Floridas fisheries.

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FIM Program Objectives

• Detect changes in relative abundance of fishes
  and select macroinvertebrates through time
• Develop young-of-the-year and fishery recruitment
  indices
• Detect changes in size/age structure of fish
  populations
• Define habitat utilization (EFH)
• Describe biodiversity, biotic communities, and
  change in Floridas estuarine systems

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FIM program philosophy

• Holistic approach
• Stratified-random Design
• Multi-species
• Multi-habitat
• Multi-gear
• Targeted species
• Trammel nets
• Hook and Line
• Electro-fishing
• Broad size range sampled
• Juveniles
• Subadults
• Adults
• Standardized procedures
• Extensive QA/QC

• Fish released alive, except for
• Representative samples
• Unidentified samples
• Research samples
• Timely
• Team approach
• Cross training
• Only 8 samples missed in 17 years (78,259 total
  samples collected)
• Publishing
• Extensive networking with other programs
• Cooperative work with projects both internal and
  external to FWC
• Funding opportunities
• more bang for the buck

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Marine Fisheries Research at FWC
Fisheries- Dependent Monitoring
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Program History

• 1986 Florida's FIM program initiated with a
  special legislative appropriation (400k) to
  assess status of red drum in Tampa Bay
• gear testing
• sampling design and methodology
• developed holistic approach
• define habitats and quantify
• 1987 FIM program awarded a continuing Federal
  Sportfish Restoration grant
• initiated monthly sampling at fixed stations
• 1989
• State Recreational Saltwater fishing license
  implemented with portion of revenue directed to
  fund Floridas FIM program
• began multi-species sampling in Tampa Bay and
  Charlotte Harbor
• initiated seasonal (spring and fall)
  stratified-random sampling
• continued monthly sampling at fixed stations
• sample design emphasized juvenile life stages

• 1985 perceived dramatic stock reductions in
  Sciaenops ocellatus (red drum)
• 1986 in November, an emergency moratorium on
  both commercial and recreational red drum
  fisheries along Atlantic and Gulf coasts was
  enacted
• 1989 fishery re-opened with
• strict size limits
• strict bag limits
• no sale provision
• closed season (March, April, and May)
• this restriction was removed in 1996

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Program History

• 1989 1996 expanded to additional estuaries
• Northern Indian River Lagoon
• Choctawhatchee Bay Santa Rosa Sound
• Cedar Key
• 1996 Modified sampling design to address
  state-wide ban on entangling nets and in response
  to AFS program review
• initiated monthly stratified-random sampling
• omitted fixed station sampling
• incorporated gears for sampling subadult/adult
  fishes

• 1997 2005 continued to expand to additional
  estuaries throughout the state
• Apalachicola Bay
• Southern Indian River Lagoon
• Florida Keys
• Northeast Florida
• 1997 2005 awarded funding to support numerous
  supplemental studies

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FIM program Field Labs
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Habitats
Seagrass
Mangrove
Salt marsh
Unvegetated shoreline
Seawall
Tidal tributary
Coral Reef
Spoil Island/Oyster Reef
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Research vessel - mullet skiff
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Gears and samples small nekton
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Gears and samples large nekton
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Tampa Bay sites for 2005 Regular and
Supplemental SRS
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Examples of FIM program products
Red Drum (Sciaenops ocellatus)
Spotted Seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus)
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MDS plot, 21.3-m data
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Associated Projects

• Age and growth
• provide fishery managers with fishery-independent
  estimates of the age structure of resource
  species within Floridas estuaries
• state-wide since programs inception

• Reproductive studies
• provide fishery managers with fishery-independent
  assessment of age at maturity, reproductive
  strategies, and fecundity of resource species
  within Floridas estuaries
• state-wide since programs inception

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Associated Projects

• Fish Health
• provide fishery managers with baseline data on
  fish health and near instantaneous data during
  fish health events
• state-wide since 1997

• Mercury Concentrations
• provide Department of Health with species and
  area-specific trends in mercury concentrations in
  fish flesh
• state-wide since 1995

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Associated Projects

• Diet studies
• basic input for biomass models
• preliminary work in 1992/1993
• re-initiated in 2005

• Length-weight
• field recordings of numbers and lengths need to
  be converted to biomass for modeling

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Event Sampling

• Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB)
• Hypoxia/Anoxia events
• Oil spills
• Acidic water spills
• Cold kills
• Fish Health events
• Pre- and Post-muck dredging
• Post hurricane

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Supplemental Projects

• Baitfish survey
• provide fishery managers with annual updates on
  the distribution and abundance of baitfish stocks
  in waters along the Central West Coast of
  Florida.
• since 1994
• trawl and hydro-acoustic surveys

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Supplemental Projects

• Hatchery monitoring and assessment
• determine optimal SIZE-AT-RELEASE, LOCATION, and
  SEASON for stocking red drum in Tampa Bay
• multi-gear stratified random (SRS) and directed
  sampling designs were used to monitor hatchery
  and wild red drum in the Alafia and Little
  Manatee rivers and adjacent Tampa Bay waters
• over 2,278 hatchery-reared red drum have been
  recaptured, most within 10 weeks of release.
  Approximately 359 of these recaptures have
  contained CWT tags, others were identified using
  genetics

• Tagging
• monitor movements and habitat use
• Hallprint dart tags in Tampa Bay
• acoustic tags with receiver network in Charlotte
  Harbor

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Supplemental Projects

• Catch Release Mortality
• provide fisheries managers with an accurate
  estimate the short-term mortality rate due to the
  release of recreationally captured species

• Marine Protected Areas (MPA)
• compare abundance and size structure between
  defacto MPAs (military or aerospace limits on
  access) and similar, unprotected areas

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Supplemental Projects
Pterygoplichthys spp. sailfin catfish

• Dredge Hole Assessment
• assess faunal composition and angler utilization
  of dredge holes to assess benefits/detriments of
  re-filling

• Exotic species
• monitor abundance distribution, and expansion of
  range

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Supplemental Projects

• Minimum Flows and Levels Water Withdrawal
  permits
• assess the impact of freshwater inflow upon the
  abundance and distribution of species and
  communities within major tidal tributaries
• assess the impacts of permitted freshwater
  withdrawals

• Tidal Tributaries
• smaller, tidal tributaries are under-sampled or
  missed entirely by current FIM sampling design
• smaller, tidal tributaries are easily overlooked
  and are often subject to intense development
• the importance of these habitats and their
  relative contributions to fish stocks needs to be
  established

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Supplemental Projects

• Electro-fishing
• document use of freshwater habitats by estuarine
  species
• elucidate seasonal patterns in habitat use

• Sawfish
• FIM gears and techniques adapted to assess
  distribution and abundance of endangered small
  tooth sawfish in Charlotte Harbor
• sawfish are acoustically tagged and tracked using
  a passive network of receiver stations
• 22 fish captured, tagged and released in 209
  samples

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Supplemental Projects

• Ecosystem Management
• ecosystem-based management is not about managing
  or manipulating ecosystem processes.
• ecosystem based management is concerned with
  ensuring that fishery management decisions do not
  adversely affect the ecosystem function and
  productivity, so that harvesting of target stocks
  (and resultant economic benefits) is sustainable
  in the long-term.
• traditional systems of management, which have
  tended to focus on individual stocks or species,
  have not achieved this objective and the economic
  activity that the ecosystem supports has been
  compromised

• Ecopath with Ecosim
• the Ecopath software package which includes
  time-dynamic (Ecosim) and spatial simulation
  (Ecospace) sub-models can be used to study
  fisheries resources in an ecosystem context, for
  overall ecosystem analysis, and for exploring
  management policy options.

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Data needs rise as model complexity increases
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FIM program future expansions
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Research Submersible
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FIMs Budget for 2005
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Other Input for Ecopath Models

• For up to 50 groups
• Assimilation rate
• Diet compositions
• Immigration rate
• Emigration rate
• Biomass accumulation rate
• Detritus fate

• For up to 10 fleets
• Landings
• Discards
• Discard fate
• Fixed cost of fishing
• Variable cost
• Market price by fleet and group
• Non-market value