B_&_T_J_2015_

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We have come a long way since the first days of Project Permit.
Thanks to this program permit have received improved
protections in Florida. The Florida Keys is now a Special Permit
Zone, where the spawning season is closed to recreational
harvest, recreational harvest limits are now reasonable, and
there is no commercial fishing is allowed.

One of the main goals of Project Permit is to determine whether

the spatial scale of conservation is appropriate for management

of the permit fishery at hand. For example, in Florida, is the

Special Permit Zone appropriate for protecting the flats fishery in

the Keys? Is the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico large

enough to protect its famous permit population? Where should

habitat conservation efforts be targeted in Belize?

Since 2010 BTT has been working with fishing guides and

anglers in a tag-recapture approach to estimate the movement of

permit. In Florida more than 1,000 permit have been tagged, but

only 16 have been reported recaptured. The recaptures show

two modes of movement: first, most (13) recaptures occurred

within the same region as tagging. Interestingly a second

observation found that three permit were recaptured more than

20 miles from the tagging location, suggesting permit do indeed

undergo long-distance movements. Were these movements

associated with spawning or just normal movements? The jury is

still out on whether the Special Permit Zone is large enough to

protect the Keys flats fishery.

In Mexico, more than 300 permit have been tagged and six have

been recaptured, all close to the tagging location. But the

studied fishery occurs in a relatively small portion of Ascension

Bay, so the question remains—are permit also traveling longer

distances and just not being caught? Work is ongoing to figure

this out by educating fishermen who fish outside of the protected

zone to report any tagged permit they recapture.

Dr. Zack Jud prepares a permit satellite tag. Photo by Dan Dow.

Photo by Pat Ford

Costa’s

Project

Permit

Update and

Moving Forward

DR. AARON J. ADAMS

is Director of Operations for Bonefish & Tarpon Trust