White Paper: Red Hinds (Epinephelus guttatus): changing the grouper ACL in St. Thomas? Caribbean Fishery Management Council 151 st Meeting, ST. Thomas, USVI December

Why is the white paper being prepared? Upon request of the Council at its 150 th meeting, staff was directed to write a white paper on establishing a separate annual catch limit (ACL) for the red hind.

Table 1: Grouper Units managed by the CFMC Serranidae--Sea basses and Grouper Scientific Name Regulation in USVI EEZ/Territorial Grouper Unit 1 Nassau GrouperEpinephelus striatusClosed Fishery/Territorial Grouper Unit 2 Goliath grouperEpinephelus itajaraClosed Fishery/Territorial Grouper Unit 3 Red hindEpinephelus guttatusMCD Hind Bank No-Take Coney (butterfish)Epinephelus fulvus Rock hindEpinephelus adscensionis GraysbyEpinephelus cruentatus Grouper Unit 4 Red grouperEpinephelus morioClosed Feb 1- Apr 30/T Black grouperMycteroperca bonaciClosed Feb 1- Apr 30/T Tiger grouperMycteroperca tigrisClosed Feb 1- Apr 30/T Yellowfin grouperMycteroperca venenosaClosed Feb 1- Apr 30/T Grouper Unit 5 Misty grouperEpinephelus mystacinus Yellowedge grouperEpinephelus flavolimbatusClosed Feb 1- Apr 30/T

Table 2: Grouper ACLs in the US Caribbean St. Thomas/St. JohnSt. Croix Puerto Rico (C) Puerto Rico (R) Groupers51,84930,435177,51377,213

Figure 3: Commercial grouper and red hind landings for St. Thomas/St. John

Figure 4: Number of trips reporting grouper landings and red hind landings for

Table 3: Reported grouper species and other selected species in the St. Thomas catch records of (landings in pounds) species reported2012 landings2013 landingsmean landings LOBSTERS, SPINY83,15784,23383,695 TRIGGERFISH, QUEEN44,83543,76244,299 HIND, RED34,832 (84%)34,415 (88%)34,623 LIONFISHES3,2174,6473,932 CONEY4,2572,9143,585 GROUPER, YELLOWFIN1,4991,0471,273 GROUPER, YELLOWMOUTH GRAYSBY GROUPER, MISTY GROUPER, RED GROUPERS95148 YELLOWEDGE GROUPER67033 GROUPER, TIGER41021

Summary of available TIP length frequency data for St. Thomas/St. Jon. All records in the TIP database have been included in this summary. Records attributed to multiple gears, for example will have to be evaluated on a species by species basis.– SEDAR Caribbean Data Species NamesTotal Number # Of Years # Of Years with 50+ First Year 50+ Last Year 50+ # Measure d since 2002 Grouper Unit 1 Nassau Grouper Grouper Unit 2 Goliath grouper Grouper Unit 3 Red hind Coney (butterfish) Rock hind Graysby Grouper Unit 4 Red grouper Black grouper 11 Tiger grouper 635 Yellowfin grouper Grouper Unit 5 Misty grouper Yellowedge grouper 32 Other Groupers Groupers and Sea Basses, Serra 24 2 Groupers, Mycteroperca 1 1 Yellowmouth Grouper436 10

Questions/Issues Can an ACL be established for red hind with 2 years of species-specific data for St. Thomas? Will all other groupers still be in a grouper ACL? These groupers would represent less than 20% of the total grouper landings in What other data can be used to support these decisions? – US Caribbean Fisheries Independent Index Workshop – Report pending – SEAMAP-Caribbean USVI data – “gold copy of data” pending Given the commercial license moratorium, has effort decreased? Given the regulations in place, specifically the 2” mesh size of traps how has size of red hind been impacted? Considering the regulations in place and given that red hind change sex, are the larger (male) fish being removed preferentially from the population? What impact would a biased sex ratio have in the spawning population? How can all the management measure in place be evaluated to determine the impacts on the grouper population? [SEDAR 35 Management Strategy Evaluation.] Research priorities listed in the SEDAR 35 Report are being addressed by the SSC

Other questions?