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

2. 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).

3. 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

4. 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 ( )

5. 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

6. Parrotfish Landings by Island
Data: Commercial Catch Records

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

8. 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
St. Thomas
Puerto Rico

9. 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
St. Thomas
Puerto Rico
Parrotfish are protogynous hermaphrodites (female to male)

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

11. 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

12. 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 pounds to separate net-scuba from scuba-only landings.

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

14. 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.

15. 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