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Status and Trends 2007 - Introduction

This article is an introduction to "Florida’s Inshore and Nearshore Species: 2007 Status and Trends Report."

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This is the thirteenth year that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute Stock Assessment Group has produced the Status and Trends Report. This year’s report summarizes available commercial and recreational landings, fishing effort, fishery catch rates, and fishery-independent sampling effort, and young-of-the-year and post-young-of-the-year abundance indices for 136 species or groups during the calendar years 1997–2006. The condition of these species or groups was determined using information from recent stock assessments, when available. Otherwise, the condition was assessed using available commercial landings rates, recreational total-catch rates, and fishery-independent abundance indices. The status determination and supporting trend-analyses reported here are designed to highlight potential areas of concern about recent substantial changes in Florida’s diverse marine fisheries.

The ascribed conditions and trends reported here are not intended to replace stock assessments. Stock assessments entail in-depth analyses where the population dynamics of a particular species are thoroughly investigated using available biological, ecological, and fisheries data.

Summaries of the available data on life history, ecology, fishery characteristics, fish health, and recent stock assessments are provided for six important species or species groups of special interest to Florida’s fisheries managers: blue crab, red drum, stone crab, Caribbean spiny lobster, common snook, and spotted seatrout. During alternate years, we update ‘species accounts’ for an additional 42 species of species groups. Most species or groups on the Atlantic coast in 2005 were judged stable (86 species or groups). Three were increasing, two were decreasing, and 45 were too rarely caught to determine their status. Similarly on the gulf coast, most of the species or groups were stable (94), fourteen were increasing, four were decreasing, and twenty-two were too rarely caught to determine their status. Valid data for two species were assumed to be available only from the waters along Florida’s Atlantic coast: weakfish and American shad.

Compared to last year’s report, the numbers of stable or increasing groups this year were higher on the Atlantic coast (two more) and one less on the gulf coast. Although the species or groups changed, the numbers in the three stock trend categories (decreasing, stable, or increasing) remained similar to the numbers from last year. Some species or groups that were judged either increasing or decreasing last year moved into the stable category this year (four on the Atlantic coast and nine on the gulf coast).

Only weakfish on the Atlantic coast and gag grouper on the gulf coast have shown consecutive ‘decreasing’ status the last two years. Assessments for both of these species find that they are at historically low levels of abundance. Several Marine Life groups (shrimp, crabs, gobies, and filefish) have persisted recently in the ‘increasing’ category. Also, the gulf coast shellfish species, white shrimp, pink shrimp, brown shrimp, and blue crab, have shown consecutive ‘increasing’ stock trends over the last two years.