Document Type
Article
Abstract
Subadult (age < 3) Red Drum Sciaenops ocellatus support a valuable recreational fishery, and mortality estimates for young Red Drum are needed for proper management. To obtain these estimates, age-1 and age-2 Red Drum were implanted with acoustic transmitters and external Floy tags in two coastal Alabama rivers (Fowl and Dog rivers). Fates of tagged fish were inferred from stationary receiver detections and active relocations over 1 year. These fates were used in a Bayesian multistate model to estimate instantaneous monthly and annual mortality and emigration rates for each river and overall from both rivers. Instantaneous monthly fishing mortality (F) ranged from 0.001 to 0.112 (annual F = 0.414) in Dog River, from 0.001 to 0.126 in Fowl River (annual F = 0.309), and was 0.001–0.054 (annual F = 0.337) overall. Instantaneous monthly natural mortality (M) ranged from 0.001 to 0.002 (annual M= 0.069) in Dog River, from 0.001 to 0.036 (annual M= 0.178) in Fowl River, and from 0.001 to 0.017 (annual M= 0.090) overall. The overall annual estimate of instantaneous total mortality (Z) was 0.435. The median escapement percentage was estimated at 36.3% (95% posterior credible interval = 19.5–56.0%) using M and Z from the overall model. Unfortunately, the error on this estimate was large and inconclusive as to whether the 30% escapement goal for juvenile Red Drum to the adult population from Dog and Fowl rivers is being met. Monthly residency estimates were typically greater than 0.90, and overall annual residency was estimated at 0.716. Fishing mortality estimates from the current study are higher than recent catch curve estimates that did not include young Red Drum. These results demonstrate that young Red Drum need to be accounted for when generating mortality estimates and provide needed data for the Red Drum recreational fishery.
First Page
78
Last Page
97
DOI
10.1002/mcf2.10110
Publication Date
2020
Recommended Citation
Recommended publisher citation: Nelson, T.R. and Powers, S.P. (2020), Estimates of Red Drum Mortality via Acoustic Telemetry. Mar Coast Fish, 12: 78-97. https://doi.org/10.1002/mcf2.10110
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Comments
This article was published in the journal of Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of the American Fisheries Society.
A link to the online published version can be found here:
https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mcf2.10110
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This article is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license [CC BY 4.0], which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited.