Bonefish, Albula vulpes, are a spectacular, highly prized saltwater game fish known for their elusive behavior, burst swimming speeds and tremendous fighting power. Despite their importance as a premier game fish, little is known about bonefish population and fishery dynamics, stock spatial distribution, spawning migrations, and movements. This lack of vital information has hindered the development of management practices to ensure sustainability of this fishery. At TBC, we work in collaboration with local fishing guides to measure and conventionally tag bonefish to help understand the population size structure discern their large scale movement patterns. In addition we have used hydro-acoustic tagging methods to better understand fine detail movements. Data from these studies is used to generate spatial models of bonefish population dynamics.
Permit, Trachinotus falcatus, utilizes a wide range of habitat types throughout their life-history. They are found throughout the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and as far north as Massachusetts in the Western Atlantic. Although popular as a game fish and harvested throughout their range, little is known of their population status due to a paucity of information on their basic life-history parameters, spatial distribution, movement and spawning behavior. We are currently examining the spatial and temporal dynamics of permit
