Calculated Discards of Black grouper from Commercial Vertical Line and Longline Fishing Vessels in the Gulf Mexico and US South Atlantic

摘要

In August 2001, the Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) initiated a program to collect commercial fishing vessel discard data from Gulf of Mexico and US South Atlantic fisheries. A reporting form was developed that supplements the existing vessel coastal logbook forms that are currently mandatory for those fisheries (Poffenberger and McCarthy, 2004). Discard data from the SEFSC coastal fisheries logbook program were used to calculate the number of black grouper that were discarded during the period January 1, 2002 through December 31, 2008. Data collection for the discard logbook program involves, each year, a 20% random sample of the vessels with South Atlantic snapper-grouper, Gulf of Mexico reef-fish, king mackerel, Spanish mackerel or shark permits selected to report the number of animals discarded by species. To assure that the sample was representative of vessels with those Federal permits, the universe of permitted vessels was stratified by region and gear fished. A random sample was selected, without replacement, from each stratum. Region was defined as the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf-side of the Florida Keys-Dry Tortugas to the Texas-Mexico border) and the South Atlantic (which extends from the North Carolina-Virginia border to the ocean-side of the Florida Keys-Dry Tortugas). Fishing gear strata included handline, electric reel (bandit rig), trolling, longline, trap, gillnet, and diving. The selected fishers were instructed to complete a supplemental discard form for every fishing trip that they made. Trips with no discards were reported as such.