Blueline tilefish, Golden tilefish Caulolatilus microps, Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps Image ©Duane Raver US Atlantic Bottom longline, Handline November 17, 2014 Kelsey James, Consulting researcher Disclaimer Seafood Watch® strives to ensure all our Seafood Reports and the recommendations contained therein are accurate and reflect the most up-to-date evidence available at time of publication. All our reports are peer- reviewed for accuracy and completeness by external scientists with expertise in ecology, fisheries science or aquaculture. Scientific review; however, does not constitute an endorsement of the Seafood Watch program or its recommendations on the part of the reviewing scientists. Seafood Watch is solely responsible for the conclusions reached in this report. We always welcome additional or updated data that can be used for the next revision. Seafood Watch and Seafood Reports are made possible through a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation 2 About Seafood Watch® Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch® program evaluates the ecological sustainability of wild- caught and farmed seafood commonly found in the United States marketplace. Seafood Watch® defines sustainable seafood as originating from sources, whether wild-caught or farmed, which can maintain or increase production in the long-term without jeopardizing the structure or function of affected ecosystems. Seafood Watch® makes its science-based recommendations available to the public in the form of regional pocket guides that can be downloaded from www.seafoodwatch.org. The program’s goals are to raise awareness of important ocean conservation issues and empower seafood consumers and businesses to make choices for healthy oceans. Each sustainability recommendation on the regional pocket guides is supported by a Seafood Report. Each report synthesizes and analyzes the most current ecological, fisheries and ecosystem science on a species, then evaluates this information against the program’s conservation ethic to arrive at a recommendation of “Best Choices,” “Good Alternatives” or “Avoid.” The detailed evaluation methodology is available upon request. In producing the Seafood Reports, Seafood Watch® seeks out research published in academic, peer-reviewed journals whenever possible. Other sources of information include government technical publications, fishery management plans and supporting documents, and other scientific reviews of ecological sustainability. Seafood Watch® Research Analysts also communicate regularly with ecologists, fisheries and aquaculture scientists, and members of industry and conservation organizations when evaluating fisheries and aquaculture practices. Capture fisheries and aquaculture practices are highly dynamic; as the scientific information on each species changes, Seafood Watch®’s sustainability recommendations and the underlying Seafood Reports will be updated to reflect these changes. Parties interested in capture fisheries, aquaculture practices and the sustainability of ocean ecosystems are welcome to use Seafood Reports in any way they find useful. For more information about Seafood Watch® and Seafood Reports, please contact the Seafood Watch® program at Monterey Bay Aquarium by calling 1-877-229-9990. 3 Guiding Principles Seafood Watch defines sustainable seafood as originating from sources, whether fished1 or farmed, that can maintain or increase production in the long-term without jeopardizing the structure or function of affected ecosystems. Based on this principle, Seafood Watch had developed four sustainability criteria for evaluating wild- catch fisheries for consumers and businesses. These criteria are: • How does fishing affect the species under assessment? • How does the fishing affect other, target and non-target species? • How effective is the fishery’s management? • How does the fishing affect habitats and the stability of the ecosystem? Each criterion includes: • Factors to evaluate and score • Guidelines for integrating these factors to produce a numerical score and rating Once a rating has been assigned to each criterion, we develop an overall recommendation. Criteria ratings and the overall recommendation are color-coded to correspond to the categories on the Seafood Watch pocket guide and online guide: Best Choice/Green: Are well managed and caught in ways that cause little harm to habitats or other wildlife. Good Alternative/Yellow: Buy, but be aware there are concerns with how they’re caught. Avoid/Red: Take a pass on these for now. These items are overfished or caught in ways that harm other marine life or the environment. 1 “Fish” is used throughout this document to refer to finfish, shellfish and other invertebrates. 4 Summary This report addresses golden tilefish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps) fished in the US Mid-Atlantic, Southeast Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico, and blueline tilefish (Caulolatilus microps) in the US Southeast Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Both species are commercially fished with bottom longlines in all areas, while handlines are used for both species in the Southeast Atlantic and for blueline tilefish in the Gulf of Mexico. Both golden and blueline tilefish have medium inherent vulnerabilities based on their life history characters. The abundance and fishing mortality of golden tilefish in all three regions is of very low concern based on the presence of a stock assessment for each region stating that the stock is not overfished (and abundance is above the target level) and overfishing is not occurring, except for the fishing mortality on golden tilefish in the Gulf of Mexico. This region ranked of low concern based on stock assessment model uncertainty. Blueline tilefish on the other hand lacks a stock assessment in the Gulf of Mexico, which results in a moderate concern for both the abundance and fishing mortality. The blueline tilefish stock assessment for the South Atlantic shows that the abundance is below target and limit reference points, and the fishing mortality is above target and limit reference points. However, for the abundance there is an amendment in review that seeks to change the minimum stock size threshold (MSST) for species that have low natural mortality like blueline tilefish. This new amendment changes the blueline tilefish abundance to below the target reference point, but above the limit reference point, but until this amendment is approved, blueline tilefish in the South Atlantic have a high concern score. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) has put forth another amendment to reduce the fishing mortality, but its effects would not be as immediate; therefore the blueline tilefish fishing mortality score remains of high concern. The main species for each fishery were determined based on the percent that each species represented the total fishery’s catch. The data to determine main species for the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico are from small sets of observer data of the tilefish fisheries in these areas and include at-risk species that are managed with the tilefish species or are endangered. Data for the Mid-Atlantic are from catch disposition from 2003–2012 from Maine, though Virginia Dusky smoothhound, red snapper, snowy grouper, southern hake, and yellowedge grouper composed more than 5 percent of the total fishery catch for those fisheries they were included. Loggerhead turtles are threatened according to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), while speckled hind, and warsaw grouper are critically endangered according to the IUCN Red List. Speckled hind and Warsaw grouper are not included in golden tilefish fisheries based on habitat differences, but are included in the blueline tilefish fisheries based on distribution overlap. Warsaw grouper is not included in the South Atlantic blueline tilefish fishery based on low overlap of distribution; most of the blueline tilefish catch is from North Carolina, while the distribution of Warsaw grouper is more southern. Red grouper was greater than 5 percent of the total fishery catch in the Gulf of Mexico; however, it is the main target of shallow water longlines while both golden and blueline tilefish are targets of deep water longlines and; therefore not included in this 5 report. The Seafood Watch report on grouper has a more extensive list of bycatch species because fishing occurs in both shallow and deep waters. Bottom longline and handline fisheries in the Mid- Atlantic, Southeast Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico are category 3 fisheries under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA; remote likelihood of/no known interactions) according to the list of fisheries compiled to determine the level of interactions between the fishery and marine mammals. In the Mid- Atlantic there are no major bycatch species so the longline fishery for golden tilefish receives a score of 5.0. In the South Atlantic golden tilefish fishery very little bycatch occurs, only southern hake, which has little biological information available about it. In the South Atlantic blueline tilefish fisheries the lowest scoring bycatch species is the speckled hind due to its high inherent vulnerability, very high concern for abundance, and high fishing mortality. The Gulf of Mexico handline and longline fishery for blueline tilefish have Warsaw grouper as the lowest scoring species. The golden tilefish Gulf of Mexico longline fishery has loggerhead turtle as the lowest scoring species based on its listing on the Endangered Species Act. Golden tilefish fished in the Mid-Atlantic is excellently managed and have no significant