IUCN SPECIALIST GROUP OF GROUPERS AND WRASSES NEWSHEET No. 6 (July 2003) Contents Introduction Message from the Chair News from Japan News from Brazil News from Mexico News from SCRFA Miscellaneous Publications/websites of interest Introduction Welcome to newsletter number 6 of the IUCN Specialist Group on Groupers and Wrasses. There is quite a diverse mix of items, from regions that are situated on opposite ends of the earth! Far apart they may be, but whether the issues are re-stocking or conservation, there is much to be learned from the approaches others take to solving problems. Let me know about any initiatives you are involved in, field trips you have undertaken, interesting websites you have encountered, any images you may want to share – I will make a call for items around November again. Many thanks to those of you who sent items for this edition Editor: Sean Fennessy [email protected] Message from the Chair We have been busy since the last newsletter, the most important news being that we are finally moving on our species assessments. Concerned by our slow progress Andy Cornish and I recruited 4 students at the University of Hong Kong to work with Andy through more than 40 species assessments this summer, and they are doing a marvellous job. There is also a biologist in Australia, David Fairclough, working with several labrids and who is completing 4 assessments with us. With all the information being collected, we will also be able to get back to our Specialist Group website to beef up the species descriptions and give it the overhaul it badly needs. If any of you have species assessments you plan to complete in this next year, or other items for the website, please let me know since we do not want to duplicate efforts going on elsewhere; if I hear 1 nothing then I will assume there are no forthcoming assessments. The forms I circulated make the assessment process pretty straightforward but if anyone is having problems do let me know. In addition to these ongoing assessments we also managed to get a number of additional ones in to IUCN by the deadline, such as Epinephelus striatus (the 1996 assessments all need to be updated so they must all be redone), global and regional assessments of Polyprion americanus, and Epinephelus akaara. Earlier this year I participated in a meeting organized by part of the marine programme of IUCN in collaboration with The Ocean Conservancy on a new IUCN theme of ‘Shattering the Myth’. The focus of this meeting was to better develop the marine programme, in particular to raise awareness about threatened marine fish species. One aspect of this initiative is to examine closely some basic and widespread assumptions about resilience in marine fish species such as their high fecundity, wide geographic distribution, and population regenerative capacity, all of which are assumed to make them less vulnerable to extinction (i.e. the myth). If we examine each of these attributes closely, there is, however, little evidence to suggest that theyreduce the threat of extinction relative to other species groups. A few of the references included in this newsletter cover this topic. I am happy to report good news from a meeting this March 24-27 in Manila: the Second International Tropical Marine Eco-Systems Management Symposium (ITMEMS2 – see www.icriforum.org/itmems.html and go to p. 15). This is a meeting that focuses more on the management of reef-associated resources than the science and it produced a Call for Action that will be circulated in international forums for the protection of reef fish spawning aggregations (for full text of this see Newsletter number 2 on the SCRFA website: www.scrfa.org - the newsletter also has some other news on groupers that might be of general interest). This is good for our aggregating groupers and wrasses since protection of spawning aggregations has been attracting considerable interest and may be the most realistic/practical way of conserving some of these species. I will keep everyone updated on progress in this area. We continue our work with the humphead wrasse, Cheilinus undulatus, and our big synopsis, the combined efforts of a number of our group members, has finally been submitted for review. This is a summary of all the trade, fishery and biological data that we could collect over about 6 years and provides a very strong statement, we feel, of the threats to this species and its declines in many key areas of its range. I am still hopeful that there might be another proposal submitted to CITES for an Appendix II listing at the next COP – can any of you work towards this possibility with your respective country governments? I should like to see our SG become more active and would welcome suggestions for projects and also of workers who might be interested in participating in this Specialist Group. I will be reconstituting our membership shortly – we are on a three-year cycle whereby we completely reorganize membership every three years – and would like to include some keen and active members in the new group. Thanks to those of you who are submitting articles to the GWSG Newsletter and to those of you who have submitted information on individual species. My good wishes to you all and we look forward to hearing your news and views. Yvonne 2 News from Japan With the aim of stock enhancement of decreasing coral trout and grouper populations, the Japan Sea Farming Association is producing juveniles of Plectropomus leopardus, Epinephelus septemfasciatus, E. bruneus, and E. akaara at several stations in Japan. The juveniles are produced by spawning of adults in captivity, and, after checking for potential viral contamination, are released into the sea to increase the natural populations. The results for E. bruneus which have been released experimentally were presented orally at an annual meeting of the Japan Scientific Fisheries Society, held at Tokyo in April, 2003. According to their abstract (Hamada et al., 2003), 2 500 individuals of 1 year old E. bruneus (average total length of 16.5 cm) were released on an artificial reef (80 x 60 m) near an island on the north-western side of Kyushu, Japan. Just after release, the juveniles gathered and hid underneath the rocks near the release point and did not disperse. Five days after release, they were fed pellets of compound feed. They came out from under the rocks and fed on the pellets (Figs. 1 and 2). The number of remaining juveniles was monitored underwater for 5 months and their growth was also monitored by collecting these fish using baited traps. The juveniles dispersed gradually, but nearly 100 tagged individuals were still recognized on and near the artificial reef after 5 months. The growth was faster in these released individuals than in individuals of the same cohort that were kept in a fish preserve and fed pellets of compound feed. It was strongly suggested that released individuals were able to feed, sooner or later, on natural prey when released in their natural habitat. Further research is underway to determine the effect of seedling release on stock enhancement. The authors are also hoping to establish what kind of impact the release of piscivorous fish such as E. bruneus will have on the reef fish community. Kumiko OKAMOTO (Oita Institute of Marine and Fisheries Science) [email protected] Fig. 1. Soon after the pellets of compound Fig. 2. The E. bruneus swam up into the water feed were scattered near a large rock on column to feed on the pellets even in their the right side of the reef, more than 200 natural habitat, similarly to their behaviour in individuals of Epinephelus bruneus came the fish preserve. (Photos by A. Nakazono: out from a hole beneath the rock. Note [email protected]) the white spaghetti tags. (Photo taken 5 days after release). 3 News about management and conservation of groupers in Brazil The lord of the rocks The “lord of the rocks” Epinephelus itajara is the first marine fish species to be protected in Brazil. A law signed by the President of the Brazilian Institute of Environment (IBAMA) in September, 2002, has prohibited the capture, transport and commercialization of this species for a period of 5 years. This was the result of an intense articulation between diverse sectors including government, academia and NGOs. A group calling itself the “Inter-institutional group for the protection of meros”, as the “lord-of-the-rocks” is known in Brazil, was created by the people and institutions involved. It represents an important step for conservation of groupers in Brazil. Although large groupers are endangered here as much as anywhere else, according to Brazilian federal legislation, marine fish, molluscs and crustaceans are considered fisheries resources and for this reason do not benefit from the same legislation that protects the rest of the terrestrial and aquatic fauna. Recognizing a fish species as endangered is the first step to change this situation. Earlier this year, however, the fisheries sector in the North of Brazil reacted and asked IBAMA for tolerance of a 5% incidental catch of Epinephelus itajara in the region. The species is caught as bycatch in a few important fisheries, including prawn trawl fisheries. With vast mangrove areas and a less densely inhabited coast, the northern coast of Brazil may be in many aspects a refuge for this and other species. The group for the protection of meros was included in the discussions that followed, and proposed as an alternative a tolerance of only 2% of meros in the total catches, a percentage that should fall by half each year until 0% in 2005.