Are the last remaining Nassau grouper Epinephelus striatus fisheries sustainable? Status quo in the Bahamas
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Nassau grouper Epinephelus striatus is an important species recreationally, commercially, and for subsistence in the Bahamas. Within most of the species’ range, over-exploitation has led to large declines in abundance and to disappearance of spawning aggregations. Nassau grouper is classified as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The population(s) in the Bahamas is/are considered to be among the few remaining major Nassau grouper populations globally. However, the recent declining trend in the number of fish landed raises concerns about the sustainability of the Bahamas’ population(s). In this study, we provide an appraisal of the current status of the fisheries and explore the potential effects of different fishery and conservation management scenarios on the Nassau grouper population and the fisheries. The study uses existing biological and fishery data together with fishers’ knowledge on fisheries collated from an interview survey. The results suggest that the population is now fully- to over-exploited and under decline, although this needs to be validated when more fishery and population data have been collected and analyzed. A precautionary approach to managing the Bahamas’ Nassau grouper is to maintain spawning aggregation closures, and to improve the monitoring, control, and surveillance to address poaching. Also, fishing mortality rates should be reduced to below the 1998–2001 level during non-spawning aggregation periods. These measures will increase spawning potential and maximize the long-term economic benefits of the fisheries. Other potential threats to the Nassau grouper population, such as the invasion of lionfish, increased use of compressors, and the taking of immature fish, should be monitored and assessed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".