Bonefish and Tarpon Trust (BTT) just announced that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) will close a bonefish pre-spawning aggregation site located in Biscayne Bay National Park.
BTT discovered and documented this pre-spawning aggregation site after more than three years of work. It’s the first such site to be scientifically documented in Florida waters, and is located within Biscayne Bay National Park. This site is roughly 1.74 square miles, and it’s where bonefish gather in huge schools before heading off to spawn in deep water.
Protecting this site from any sort of fishing will ensure that bonefish in southeast Florida have a better chance of successfully reproducing and stabilizing the population.
“Protecting this site during peak spawning season is critical to the continued recovery of Florida’s bonefish population,” said BTT President and CEO Jim McDuffie. “We thank FWC Commissioners for their leadership and commitment as well as the guides, anglers, partner organizations, and fishing industry leaders for raising their voices in support of this science-based conservation measure.”
The closure will last for five years, from March through May of each year. After that five-year period is up, data will be reviewed and analyzed to determine how much, if any, impact the closure has had on bonefish spawning success.
You can learn more about the pre-spawning aggregation site, and the effort that led to its discovery, here.