Manickchand-Heileman and Phillip: Age and growth of Epinephelus flavolimbatus and Mycteioperca interstitialis 



291 



the offshore continental shelf and shelf 

 edge to the east of Trinidad. At present, 

 this fishery is not managed and the 

 decline in catches in the traditional fish- 

 ing areas emphasizes the need for proper 

 management. However, lack of data is 

 an impediment to the development of 

 appropriate management strategies for 

 this important fishery. 



Groupers are relatively long-lived and 

 slow-growing and are protogynous her- 

 maphrodites, making them especially 

 susceptible to overexploitation ( Bannerot 

 et al., 1987; Shapiro, 1987; Bohnsack-). 

 In reviewing the status of grouper stocks 

 in the western central Atlantic, Sadovy 

 ( 1990) found that these stocks are heav- 

 ily fished throughout the region and that 

 many are gi'owth or recruitment over- 

 fished, or both. Sadovy also emphasized 

 the need for management to ensure their 

 continued commercial and recreational viability. 



Published information on the yellowedge and yel- 

 lowmouth gi'ouper is scarce. Age, growth and repro- 

 duction of the yellowedge gi-ouper in South Carolina 

 have been investigated by Keener ( 1984 ) and in the 

 eastern Gulf of Mexico by Bullock and Godcharles.'^ 

 Randall (1967) documented the food habits of yel- 

 lowmouth grouper from the Bahamas and Thomp- 

 son and Munro (1978) recorded the occurrence of 

 spawning individuals in Jamaica. Aspects of the life 

 history, including age and gi-owth, of yellowmouth 

 grouper in the eastern Gulf of Mexico have been 

 reported by Bullock and Smith (1991) and Bullock 

 and Murphy (1994). 



In Trinidad and Tobago, information on repro- 

 duction, age, and gi'owth of the yellowedge and 

 yellowmouth groupers have been presented by Man- 

 ickchand-Heileman and Phillip.^ However, age was 

 not validated and results were only preliminary. Our 

 study reports on the age and gi'owth of these two 

 species off Ti'inidad and Tobago. It was carried out 

 as part of a national fish stock assessment project, in 



I 



62°W 



61°W 



Tobago 



Caribbean Sea 



11°N. 



ION 



50km 



- Bohnsack, J. A. 1989. Protection of gi-ouper spawning aggre- 

 gations. Coastal Resour. Div. Contrib. Rep. CRD 88-89-06. 

 NMFS Southeast Fish, Sci. Cent., Miami, PL, 8 p, 



3 Bullock, L. H,, and M, F, Godcharles, 1984, Life history 

 aspects of the yellowedge gi'ouper, Epinephelun flavolimbatus 

 (Pisces: Serranidae) from the eastern Gulf of Mexico, Annual 

 Report, Fla, Dep, Nat. Resour,. Mar, Res, Lab,, St, Petersburg, 

 FL, 28 p, Unpubl, data, 



^ Manickhand-Heileman. S, and DA, T, Phillip, 1992, Prelim- 

 inary stock assessment of the fishpot fishery of Tobago, Techni- 

 cal report of the Project for the Establishment of Data Collection 

 Systems and Assessment of the Fisheries Resources, Report 

 FAOAJNDP:TRI/91/001/TR12, 38 p. 



Figure 1 



Location of study area. 



collaboration with the Fisheries Division, Ministry of 

 Agriculture, Lands and Marine Resources (Ti-inidad 

 and Tobago), the United Nations Development Pro- 

 gram (UNDP), and the Food and Agriculture Orga- 

 nization (FAO). 



Materials and methods 



Study area 



Trinidad and Tobago, a twin-island Republic, are the 

 southernmost of the Caribbean chain of islands (Fig. 

 1). Both islands are situated on the South American 

 continental shelf; Tobago is about 32 km to the north- 

 east of Trinidad. Topographically, the shelf in this 

 area is relatively featureless; a substratum of fine 

 mud is interspersed with occasional patches of shell 

 debris and fine sand (Kenny and Bacon, 1981). The 

 shelf edge lies along the 90-100 m contour (Gade'') 

 which ranges from a distance of approximately 12 

 km from the northwest coast of Tobago to approxi- 

 mately 50 km from the north coast of Ti-inidad. 



This area experiences a dry season from Decem- 

 ber to May and a wet season from June to Novem- 

 ber. Bottom temperatures at depths of about 100 m 

 vary from a maximum of 25'C in the dry season to a 

 minimum of 22^C in the wet season (Gade''). During 

 the wet season the large input of fresh water from 



■'' Gade, H. 1989, The environmental-ecological regimes. In 

 Report on surveys of the fish resources in the shelf areas between 

 Suriname and Colombia with the RA' Dr. Fndtjof Nansen, p. 

 8-41. Institute of Marine Research. Bergen. 



