528 



Fishery Bulletin 92(3). 1994 



a reproductive life. Clearly, determination of the 

 number of clutches spawned in a reproductive sea- 

 son is an important subject for research on M. 

 amaena. 



Most types of fisheries tend to produce higher 

 mortality of older age classes. Certainly this is true 

 of the common spear fisheries for squirrelfish in the 

 tropics, where larger specimens are individually se- 

 lected. For a species in which sexual maturity and 

 fecundity are related to age (size) as they are in M. 

 amaena, this means that substantial fishing pres- 

 sure applied to the population can severely reduce 

 egg production (see Fig. 7). The risks of recruitment 

 overfishing are therefore especially great, particu- 

 larly when maturity occurs late enough that fish of 

 prereproductive size are still a desirable catch. The 

 expected trend as fishing pressure on such a stock 

 increases is the appearance of an increasing fraction 

 of prereproductive fish in the catch. At JA, despite 

 low total fishing effort, about 51% of all M. amaena 

 in our creel sample of the fishery were prere- 

 productive; in the small-scale, recreational-subsis- 

 tence fishery at Puako, about 46% were prere- 

 productive in =24). Near many centers of human 

 population, fishing intensity is much greater, and 

 great declines in populations of soldierfish are unof- 

 ficially reported. Clearly the life history of M. 

 amaena, and perhaps soldierfishes in general, cre- 

 ates high vulnerability to conventional, unregulated 

 fishing. It seems essential that fisheries for such spe- 

 cies be managed to conserve the largest, oldest 

 spawners to protect the reproductive potential of the 

 stock. 



Acknowledgments 



This research received major funding support from 

 the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Engineer- 

 District, Fort Shafter, Hawaii, under contract 

 DACA83-84-C-0019. The work at Puako was sup- 

 ported by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natu- 

 ral Resources in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and 

 Wildlife Service, and by a grant from NOAA Office 

 of Sea Grant through the University of Hawaii Sea 

 Grant College Program. The work in the Northwest- 

 ern Hawaiian Islands was supported similarly in part 

 by Univ. Hawaii Sea Grant under grants from NOAA 

 Office of Sea Grant, Department of Commerce, by 

 Project NI/R-4 and Institutional Grants NA79AA-D- 

 00085 and NA81AA-D-00070. This is Sea Grant Pub- 

 lication UNIHI-SEAGRANT-JC-94-15. The Ocean 

 Resources Branch, State of Hawaii, Department of 

 Business, Economic Development and Tourism, con- 

 tributed additional funding. Financial and logistic 



support also were provided by the Hawaii Coopera- 

 tive Fishery Research Unit, which is jointly sup- 

 ported by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natu- 

 ral Resources, the University of Hawaii, and the 

 National Biological Survey. A number of Fishery Unit 

 research assistants collected much of the data and 

 assisted with the early stages of analysis for Puako 

 and the NWHI. The Defense Nuclear Agency and the 

 staff of its contractor, Holmes and Narver Services 

 Inc., provided invaluable support with facilities, lo- 

 gistics, and technical expertise on Johnston Atoll. The 

 Pacific Islands Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service provided access to the National Wildlife Ref- 

 uge property and collaborated in the overall program 

 of research at Johnston Atoll. We are grateful for the 

 help and expertise of Jim Howard, Darby Irons, Ben 

 Leorna, Chuck Madenjian, Charley Myers, Tim 

 Tricas, and Brian Tsukimura. The paper was con- 

 siderably improved based on review and comments 

 from T.A. Clarke, E.E. DeMartini, D.W. Greenfield, 

 and E.S. Reese. Susan Monden prepared the figures. 



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