386 
Fishery Bulletin 96(2), 1998 
had moved more than 100 km, reaching as far south 
as West Palm Beach, Florida (619 km), and as far 
north as Murrells Inlet, North Carolina (437 km). 
Surprisingly, the two black drum that had travelled 
the farthest from their release sites in Georgia were 
less than 350 mm TL. 
Because black drum are long-lived and capable of 
extensive movements, knowledge about the magni- 
tude and frequency of their mixing during their po- 
tential 60-year life span is critical for understand- 
ing how fishing pressure within one geographic area 
affects fish populations in other areas. In Florida, 
strict regulations on the harvest of black drum were 
implemented in 1989 following unvalidated evidence 
that they were long-lived fish (Murphy and Taylor, 
1989). Because many current stock assessment tech- 
niques often depend on an accurate estimate of maxi- 
mum life span so that a natural mortality rate for a 
population can be determined, validation studies are 
especially critical in helping to prevent mismanagement 
of long-live species (Beamish and McFarlane, 1983). 
Acknowledgments 
We thank R. Muller, P. Hood, D. Leffler, and J. Leiby 
for comments made on earlier drafts of this report, 
and L. Brant for the map. This work was supported 
in part by funding from the Department of Com- 
merce, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric 
Administration, Marine Fisheries Initiative Award 
NA90AA-H-MF734. We wish to thank the Depart- 
ment of the Interior U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and the 
National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration 
Kennedy Space Center for permission to work in their 
restricted areas. 
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